If you haven’t noticed, all three remaining gay Thailand message boards are quite slow these days. And have been for a while now. Historically, there has always been an ebb and flow to the number of posts and threads on any of the boards. More recently it looks like the tide went out and forgot to come back in. There have been threads started on both the board formerly known as SGT and Gay Thailand questioning why; over on Jabba The Butt’s no one seems to care. But then Jabba is till posting as much as he always has and on his board that’s all that really matters.

The newest owner of SGT even ran a poll asking why member were not posting a much as they once did. The result of that poll only served to show why there is a need for professional polling companies. The winning reason was a dissatisfaction with moderation decisions. An opinion that is quite clear in its meaning. It meant the majority of those responding thought there was too much moderating going on, too many posts deleted, moved, or split. Either that or they felt there was not enough moderation going on, with too many off-subject posts, too many posts filled with negative comments, too many posts that should have been deleted but were not. Huh. At least when FOX News runs a poll their viewers know which answer they are supposed to pick.

“The internet message board is a dinosaur whose time has passed; failing to adapt to the new paradigm of social media it will soon go the way of floppy disks and 8-Track tapes.” That’s a quote I found from an internet guru. From 2005. And yet, message boards continue to thrive. Maybe not the gay Thailand brand, but others do and some even appear to be in their hey day. I belong to a non-gay, non-Thailand board that is so active that if you don’t click in daily you have four to five pages of backlogged threads to make your way through. On a slow day. The ability to us a smartphone to post to message boards has increased their use; posters routinely linking to Facebook have brought in even more new, active, members. The message board format is not a dying breed. Though those posting to the Gay Thailand boards may be.

That too is a popular opinion, that the fans of gay Thailand are aging and dying off, ergo the boards are dying off right along with them. But that’s a trees in favor of the forest viewpoint, proof that in fact opinions are a lot like assholes. The glue that supposedly holds this community of posters together, Thailand, is posting record number of visitors. And that the bars on Soi Twilight not only continue to thrive, but that the soi has grown and expanded shows that many of those visitors have an interest in what the boards have always specialized in. But then those same posters are those who opine that the gogo bars too are dying off because of on-line hook-up sites and smartphone apps like Grindr. It’s just no one told the bars they were supposed to be all shutting their doors.

So why then does it appear the Gay Thailand message boards are a dying breed? I think there are several contributing factors. And the fans of the ‘we’re dying so the board are too’ are partially correct. All of the boards have always been Pattaya-centric and have always had a preponderance of posters who were either sexpats or sex tourists to whom Pattaya was and is Shangrila come to life. Primarily from the West, they were, and are, those who fled their home countries to spend their golden years buying cheap sex, or those who hoped, or hope, to make that big move one day. But their money is not worth what it once was, their playground not the bargain basement of debauchery it once promised to be. Many who once actively posted to the boards have found other places cheaper and closer to home offering even more affordable orgasms. It turns out their love of Thailand wasn’t about Thailand. It was about their love affair with their penis.

Successful, and active, message board have a few things in common. They are informative, entertaining, and help foster a sense of community among their members, usually by promoting or championing whatever the subject is that drew their membership together in the first place. In that light, the gay Thailand forums, even more so now than ever before, are poorly named. Sex, or more appropriately, prostitution, should be featured prominently in their names. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Personally, I’m a fan myself. But when a newbie clicks in to a forum and finds the threads are all about how much or how little to pay a ‘boy’ or trip reports that are nothing mor than a list of a poster’s paid for conquests over the two weeks he spent in Sunee Plaza, that may be neither entertaining nor the information about the gay experience in Thailand he was looking for. And even if it was, how long can that one-note act sustain someone’s interest? You can only debate how much to pay for a short-time off versus a long-time off so many time before everyone has had their say. And has lost the interest in debating it once again.

Thailand is more than that which you can find within Pattaya’s borders. And the country offers much more to its gay visitors and expats than just commercial sex. When 90% of your message board threads revolve around but a small portion of the country and an even smaller segment of interests of the gay men who visit or live there, that the number of active posters dwindles should not come as a surprise. Neither is enough to sustain either continued interest or growth. And as the small handful of posters you do attract dies off, finding replacements becomes a losing proposition.

The gay visitor to Thailand today is a different breed than those who came twenty years ago. Being openly gay back home is becoming the norm; gay men no longer spend their lives closeted and no longer have to fly off to Thailand to pay for the sex that was unavailable to them at home. The gogo bar shows and ease of finding commercial companionship may still be a draw, as a novelty, but it no longer segues into the life-style it once did. The dinosaur isn’t the message board format. Or the gogo bars. It’s the middle-aged or older visitors from the West who flies to Thailand to do nothing more than engage in prostitution. While whining about how much that costs him.

The face of the gay visitor in Thailand has changed. The gay Thailand message boards have not. The gay expat community in Bangkok has grown, and they too no longer resemble the expats of days gone by. Thailand attracts a younger and more professional expat these day, both in the short and long-term. And whether it is a casual visitor or gay men who’ve decided to call Thailand home, the countries they come from are no longer the same either. Good or bad, there has been a steady influx of gay men from Russia and the Middle East. Flying into Bangkok for a weekend of partying and getting laid is now a popular pastime for the gay boys of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and China. But while they may represent the majority of gay visitors to Thailand these days, they are vastly under-represented on the gay Thailand message boards. Even when the subject matter on those boards is still viable and of interest to them. Why? I believe it has little to do with the language of the boards not being their native tongue, but a lot to do with the manner in which that language is used.

As a newbie to any of the boards you have to really want to participate. Just getting past the guardian of the gates alone is a trial. Often complete with a trial membership. And then, with your first post, you’ll be accused of being someone you’ve never heard of, or whatever you posted will be called into question ‘cuz you must be a troll. If you are lucky, you’ll just be ignored. Not getting a warm welcome is the only thing you can count on. So why bother?

The community of those who post on the gay Thailand boards has always been a small one, rife with petty jealousies and long-held grudges lovingly tended to long after whatever started the feud is no longer remembered. It’s why, with such a small group to pull from in the first place, competing boards have sprung up to serve a community barely large enough to sustain one. And while hydras are a fact of life on any message board, on any given gay Thailand forum they are often its life-blood. That’s nothing new. But there were enough real posters in the old days it didn’t matter. And, at least, those hydras were well conceived instead of the cartoon characters that play havoc with the boards today.

Inane arguments stemming from a purposely misconstrued reading of a post – often which had nothing to do with Thailand or being gay – may be the hallmark of several of those still posting on the boards, but are of little interest to the majority who read them. As are the frequent battles of wits among the witless. Or the rehashing of petty squabbles both large and small. The only new members you’ll ever attract when your threads are filled with the rumblings of a bunch of prissy old queens busily bitch-slapping each other are more prissy old queens. And thank the gods that’s a version of gay that is dying off. None too quickly.

At the same time the idea that a gay Thailand forum must only be comprised of a membership that is civilized and respectful toward each other is as patently false. You need only look to those newer boards started with that claim. The bitchery always surfaces anyway, only its use is restricted toward those the owner is not fond of. And a membership who only compliments each other for being played a fool because they dare not take an opposing view is a sad sight. Which they too eventually realize and drop out of being an active poster. There should be, and is, a happy medium. The gay Thailand message boards have just not found that spot yet.

That the posting on the gay Thailand boards is at an all-time low is obvious. Less obvious, and a bit confounding, is that the two more well-rounded of the boards have seen little change, at least negatively so, in their readership. Visitor may not spend as much time on the boards a they once did, but that’s because there is less of interest to read. The number of visitors clicking in has not diminished, it has for some even grown over the last year. Turning those lurking into active posters has always been a challenge. The trick there, I think, was summed up by one member in answering that poll on SGT who said he posted as much as he always had but only made a comment when he thought he had something of value to add to the conversation. Providing that type of poster with threads that welcome and encourage his involvement is a good part of the answer of how to keep the Gay Thailand message boards alive and thriving.

There still is an active interest in Thailand among gay men, of every age and from numerous countries. Probably even more so than ten or twenty years ago. And the message board format is still a viable one for those gay men to use to indulge in their love of Thailand and its men. It’s up to the owners and moderators of the existing boards to provide a forum that meets those needs if they want their boards to not go the way of the 8-Track tape.

For one of the three remaining boards that will never happen. The owner and primary poster has to keep a tight rein on what appears on his board or the fantasy world he lives in will crumble. For the other two there is still hope. Warmly welcoming new members and the views they can bring to the boards would be a good start. Encouraging a more well-rounded subject matter that transcends the how much to pay a moneyboy in Pattaya question would be another. Transparent moderation that encourages members to contribute valid comments and dissuades the old hands from continuing their petty feuds is a necessity. It can be done. It may mean losing even more posters in the short run as those who’ve made the forums their own private bitch board are quashed. But then when what works in the past no longer does, you can either adapt or become extinct. Or just die off like your membership is.

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