What was the Golden Age of Sonic content on the internet?

[Mr. Ion]

I'm a young person, so I don't have much experience with this. By the title, I mean: what was the best time to be a Sonic fan on the internet? When was the community strongest? Whether it be fan creations, forums, other activities, etc? Could the current age of Sonic content online be considered a golden age in any way? (at least Twitter begs to differ on that one). Share your thoughts.

[Rabid-Coot]

Maybe somewhere around the early to mid 2000's. There was a lot of forums springing up at the time, plenty of fan comics and characters being created with the low barrier to entry sprite sheets provided and a new multiplatform push combined with a new cartoon.

[SonicBoom]

I think it just depends on what form of media you were into. In the 90s, fan-fiction ruled, SatAM defined what people thought of as "Sonic," and the general tone of the community was surprisingly pretty chill and mature. By the early 2000s, the fandom was at war 100% of the time (I mean, we literally had fansites launching DDoS attacks against other fansites), but the fan gaming and ROM hacking community grew, and in the 2010s they flourished.

Right now's a pretty good time for the community as long as you stay away from big social media sites like Twitter and the like. I think their popularity and accessibility means that's where a lot of the riff-raff goes to find a platform, leaving forums like this as pretty laid-back places again, even if they're not as crowded as they were a decade or two ago.

[Rabbitearsblog]

9 hours ago, SonicBoom said:

I think it just depends on what form of media you were into. In the 90s, fan-fiction ruled, SatAM defined what people thought of as "Sonic," and the general tone of the community was surprisingly pretty chill and mature. By the early 2000s, the fandom was at war 100% of the time (I mean, we literally had fansites launching DDoS attacks against other fansites), but the fan gaming and ROM hacking community grew, and in the 2010s they flourished.

Right now's a pretty good time for the community as long as you stay away from big social media sites like Twitter and the like. I think their popularity and accessibility means that's where a lot of the riff-raff goes to find a platform, leaving forums like this as pretty laid-back places again, even if they're not as crowded as they were a decade or two ago.

I agree that the forum boards are a lot better off now than they were years ago.  Like, I remembered when IMDB used to have forum boards on their site and things often got so bad over there that they had to shut down the forum boards.  But now that Twitter was invented, all the toxic fans went over to Twitter, keeping the forum boards much safer and more chilled.

As for the question, I agree that it really depends on what decade you grew up in.  Like in the 90s, even though the internet was just starting out, there were many fan fictions of Sonic the Hedgehog and even fansites that got started around that time and in the 2000s, there was the rise of YouTube and other fansites that made the series even more accessible for the fans.  And then of course, the 2010s pretty much created even more fansites and fan games for the fans to go onto.

[Mr. Ion]

On 7/8/2022 at 1:53 AM, SonicBoom said:

I think it just depends on what form of media you were into. In the 90s, fan-fiction ruled, SatAM defined what people thought of as "Sonic," and the general tone of the community was surprisingly pretty chill and mature. By the early 2000s, the fandom was at war 100% of the time (I mean, we literally had fansites launching DDoS attacks against other fansites), but the fan gaming and ROM hacking community grew, and in the 2010s they flourished.

I wasn't really aware that fanfic around SatAM was that strong. I guess the fandom around it is less prominent now because the series (including comics) isn't running anymore, but I still think that's cool. I will say, 2000s was good for fan games, if anything. Without that we wouldn't have stuff like SAGE. 

I think forum culture is really unique. Like, we still see our fair share of conflicts but this (and I guess Retro, sure) are the last bastions for deeper discussions. Personally I mostly have experience with the 2010s, and I really observed the rise of a lot more Sonic content this decade compared to like the late 2000s (though there were certainly a lot of angry reviewers lambasting '06). So, I guess things aren't too bad now, but the games also aren't as exciting, so while we have cool things like the comics it doesn't have that same level of excitement, at least not to me. I guess I'm rambling at this point.

[batson]

Sonic's golden age in terms sheer presence on the internet was definitely around from the mid 00's to the very early 10's. That's when Sonic had quite simply one of the most visible fanbases on the internet. There were tons of different active discussion forums, and Sonic characters reigned supreme in the world of fanart and fanfiction.

[Starnik]

10 hours ago, batson said:

Sonic's golden age in terms sheer presence on the internet was definitely around from the mid 00's to the very early 10's. That's when Sonic had quite simply one of the most visible fanbases on the internet. There were tons of different active discussion forums, and Sonic characters reigned supreme in the world of fanart and fanfiction.

I wonder how much of that fandom was because of Sonic coming to new consoles, starting with Sonic Heroes.

[batson]

13 hours ago, Starnik said:

I wonder how much of that fandom was because of Sonic coming to new consoles, starting with Sonic Heroes.

That was definitely the key part, along with Sonic X airing all over the world. Also, it was from around 2002-2004 (give or take a year) that it became common for young people to have their own computers. Before that, most kids and teens either only had access to a shared family computer that they could use only sometimes, or their families simply didnt own a computer at all. Once kids and teens got unlimited internet access, the web culture changed completely. Suddenly, the franchises that were the biggest among adult nerds, like Star Trek, lost ground in terms of visibility on the internet to what was big among very young nerds at the time. And Sonic was one of those big things among young nerds at that exact time.

This was of course also the era when the stigma against the Sonic fanbase came about. The sheer overabundance of Sonic fans on the internet, combined with laughable fan creations such as all those fan-characters that were mere re-colors of existing characters, and not to mention all the Sonic pornography that began to appear anywhere where porn was being collected (and thus stumbled upon even by people who never set out to search for Sonic porn specifically) created the stigma. And also Chris Chan. Seriously, it's impossible to talk about the perception of Sonic fans on the 00's internet without talking about Chris Chan. Then of course there was also the fact that many of the then current Sonic games got incredibly poor reception, which seemed to further stigmatize the Sonic community since it appeared that a lot of people essentially thought "If a person is into games that are this bad, then there must be something wrong with that person".

All in all, when it comes to the Sonic fan community of the mid 00's-early 10's period, I'm reminded of the phrase "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times". Us Sonic fans were scolded by people outside the community, but our community was so large and so active that it didn't seem to matter.

[Starnik]

3 hours ago, batson said:

That was definitely the key part, along with Sonic X airing all over the world. Also, it was from around 2002-2004 (give or take a year) that it became common for young people to have their own computers. Before that, most kids and teens either only had access to a shared family computer that they could use only sometimes, or their families simply didnt own a computer at all. Once kids and teens got unlimited internet access, the web culture changed completely. Suddenly, the franchises that were the biggest among adult nerds, like Star Trek, lost ground in terms of visibility on the internet to what was big among very young nerds at the time. And Sonic was one of those big things among young nerds at that exact time.

This was of course also the era when the stigma against the Sonic fanbase came about. The sheer overabundance of Sonic fans on the internet, combined with laughable fan creations such as all those fan-characters that were mere re-colors of existing characters, and not to mention all the Sonic pornography that began to appear anywhere where porn was being collected (and thus stumbled upon even by people who never set out to search for Sonic porn specifically) created the stigma. And also Chris Chan. Seriously, it's impossible to talk about the perception of Sonic fans on the 00's internet without talking about Chris Chan. Then of course there was also the fact that many of the then current Sonic games got incredibly poor reception, which seemed to further stigmatize the Sonic community since it appeared that a lot of people essentially thought "If a person is into games that are this bad, then there must be something wrong with that person".

All in all, when it comes to the Sonic fan community of the mid 00's-early 10's period, I'm reminded of the phrase "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times". Us Sonic fans were scolded by people outside the community, but our community was so large and so active that it didn't seem to matter.

This post was very detailed. You could say Sonic really got caught in a perfect storm of sorts. Thankfully I think the stigma is going away over time. OCs and fan creations seem more accepted today. Funny enough a lot of the fan art I run across isn’t terrible. So I think the kids who were mocked back then probably kept drawing and got better over time. Though I think it’s sad how kids used to be mocked online by teens and adults. It’s uncomfortable to me. 
Did the Pokémon community ever get a bad reputation because of Chris Chan? I know almost nothing about that person, but they seem to like Pokémon as well as Sonic.

[babsiwuff]

I'm in agreement with early to mid-2000s.  The internet was becoming more prevalent for starters.  But speaking from the perspective of a furry, Sonic was a HUGE hit in our community.  A lot of people read the Sonic comic, and had Sonic OCs for fursonas (even though a lot of them were "Tails except blue").  This was fueled by sprite rips from the Advance series, which everyone edited to make their own characters.

In addition, Ken Penders' friend Bob Repas was a prominent furry himself, so he also had that gap.

But aside from that, people were basking in the 3 advance games, and Adventure 1-2.  And Sonic X had started up on TV, and people loved a lot of the characters they brought in for that.

Talking about all this has made me nostalgic.  So here.  I was guilty of the sprite rip fad too.  And here's my contribution!

[GeAr-DX]

Early to mid-2000s, without any doubt. Most of the fandoms were gold at that time, mostly because the kind of content in the net permited it.

Newgrouds was fire at the time, so a lot of good flash animations were there, stuff like Nazo Unleashed, Final Fantasy Sonic and the Sonic in Minutes. If you haven't watched those, DUDE WATCH!!! It's gold material!!!

Man, I do miss those times...

[batson]

20 hours ago, Starnik said:

Did the Pokémon community ever get a bad reputation because of Chris Chan? I know almost nothing about that person, but they seem to like Pokémon as well as Sonic.

Interestingly, no, not at all. And it's something I've been thinking about, how Pokémon was never tainted by Chris Chan being into it unlike Sonic. I think the simple reason is that Pokémon was simply too big to have its image defined by one fan, no matter how infamous that person was. Like, Sonic had a big fanbase at the time but the Sonic franchise's true mainstream relevance was gone. Sonic was definitely the Pokémon of the early 90's, but by the 00's that mainstream relevance had been replaced by the series instead being sort of a giant cult thing, like it had a huge fanbase but most people outside that fanbase didn't really care about it anymore. Pokémon meanwhile has, much like Mario, continued being a mainstream juggernaught ever since first coming into prominence. Pokémon being defined by one fan is therefore as unthinkable as Mario, or, say, Harry Potter or Spongebob or Star Wars being defined by one fan, it pretty much can't be done, the series is too big for that.

[Starnik]

2 hours ago, batson said:

Interestingly, no, not at all. And it's something I've been thinking about, how Pokémon was never tainted by Chris Chan being into it unlike Sonic. I think the simple reason is that Pokémon was simply too big to have its image defined by one fan, no matter how infamous that person was. Like, Sonic had a big fanbase at the time but the Sonic franchise's true mainstream relevance was gone. Sonic was definitely the Pokémon of the early 90's, but by the 00's that mainstream relevance had been replaced by the series instead being sort of a giant cult thing, like it had a huge fanbase but most people outside that fanbase didn't really care about it anymore. Pokémon meanwhile has, much like Mario, continued being a mainstream juggernaught ever since first coming into prominence. Pokémon being defined by one fan is therefore as unthinkable as Mario, or, say, Harry Potter or Spongebob or Star Wars being defined by one fan, it pretty much can't be done, the series is too big for that.

Thinking about it, maybe part of the problem is the death of the Dreamcast. It’s easy to try and pin it on Sonic since he is SEGA’s mascot. That could have seriously hurt his reputation also. Pokémon never had to serve the role Sonic did. And even if if it did, Sonic himself was not quite able to save the Dreamcast. In a world where SEGA continued making consoles, with Sonic as the star, I think Sonic would be slightly more protected from criticism. Pokémon is insulated by the Nintendo brand.
 

Also regarding Mario, do kids make as much fan art and fan creations for that franchise? I think Sonic inspires more creative expressions, and is thus more visible online, and thus harder to ignore. Sonic fans probably make more fan creations than many other fan bases.

 I also don’t believe Sonic really became unpopular, considering the games continued selling. I think Sonic just became infamous for games of low quality.

Well Maybe Sonic was no longer popular during the Saturn period. But Sonic adventure brought him back to light. The Dreamcast was a big event.

Going back on topic. The mid 2000s were probably the golden age for Sonic because of the influx of kids and teens, and it being the early days of the internet. The internet was just different back then.

[babsiwuff]

6 hours ago, batson said:

Interestingly, no, not at all. And it's something I've been thinking about, how Pokémon was never tainted by Chris Chan being into it unlike Sonic. I think the simple reason is that Pokémon was simply too big to have its image defined by one fan, no matter how infamous that person was. Like, Sonic had a big fanbase at the time but the Sonic franchise's true mainstream relevance was gone. Sonic was definitely the Pokémon of the early 90's, but by the 00's that mainstream relevance had been replaced by the series instead being sort of a giant cult thing, like it had a huge fanbase but most people outside that fanbase didn't really care about it anymore. Pokémon meanwhile has, much like Mario, continued being a mainstream juggernaught ever since first coming into prominence. Pokémon being defined by one fan is therefore as unthinkable as Mario, or, say, Harry Potter or Spongebob or Star Wars being defined by one fan, it pretty much can't be done, the series is too big for that.

Funny thing; I never heard of Chris Chan until much much later when he got into the Brony community.  The main discourse was always from Penders.

[Starnik]

13 hours ago, batson said:

Interestingly, no, not at all. And it's something I've been thinking about, how Pokémon was never tainted by Chris Chan being into it unlike Sonic. I think the simple reason is that Pokémon was simply too big to have its image defined by one fan, no matter how infamous that person was. Like, Sonic had a big fanbase at the time but the Sonic franchise's true mainstream relevance was gone. Sonic was definitely the Pokémon of the early 90's, but by the 00's that mainstream relevance had been replaced by the series instead being sort of a giant cult thing, like it had a huge fanbase but most people outside that fanbase didn't really care about it anymore. Pokémon meanwhile has, much like Mario, continued being a mainstream juggernaught ever since first coming into prominence. Pokémon being defined by one fan is therefore as unthinkable as Mario, or, say, Harry Potter or Spongebob or Star Wars being defined by one fan, it pretty much can't be done, the series is too big for that.

It would be nice to have more positive representatives for the fandom. It would help to get rid of the stigma.

[GeAr-DX]

17 hours ago, batson said:

Interestingly, no, not at all. And it's something I've been thinking about, how Pokémon was never tainted by Chris Chan being into it unlike Sonic. I think the simple reason is that Pokémon was simply too big to have its image defined by one fan, no matter how infamous that person was. Like, Sonic had a big fanbase at the time but the Sonic franchise's true mainstream relevance was gone. Sonic was definitely the Pokémon of the early 90's, but by the 00's that mainstream relevance had been replaced by the series instead being sort of a giant cult thing, like it had a huge fanbase but most people outside that fanbase didn't really care about it anymore. Pokémon meanwhile has, much like Mario, continued being a mainstream juggernaught ever since first coming into prominence. Pokémon being defined by one fan is therefore as unthinkable as Mario, or, say, Harry Potter or Spongebob or Star Wars being defined by one fan, it pretty much can't be done, the series is too big for that.

Two reasons, Sonichu design is more like a Sonic painted with Pikachu colors, so it's easier to remember Sonic, and the other reason is that Chris-Chan became famous at the time where mocking Sonic became a "cool thing to do".

It's abnormal that people focus so much in him making a Sonic re-color and not the point that the dude literally says that he's married with Mewtwo.

[Starnik]

40 minutes ago, ART-DX said:

Two reasons, Sonichu design is more like a Sonic painted with Pikachu colors, so it's easier to remember Sonic, and the other reason is that Chris-Chan became famous at the time where mocking Sonic became a "cool thing to do".

It's abnormal that people focus so much in him making a Sonic re-color and not the point that the dude literally says that he's married with Mewtwo.

Maybe I’m weird, but I never though of Chris Chan as a Sonic fan. I just thought he was a weird guy who latched onto something popular. I don't wish to know much more about him. I’ll be happy if people forget he ever existed.

[GeAr-DX]

8 minutes ago, Starnik said:

Maybe I’m weird, but I never though of Chris Chan as a Sonic fan. I just thought he was a weird guy who latched onto something popular. I don't wish to know much more about him. I’ll be happy if people forget he ever existed.

At the time that he appeared, I saw him more as a crazy dude than a fan of anything, specially because Sonichu is the least interesting thing about him and his misadventures. When talking about Chris-Chan with people who know really about him the main topic always become his love quest, pickle-man, bluespikes, that Fanta stuff that he did (that and the medalion day are still unbealivable) or the day that he scored his mom.

[batson]

It's true that Chris Chan was certainly not the originator of the "Sonic fans are weird" meme. But he (and I'm using male pronouns since that is what he himself did at the point in time that I'm talking about) certainly helped spread the fire. It's difficult to overstate how legendary Chris was among internet nerd culture at the time. This was an era where relatively few "intentional" internet celebrities existed, in other words people that set out to create internet content and make a name for themselves. There were people who tried, but few who succeeded. James Rolfe (The Angry Video Game Nerd) and Doug Walker (The Nostalgia Critic) were among the few that managed to become net-wide celebrities intentionally. But for the most part, famous internet people at the time were people who either got famous due to a single meme (such as the Numa Numa Kid) or lolcows whose fame rested on everyone agreeing that they were funny and cringy in a way that they themsleves never intended. Chris Chan was the undisputed king of this kind of fame. There is no doubt in my mind that he was quite simply the most famous internet celebrity in the universe at one point. And in a time when Sonic fans were already considered weird, and where Sonic games were already considered cringe, it created a perfect storm of fail where Sonichu and his creator seemed to vastly enforce the stereotypes that were already there regarding Sonic fans.