As I’ve mentioned before, I didn’t experience Bionicle G1 while it happened. And I’m just going to assume that a bunch of y’all didn’t experience it either. So naturally, I find it curious to see: what was the fandom like back then? And of course, the internet is the place to look for answers. Pre-2011 BZpower forums are gone, but what else can still be found?
As a lot of you probably know, I like browsing Brickshelf. And recently, I came across this:
It’s an image uploaded in 2002, which shows a PC viewing the website “Bionicle Ultima Reborn”. I’m pretty certain it’s an unofficial fan-run website. I can’t find a single trace of a site with this name, but I’d be curious to know more about it. And I’m sure that it wasn’t the only old Bionicle fansite, do you know about more such sites? Share them below!
I’ve been thinking about this ever since I started getting into bio communities. I really want to start a project of some sort that details the history of the fandom and important parts of our culture. I could be wrong, but everything seems very scattered throughout the internet and it would be awesome to put together a team to interview and research how the community formed and where it is today. I can find bits and pieces on the occasional archived thread, but a firsthand source would be awesome.
If anyone has experience in the early days of fan sites and boards let me know if you’d be interested in contributing your perspectives! Or if anyone’s interested in helping me organize and brainstorm what this project could be. I’m thinking like a video essay style format on YouTube would be a good format.
That’s an awesome idea! I’d definitely support such a project, since it’s something I’m curious about as well. It’d definitely be great to have an all-in-one resource on the topic, if only to preserve more old stuff before it gets lost to time.
Cool, what do you think first steps could be? I guess bringing the idea up to someone with more reach in the community might be a good way to find people to interview
Yeah, I assume that’s the best first thing to do. Maybe the idea should also be spread around other places where Bionicle fans are (for example, Reddit comes to mind).
I don’t know how else something like this could be done, but I’m generally really bad at coordinating projects
