Back in the day, of oh, you know, 2003 – as a 13 year old, I signed up for an IMDb account. Given I was pretty immature back then and would have been called a troll – IMDb (in addition to Rotten Tomatoes) was the site that really opened up the film world to me.
Long before it was popular, I’d always check the rating of a film before watching or read the boards of a show that I was wondering about or get an update on the status of a film that I was looking forward to.
As a long time film fan, this is where it truly began for me.
But – we live in 2017 now. The IMDb board isn’t what it once was and has unfortunately become overpopulated with useless trolls. Either that, or people have migrated to Reddit or other social media websites. The official statement from IMDb reads:
“Because IMDb’s message boards continue to be utilized by a small but passionate community of IMDb users, we announced our decision to disable our message boards on February 3, 2017 but will leave them open for two additional weeks so that users will have ample time to archive any message board content they’d like to keep for personal use. During this two-week transition period, which concludes on February 19, 2017, IMDb message board users can exchange contact information with any other board users they would like to remain in communication with (since once we shut down the IMDb message boards, users will no longer be able to send personal messages to one another). We regret any disappointment or frustration IMDb message board users may experience as a result of this decision.
IMDb is passionately committed to providing innovative ways for our hundreds of millions of users to engage and communicate with one another. We will continue to enhance our current offerings and launch new features in 2017 and beyond that will help our customers communicate and express themselves in meaningful ways while leveraging emerging technologies and opportunities.”
While this probably isn’t a big deal to some (and I can’t really say I’ve used the boards over the years) there are definitely people who will miss them – and I’m sure there’s a moment when I’m surfing the web and decide to head over to IMDb and then realize that the boards are no longer there.
R.I.P.