Last Year's Most Active Threads

Happy New Year to the half dozen or so readers of this blog. I didn't think anyone would bother to read it so I'm thrilled to have even a small number of readers. I'm going to change things up a bit today. I would ordinarily write about the four most active threads of the past week. However, I've already written about all but three of the top ten. With today marking the first day of a new year, I thought I would look at the most active threads of 2022. I'll look at the top 10, but write less about them than I normally do in order to keep this post to a reasonable length.

As is fitting for this sort of countdown list, I'll start in reverse order. In position number 10 of last years most active threads was, drumroll please, a thread titled, "2022 HS Boys Game Results" and posted in the "Lacrosse" forum. This thread was started on March 3 of last year and hasn't been updated since June 17th. But, if you are interested in reading 158 pages about lacrosse game results, we've got you covered.

At number 9 was a thread in the "Political Discussion" forum titled, "Biden’s economy". While talk of inflation and high gas prices often cast a negative light on President Joe Biden's economic policies, the US economy experienced continual growth and historically low unemployment over the past year. This thread was created to reflect those achievements. Of course, not everyone agreed that the economy was doing all that great. Hence, 187 pages of debate.

Number 8 was a thread titled, "This Is Us final season" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. I've frequently commented that I am completely out of touch with many of DCUM's posters and that has never been demonstrated more clearly than by this thread. This was one of the most active threads of the year and I've never seen the show, know nothing about it, and don't believe I've ever read a single post in this thread.

Coming in at number 7 was another thread in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum, this one titled, "The White Lotus season 2". I did watch this series, primarily because of this thread which I was constantly being asked to review due to inappropriate posts. The thread reached its prominent position in less than two months and would likely still be going had I not locked it due to it being taken over by posters whose obsession with the show's characters can not honestly be described as normal.

Speaking of weird obsessions, has anyone told you about the proposed bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue? If not, the number 6 thread titled "Options for opposing Connecticut Avenue changes?" and posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics" forum is just for you. They say that all politics is local and this has never been more true than when Cleveland Park is involved.

The number 5 thread, titled, "Jen Hatmaker" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum, again demonstrates how out of touch I am. I have no idea who Jen Hatmaker is or why anyone would want to spend 313 pages discussing her. I am confident that I have not heard her name outside of this thread. Nevertheless, this thread is the Energizer Bunny of DCUM. It just keeps going and going.

The number 4 thread was another one in the "Political Discussion" forum, this one titled, "US has no good options in Ukraine". The thread was started before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and it is fascinating reading the early posts in the thread in light of the subsequent developments. There were a lot of predictions but I don't think anyone expected Ukraine to halt Russian advances and even recapture some territory.

Coming in at number 3 was yet another thread from the "Political Discussion" forum. This one, titled, "'We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,' Justice Alito writes in an initial majority draft" was started after the Supreme Court's draft opinion about abortion was leaked. It is very clear that none of the political pundits predicting a "red wave" during the midterm elections had read this thread. If they had, they would have had some insight to how much the decision energized pro-choice voters and ensured they would get out to vote.

The number 2 thread was yet another topic in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. Titled, "Johnny Depp trial in Fairfax County", I can at least claim to have heard of Johnny Depp and to have even watched a few of his movies. However, I didn't pay attention to the trial and really only know about this thread because posts within it were constantly being reported. I ended up locking the thread because as a general rule, posters in such threads are insane.

The number one thread in the DCUM forums for 2022 was, another drumroll please, titled, "Donnie Dumptruck says Mar-A-Lago's been searched by the FBI". Also posted in the Political Discussion forum, it is about the FBI search of former President Donald Trump's home for classified documents. The thread is 302 pages in length, but I think that 301 of those pages consist only of complaints about the thread title. Apparently supporters of the guy who was famous for making up belittling names for his opponents don't like him being called "Donnie Dumptruck".

As readers may have noticed, none of the threads included on this list deals with a parenting topic and only one focuses on children. However, if we look at the number of threads posted in each forum during 2022, things look much different. The forum with the most threads was "Health and Medicine", followed by "Travel Discussion" and "Off-Topic". "College and University Discussion" was next, followed by "Real Estate". The political and entertainment forums were not even in the top 10, suggesting that interest in the topics is deep but narrow. Other forums have more threads, but they just don't last forever.