Last Year's Most Active Threads

For the past several years, I have had a tradition of posting on January 1st about the ten most active threads of the previous year. However, this year I changed the focus of the blog to be on politics, while in previous years it had been about the most active threads of the time. I wasn't sure whether or not I should continue the tradition. Ultimately, I decided I should. So, today I will review the ten most active DC Urban Moms and Dads Forum topics of 2025.

The tenth most active thread of 2025 was titled, "Plane crash DCA?" and was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. This thread, of course, is about the horrific midair collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and a United States Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that cost 67 lives. The thread was started just after news of the crash began circulating by a poster who asked, "Helicopter or plane? Anyone know?" The first several pages were consumed by posts about news and updates on the event. The day after the crash, cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump blamed the crash on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts within the Federal Aviation Administration. This then became a major topic of discussion in the thread. However, posters soon began focusing on the helicopter crew, with suggestions that DEI had played a role in that regard. There was a false rumor that the helicopter pilot was transgender. When the pilot turned out to be a cisgender female, many posters alleged that she had been promoted due to DEI and was not qualified for the job. That debate is still continuing in posts this month. There was also a diversion into speculation about who the military helicopter may have been transporting with theories that the aircraft had made secret stops at either the CIA headquarters or the home of the Saudi Arabian ambassador.

Next, in ninth place, was a thread titled, "New Additions to Leagues Check Up (ECNL & GA)" which was posted in the "Soccer" forum. About two years ago, our soccer forum began to have an astonishing amount of traffic. This was baffling to me because I couldn't understand the intense interest, most of which revolved around youth teams. As it turned out, the soccer forum had started attracting a national audience and is apparently now considered one of the best places for discussing youth soccer in the nation. However, the forum has its own lingo that is nearly impossible to decipher by those, like me, who have not been initiated. I would imagine that the title of this thread is meaningless to those who are not involved in youth soccer. So, allow me to explain. ECNL is the Elite Club National League and GA is the Girls Academy. Both are national soccer leagues. Within leagues, there are clubs and within clubs, there are teams. The league in which a team or club may participate often has as much to do with politics as it does with athletics. As a result, any league change can be very controversial. After a number of changes in which club plays in which league, the original poster of this thread wanted to discuss how changes had eventually worked out. Given that the thread is now 330 pages long and discussion is still continuing, I think we can safely say that there is little agreement on the topic.

Multiple school forums were dominated last year by topics related to the creation of new school boundaries. This is a controversial topic that drives posters absolutely nuts. If you want to provoke someone's worst behavior, tell them that you are going to redistrict them into a worse school district (or at least one that they perceive to be worse, even if, objectively, it isn't). In this spirit, the eighth most active thread last year was titled, "Boundary Review Meetings" and was posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. Unlike the previous two topics, which had been active for almost the entire year, this one was only created in September. As is generally the case in such discussions, few posters look at changes objectively. Rather, reactions are very personal and based on what is happening to the poster's own family. Anyone who is at risk of being shifted to a new district is generally very suspicious of the motives of whomever is responsible for the change. Posters tend to be very good at justifying boundary changes that affect others, but not themselves, and very antagonistic to those changes by which they are personally impacted.

The seventh most active thread last year was titled, "ECNL moving to school year part 2" and posted in the "Soccer" forum. This was a continuation of another thread that was locked due to length and will appear further up in this list. Again, this involves a youth soccer league. The original poster noted that the earlier thread had been locked and started this one to continue the discussion. The first reply was, "This should be locked too. What could there possibly be left to say?" 401 pages later, I assume that question has been answered. These threads don't tend to stay on topic, so it is anybody's guess what is being discussed. I am certainly not going to read 401 pages to find out.

The sixth most active thread last year was titled, "The Trump Women and their Fashion Mishaps - Part Three" and was posted in the "Beauty and Fashion" forum. Probably the only thing good about the first Trump administration was the first iteration of this thread, which brutally made fun of the fashion choices of the women within the Trump orbit. Yes, the thread was often misogynistic. Yes, it was often unfair, and fashion opinions were often skewed by political allegiances. I'm not saying that it was a perfect thread, but in a time of darkness, it provided a bit of light. Extremely long threads tax the system when they are viewed, and therefore, I tend to lock threads that get overly lengthy. Two earlier versions of this topic have been locked for that reason. This thread was actually created in early 2024 but had little activity until the November election. At the beginning of 2025, it was approximately 50 pages long. Today, it is 469 pages. Whether it is the infamous "Mar-a-Logo face" that motivates perfectly good-looking women to transform themselves into gargoyles or the photo op costume choices of Kristi Noem, there is always plenty to discuss. A new dynamic introduced in Part Three is Usha Vance. Her refusal to conform to Mar-a-Lago style has gained her fans, while her apparent rejection of any other style choices as well has provoked considerable criticism.

In fifth place is a thread titled, "Epstein Files" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. As can be deduced, this thread is about the files belonging to Jeffrey Epstein, the one-time Trump friend who was convicted of trafficking underage girls and was found dead in his jail cell during Trump's first term. The Epstein files have been the subject of a remarkable saga in the past year, all of which is recorded and debated in this 501-page thread. The Trump administration started with promises to release the files and even a charade by Attorney General Pam Bondi in which several right-wing influencers were hoodwinked into believing that they had been given the files. Then the Administration changed direction drastically and said that no "Epstein list" — a list that Bondi had once said was on her desk — actually existed and that no more files would be released. This then led to a bipartisan group of Representatives to sign a discharge petition and force a vote to release the files. This bill passed both the House and the Senate and was signed into law by Trump. Now the debate is over whether everything is being released and whether powerful figures, including Trump, are being protected. There are a million different aspects to this topic and all of them are being debated in this thread.

The fourth most active thread was titled, "FCPS Boundary Review Updates" and was posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. As I said earlier when discussing the previous boundary thread, this has been a crazy topic. A thread on boundary changes was created in the FCPS forum previous to this one, well before any changes had been proposed and even before a process to change boundaries had started. Therefore, the posts in that thread were mostly based on fears and speculation rather than reality. I eventually locked the thread. The original poster of this thread wanted to continue the discussion, but in a more focused and reality-based manner. That didn't last long, however. What did last long was more discussion based on fears and speculation. That lasted for 580 pages when I again locked the thread. By that time, it had devolved to mostly political discussion.

Third was a thread titled, "ECNL moving to school year not calendar" and posted in the "Soccer" forum. This was the original thread that preceded the seventh most active thread discussed above. The issue is the age cutoff for players on various teams. Schools tend to have a fall age cutoff, meaning that a student whose birthday is in November might be placed with students whose birthdays are in the next calendar year. Soccer clubs, including ECNL, have apparently followed a calendar year cutoff. One result of this is that a player may be with one age group on a school team but with a different age group on a club team. This thread, as well as the one that followed it, were about ECNL's plans to switch from calendar year to school year cutoffs. This may seem like a fairly esoteric rule change and one that only impacts a small number of players, but it was extremely controversial. This thread reached 1181 pages before I locked it. I believe that this is the thread that established nationwide prominence for our soccer forum.

The second most active thread last year was titled, "Charlie Kirk shot at Utah Valley University" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Like the mid-air collision thread, this one began with real-time reporting of events. Once Kirk was confirmed to have been killed, speculation turned to who was responsible. In real life, Kirk was a marginal figure who was not well-known outside certain specific circles. In death, however, he was transformed into a mythical figure who had represented the future of Conservatism. After Kirk's murder, the political right has been fractured by infighting over who will seize Kirk's mantle. There has been a rise in the influence of Kirk's nemesis, Nick Fuentes, and countless conspiracy theories spread by the likes of Candice Owens. All of this is discussed ad infinitum in this thread. The thread reached 690 pages before I decided that it had gone too far down the rabbit hole and locked it. Had I not locked it, the thread might well have been the most active of last year.

Drumroll please. The most active thread of 2025 was titled, "Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims" and was posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. If you are unfamiliar with the legal battles between actress Blake Lively and actor Justin Baldoni (misnamed in the thread title), consider yourself lucky. I deleted several threads on the topic of their dispute because they all turned into dumpster fires. I eventually allowed this one to stand because the original poster seemed to specifically focus on one part of the legal issues that appeared somewhat substantive. In addition to the threads that I deleted, this thread provoked multiple threads in the "Website Feedback" forum as participants in the thread attempted to lobby me to take one action or another (or to not take such actions). In general, posters repeatedly insisted that this discussion was necessary because it dealt with important legal issues related to sexual assault and that my lack of interest in the topic showed that I did not respect women. In reality, the thread mostly consisted of posters accusing each other of being paid PR trolls working on behalf of either Lively or Baldoni. I was accused of attempting to shame posters for participating in this thread, an allegation to which I plead guilty. Sadly, my efforts went for naught. When this thread reached 1007 pages, I locked it. A "part 2" was started and is currently 117 pages in length. The low point of this thread, which mostly lacks high points, was when Candice Owens briefly became the hero of a bunch of self-described liberals.