For those who’ve been here a while...

When did this board peak? It’s fun arguing politics or why 9/11 mattered or why fat people say mean things on the Twitter.

But when was this board humming? What was going on and what made for the most interesting conversations?

For those who’ve been here a while...

When did this board peak? It’s fun arguing politics or why 9/11 mattered or why fat people say mean things on the Twitter.

But when was this board humming? What was going on and what made for the most interesting conversations?

Any time prior to Penn State. That pretty much shifted this place away from sports talk radio.

I long for the halcyon days of 10 page B&B show threads.

B&B show thread era was poppin'. I wish I had written some of my longer stuff in Word documents, like my Hochberg reads or "Bernstein: Be Bear-Ful What You Wish For."

SHARK starting show threads at 10pm the night before. Those were the days.

Politics destroyed this place, but you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Every discussion becomes a political death match. No breaks! That's exhausting even if you like politics and debating.

Politics destroyed this place, but you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Every discussion becomes a political death match. No breaks! That's exhausting even if you like politics and debating.

Nah, the decline of Chicago sports talk radio destroyed this place. In particular, the Score's shift from cultivating a populist image as "the voice of the fan" to embracing its identity as a corporate propaganda arm that echoes the view of local team ownership while constantly criticizing or demeaning fan culture alienated listeners and suppressed traffic to and participation in this site. While the Score's neoliberal turn came well before 2008, it wasn't until this time that sports radio listeners--and the American public more broadly--began to revolt against this ideology. In response to this reaction, the Score has redefined its general attitude from a kind of elitist or reactionary neoliberalism to an "inclusive" or "progressive" neoliberalism that attempts to connect with the audience via cultural identity even as it continues to reinforce the hegemonic corporate power structure and class-based social hierarchy.

In any event, politics is just about the only thing keeping the board alive, however faintly, at this point.

I suppose that's a way to look at it. Politics and Julie DiCaro.

I used to listen to North and B&B everyday. Now, I rarely turn on either the Score or ESPN. I'm not even exactly sure of anyone's time slots.

I think there are a lot of things that factor into the decline of the board. Other social media outlets, etc. At the time of the Confederate Board uprising I remember Curious Hair pointing out that there isn't room for two boards like this. That didn't kill the board, but you lose a good contributor to this, another one to that, a guy dies, another one gets pissed off about something and leaves, the next thing you know we have Hawaii You and Spiral Stairs going back and forth for ten pages about their favorite flavor of cum.

Sure, established posters leaving the board hurt it. But it's the lack of new posters that killed it. The decline in new posters directly corresponds with the gradual erosion of the Chicago sports talk audience, which itself was a product of the intensifying neoliberalization of Chicago sports talk radio, particularly the Score (remember all the threads about everyone at the Score being a Bernstein "clone"? A few years back, you didn't need to look very hard to identify the station's class(ist) politics whereas today it is hidden beneath the veneer of neoliberal inclusivity).

To start, this board has always had a chief antagonist. First (or at least when I got here), it was Mike North. When North left in '08, it was Laurence Holmes, a/k/a Leary, a/k/a Leery, who had been Bernstein Junior in the worst way and had started hosting late mornings with Dan Hampton in possibly the worst show of all time. When Mac came back and bumped Leery back to evenings, we didn't really have a main bad guy for a while, did we? That was the David Hernandez/Webio scandal, which was some of the nuttiest shit of all time and a real peak for the board.

It was after Derrick Rose's knee exploded in 2012 that Bernstein became Senor Columnist and finally ascended to chief antagonist of the board. This was probably my favorite period of the board, when Dave in Champaign, ZephMarshack, and I (I think early iterations of Kirkwood and SpiralStairs were in on it too) all drove ourselves insane either transcribing ridiculous Boers & Bernstein segments, imagining transcripts of even more ridiculous scenarios, or poring over Senor Columnistings, that and making fun of David Hochberg. I think this was around the time we came up with Leery Bingo, too.

Not counting the time bigfan almost nuked the whole board over MCNUGGETS 80, the Kane rape case made Julie DiCaro the main antagonist of the board and obviously she hasn't looked back since. July's ascendance to main board bad guy brought Twitter and the online media culture war into the board, where it gradually subsumed actual discussion of 670 The Score up through today, where no one listens to sports radio but everyone gossips about Taylor Lorenz. Maybe it was always bound to happen even without her.

EDIT: you could argue that Jason had a spin at being the main bad guy in 2017-18 during the depths, and what depths they were, of the Bernstein & Goff show, but I feel like even then we were marveling at how long the Julie DiCaro thread was

It's also a generational thing. It seems as if message boards just aren't a thing for people younger than me.

I was one of the youngest people on the board when I joined. I believe I'm still one of the youngest people on the board.

True. The sports talk radio audience has also aged, though. Younger guys are transfixed by the rapier wit of the Barstool pizza critic.

Younger guys are transfixed by the rapier wit of the Barstool pizza critic.

SHARK starting show threads at 10pm the night before. Those were the days.

To start, this board has always had a chief antagonist. First (or at least when I got here), it was Mike North. When North left in '08, it was Laurence Holmes, a/k/a Leary, a/k/a Leery, who had been Bernstein Junior in the worst way and had started hosting late mornings with Dan Hampton in possibly the worst show of all time. When Mac came back and bumped Leery back to evenings, we didn't really have a main bad guy for a while, did we? That was the David Hernandez/Webio scandal, which was some of the nuttiest shit of all time and a real peak for the board.

It was after Derrick Rose's knee exploded in 2012 that Bernstein became Senor Columnist and finally ascended to chief antagonist of the board. This was probably my favorite period of the board, when Dave in Champaign, ZephMarshack, and I (I think early iterations of Kirkwood and SpiralStairs were in on it too) all drove ourselves insane either transcribing ridiculous Boers & Bernstein segments, imagining transcripts of even more ridiculous scenarios, or poring over Senor Columnistings, that and making fun of David Hochberg. I think this was around the time we came up with Leery Bingo, too.

Not counting the time bigfan almost nuked the whole board over MCNUGGETS 80, the Kane rape case made Julie DiCaro the main antagonist of the board and obviously she hasn't looked back since. July's ascendance to main board bad guy brought Twitter and the online media culture war into the board, where it gradually subsumed actual discussion of 670 The Score up through today, where no one listens to sports radio but everyone gossips about Taylor Lorenz. Maybe it was always bound to happen even without her.

EDIT: you could argue that Jason had a spin at being the main bad guy in 2017-18 during the depths, and what depths they were, of the Bernstein & Goff show, but I feel like even then we were marveling at how long the Julie DiCaro thread was