i think we need Cracked-style articles back. desperately. or like, a guy doing a weird thing and writing a piece on it. sites like those are declining faster than the glaciers.
Yes I miss the forums I used to visit. I was a moderator on a couple and it was a bit of a slog but still enjoyable. I started using the internet in 1996/97 and watched it evolve all these long years. It's definitely morphed into a corporate wasteland.
I've been using the internet since the mid 90's but never really saw the appeal of forums, but maybe I never had something I was "into" that warranted being on a forum a lot. My only usage was support forums and I always found them annoying to use.
I personally see sites like Reddit & Lemmy as the natural evolution of forums. You still have the concept of a topic (subreddit / community) where people can make posts, but the comments are displayed in a better format.