Me, I tend to love the advice threads. I don’t usually post to them, but I love reading advice. For some reason I love online advice columns in general (and then seeing the advice giver get ripped to shreds in the comments section). Reading about seemingly innocuous OPs that become a target of debate…I don’t know what it is that really gets me going in a way that reading genuine debates often doesn’t.
I also get really swept up in the Whale Wars threads. I don’t really know why. I never watched the show (apart from that South Park). I don’t think or read about it all that much. But when I see a SD thread on it, I just have to read it, no matter how long it is.
There are others too but these are the first to come to mind. How about you guys?
I love the more creative questions in GQ. I always have a habit of wondering about odd or inconsequential things, and GQ really speaks to me that way. I also love that no matter what the subject matter, from sharks to death stars to whale oil in space, there’s almost always a real expert that shows up eventually to answer the question in some capacity.
I also love reading about the petty drama and bickering in ATMB
I love the baseball hall of fame threads for some reason. I don’t even like baseball particularly- there’s just something about the subjective assessment of a players career, in such a statistic-rich sport, that’s fascinating. Plus a lot of the posters who participate seem to know the sport front to back.
Beyond that it’s really random - the threads that hit a chord tend to be the one’s that are most real. How to live on the poverty line?, Ever rebooted your life?, interesting stories from posters who don’t habitually post interesting stories - stuff like that. But I find plenty of threads like that fairly un-engaging, too. It just depends on the content I guess.
I hang in Cafe Society - I like being kept up to date on pop culture through the random mix of threads, e.g., I never really want to know what a Kardashian is, per se ;), but I can get enough of a feel for that type of crap-news from CS, right alongside wonderful explorations of higher-culture phenomenon and all points in between. And I enjoy getting to geek out in areas I can contribute to in CS.
I enjoy reading a lot in IMHO and MPSIMS but am less likely to post…again, I get a broader sense of the diversity that I see from my little part of the world IRL.
Advice threads also, especially relationship ones. My relationship is very content and happy but there is very little drama and no shouting at all. Sometimes one likes to read about other, more exciting lives.
And book threads, though they are few and far between.
Threads where people are reflecting on their lives or sharing about a major life transition and their feelings about it. Threads about philosophy and religion and the meaning of life.
I like the really oddball things…like how to build a goat-cannon, or Skald’s alternate universe stuff. Also digging the WoW threads, and will be all over the football threads in about a month and change.
The history and science threads. I love learning things, and often startle friends with random nonsense I happen to know. The Dope helps enormously with that.
Any kind of a train wreck is fun. I like the new posters who come here and start talking about “cow mutes” and the like. I love just following along in the background and chuckling to myself.
I like the ones where the OP really is a bit illogical and posters hijack it off to a witty end. Never any telling just which forum you’ll find those in. They just… happen.
My favorite are alternative history threads. They rarely happen and even more rarely do I have anything to contribute, but as a history nerd I can’t get enough of them.
My favorites are the relationship advice threads, where the clueless dude says stuff like “She told me to stop calling her, or she’ll call the cops, but, the fat girl from work says to be persistent!” Only about 1/2 the posters tell the guy to hang it up. The other 1/2 say to be persistent! And then the dude says, “I’ll call her 10 more times…and then I’ll start playing hard to get!”
Sometimes one likes to read about other, more exciting lives.