I also have a theory that Canadians (broadly defined) are over-represented here. My guess is the population here is mostly American/US and that Canadians are more than 10% of whatever that number is.
60 yo, white, woman.
It’s near the top of the thread, but not in the OP. It’s here:
The poll is a bit surprising. I had assumed that the majority of the board consisted of mature, seasoned, thoughtful individuals (defined as “over 70”). But I see now that the largest decadal percentage is young whippersnappers in the 60-69 range. Who wouldda thunk it? (And they’d better not get on my lawn!)
Another boring old white male here. Turning 58 tomorrow.
It’s a real shame that women left and don’t seem to be returning, but I understand why. I don’t see this place getting more diverse, new blood just doesn’t come in anymore and as time goes on, it will become even worse. As for people of color, I don’t think there were ever that many here, I think it’s fair to describe this place as aggressively white.
Statistically, demographically white, yeah. But how do you figure aggressively? <scratches head>
Well, the topics here are, not surprisingly, things old white people want to talk about and the overwhelming perspective is that anything outside of old white people’s experience is to be mocked and dismissed. There is almost always a live thread here that is basically old white people mocking different perspectives and almost always manages to get a dig in at rap or hip-hop, but always include the perspective that young non-whites are mistaken in their opinions.
Right now we have:
Very much so.
What, if anything, can be done about it? I just wish we’d be a little more introspective when presented with different perspectives, rather than our usual knee jerk eye roll and defense of the status quo.
Way different moderation around racism might have helped, years ago. Now, there’s nothing to be done. I stay here out of habit more than anything. I certainly don’t recommend it to any of the POCs I interact with in other forums.
Yeah, it does seem like the time to have done something has passed. I hope I’m wrong, though.
Regardless of whether we’re talking age, sexism, or racism, success comes while you’ve still got enough variety that anyone who stumbles on the place can find something of interest to them and not too much that’s actively off-putting.
Once any sort of club / group stops attracting much new blood, it quickly begins to both age in place and also introspective groupthink starts to take over. Both factors are separately internally reinforcing spirals that, working synergistically together, spell doom for lots of organizations.
The predominant demographics of the Dope today are 60-69 because the predominant demographic 15-20 years ago when most of us got here was 40-49. We’re not attracting fresh 60-somethings. We really aren’t.
But far worse, we’re not attracting fresh 40- or 20- somethings either. And that’s what’s gonna crash this place eventually. We’re all taking a long walk on our increasingly short personal pier.
The same logic applies to non cis-males, to non-whites, etc. We might, a bit, be turning the corner on at least the simpler varieties of LGTBQ… Might. Much like the rest of society.
I am a 61-year-old male.
Just addressing age… this place is heavily verbal and quite literate, well-informed, and biased toward correct grammar. Is that likely to appeal to 20-40 somethings? My casual impression is that that age group IN GENERAL favors short sound word bites and plenty of pictures-- Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook (the last not so much any more). A new person clicks in to the SDMB and what do they see: walls o’ text and some pretty intellectual thread topics. Plus no animated text and minimal emojis. Where’s the appeal to someone under age 50?
My guess is that we skew -Above average IQ, literate, older, white, male and liberal.
Ya that’s it. Younger, non-white people are probably just too stupid to appreciate this message board. Mystery solved.
Where did race come into discussion of younger demographics’ post-literacy?
The same argument can be made for most people over 50 though.
We’re a self-selecting group and I think with message boards being functionally extinct platforms and that most of us found the Straight Dope between 1990 and 2010 younger people are far less likely to self-select for it.
Add to that, that the Straight Dope is not even published any more and as a Free Press column belongs to another time.
Grrr. Please extract the words you planted in my mouth. 
See if you can figure out which words those are.
True. I’ve sent people threads from here, but no one has been intrigued enough to stick around.