A post for those who were around when IDF was FULL of life..the good ol' days...

[glorybox]

Remember being able to post your middle/high school problems in the Soap Box to your fellow members? The craziness of finale nights when the place would be PACKED? The small but loyal group of idol media collectors sharing links via yousendit and megaupload links (the days before youtube). IDF was a MAJOR factor in getting me through tough teen years and I will never forget this place and all the cool people I met from here.

Just had to return for a good dose of nostalgia. 

Edited October 23, 2020 by glorybox

[istersay]

those early days here were amazing, it was so packed on Idol show nights you had to keep refreshing to try and get in here because there were too many people. It was chaotic but so much fun. 

[FunkyFrankie]

I miss those early days.  The American junior days

[b1ackroses]

I miss those days too! I used to spend so much time here. Shout-out to the rando on Facebook who prompted me to see what's going on here

[idolwatcher_1]

I've officially been a member of Idolforums for 18 years now!   I lurked for awhile before becoming a member, and I remember being amazed at how media-savvy this forum was.  A lot of people had "blends" of their favorite Idols or Idol Juniors (especially in the summer of 2003) in their signatures.  And I believe @Tom or @buzz featured media download links of videos or mp3s of Idol performances from the show pinned at the top of the forum, because I remember one of the first things I did on these forums was download what was featured up there.  That is what made these forums initially stand out and attracted me. 

 

Idol's official forum at that time was on www.Bolt.com, which had been around since 1996, but American Idol struck some deal in 2003 to hold their official forums on there.  Bolt was one of the first teenage "social media" sites on the world-wide web in the 1990s, but it became "badge" obsessed and the layout was much different than here, and the veteran members were not too fond of the influx of American Idol crazed posters, and it didn't end up lasting terribly long.  The site ended up hanging their hat up.

 

I remember in 2004, during AI3's semifinals rounds, I created a Jasmine Trias smiley with a flower in her hair .  Her fans loved it so much that they asked Tom to place it in the official smiley list. I then created an Amy Adams smiley (with short brown and pink hair), a Kelly Clarkson smiley (from her "Natural Woman" performance on AI1), and a Jennifer Hudson smiley (where'd it go? ).  Others then immediately started creating other Idol smileys themselves, including Clay Aiken , Diana DeGarmo , Camile Velasco , who I guess needed a hug because Simon always cut her down on the show, Ruben Studdard , John Stevens , Fantasia Barrino , Jordin Sparks , and Adam Lambert .  I created the Kris Allen "Kick-Awesome" smiley   (based off the pre-Top 36 interview he did with Jesse Langseth, where he was about to say "kick-ass", but realized kids might be watching and changed how he said it)

 

I do remember that Idolforums would keep track of when the most members were online simultaneously, and a new record was broken on May 20, 2009 during AI8's finale night.  It would be hard to get the forums to load when it was that popular.  It may have been broken again a few seasons later, but I can't remember exactly. Okay, I wrote way too much...

[Guest]

^ The good old days! I loved your post.  I came a bit later on in May of 2005, the 19th to be exact - very evening Vonzell Solomon was eliminated from Season 4 and I cried like a baby. 

 

I, too miss it when the show was all the talk around the water cooler. Literally, the finale matchup would be front page news and everything was so electric. Everyone wanted to talk about it! The contestants were extremely talented, the chemistry with the judges was once in a lifetime and will never be replicated in the same way. 

[idolwatcher_1]

14 hours ago, Drew said:

^ The good old days! I loved your post.  I came a bit later on in May of 2005, the 19th to be exact - very evening Vonzell Solomon was eliminated from Season 4 and I cried like a baby. 

 

I, too miss it when the show was all the talk around the water cooler. Literally, the finale matchup would be front page news and everything was so electric. Everyone wanted to talk about it! The contestants were extremely talented, the chemistry with the judges was once in a lifetime and will never be replicated in the same way. 

Yeah, the show was such a pop culture staple back then.   I remember before AI4 started, a bunch of people were predicting a "white rocker guy" would win Season 4, because they felt that the three previous winners had already cornered other genres already, and they thought that it would be inevitable that the show would gear towards someone like this... but then rumors came out about a "blonde country girl" that was allegedly a judge favorite, and then Carrie's audition was featured on commercials leading up to the AI4 premiere.  Vonzell did the best she could during the show, but she was competing with strong forces that began before anyone even saw her perform that season.  Bo Bice became the "white rocker guy" that season, and Carrie ended up being the first country singer to win the show.  I was doing everything I could to get Vonzell past Anthony Federov to at least make Top 3 .

[Guest]

It's so funny, even you talking about the rumors about a judge favorite, I can envision the thread discussing this and it just brings to mind how massive all the discussion threads used to be. 

[FunkyFrankie]

On 11/21/2021 at 11:57 PM, idolwatcher_1 said:

 

I remember in 2004, during AI3's semifinals rounds, I created a Jasmine Trias smiley with a flower in her hair .  Her fans loved it so much that they asked Tom to place it in the official smiley list. I then created an Amy Adams smiley (with short brown and pink hair), a Kelly Clarkson smiley (from her "Natural Woman" performance on AI1), and a Jennifer Hudson smiley (where'd it go? ).  Others then immediately started creating other Idol smileys themselves, including Clay Aiken , Diana DeGarmo , Camile Velasco , who I guess needed a hug because Simon always cut her down on the show, Ruben Studdard , John Stevens , Fantasia Barrino , Jordin Sparks , and Adam Lambert .  I created the Kris Allen "Kick-Awesome" smiley   (based off the pre-Top 36 interview he did with Jesse Langseth, where he was about to say "kick-ass", but realized kids might be watching and changed how he said it)

 

 

Ooh, so you made those?!  I don’t remember seeing a Jennifer one, let alone I didn’t know you made one for her

[idolwatcher_1]

5 hours ago, FunkyFrankie said:

Ooh, so you made those?!  I don’t remember seeing a Jennifer one, let alone I didn’t know you made one for her

Yes, someone requested that I create a Jennifer Hudson smiley, so I did.   I gave her a fro, which was her look during that time, and I remember I had to keep expanding the pixel size of the smiley to make it look more like her.  I probably have the gif file on some old CD that I copied some of my files onto.  I also played around with animated gifs around that time, and created one where a smiley turns around to face a car that's coming to run it over.  That one was never adopted on these forums   but I did upload it to an image-hosting website and would use the image link to display it here occasionally.

 

On 11/24/2021 at 8:22 AM, Drew said:

It's so funny, even you talking about the rumors about a judge favorite, I can envision the thread discussing this and it just brings to mind how massive all the discussion threads used to be. 

Yes, there was endless speculation, and there were prediction polls and everything asking people what type of person would win AI4 before the season even began There were "Spoiler" threads back then filled with people who knew audition secrets, rumors, etc who would tell of people who made it to Hollywood or advanced during the Hollywood rounds.  It seemed like some spoilers ended up causing people to begin contestant fan threads before they even saw them on the show, lol.  I can't remember if that practice was shut down by the mods or not, but I remember people at least trying to do this.

 

I was one of the people who monitored airtime for the semifinalists   I wanted people to become more conscious of the producers (or TPTB) who tended to showcase certain contestants and not others.  This was from something I wrote during AI5's Top 24 rounds:

 

Top 24 featured exposure prior to Top 24 performances:
(This list is ordered from approximate most exposure to least exposure)

Mario Vazquez: original audition (Las Vegas), 1st round in Hollywood, 2nd round in Hollywood, last round in Hollywood/extra footage
Scott Savol: original audition (Cleveland), 1st round in Hollywood, 2nd round in Hollywood, last round in Hollywood
Carrie Underwood: extra footage/original audition (St. Louis), 1st round in Hollywood, last round in Hollywood
Constantine: extra footage/original audition (D.C.), 1st round in Hollywood, 2nd round in Hollywood
Anwar Robinson: extra footage/original audition (D.C.), 1st round in Hollywood, 2nd round in Hollywood
Mikalah Gordon: original audition (Las Vegas), 1st round in Hollywood, last round in Hollywood
Anthony Fedorov: original audition (Cleveland), 1st round in Hollywood, last round in Hollywood
Lindsey Cardinale: original audition (New Orleans), 1st round in Hollywood, last round in Hollywood
Vonzell Solomon: original audition (Orlando), 1st round in Hollywood, last round in Hollywood/extra footage
David Brown: extra footage/original audition (New Orleans), 1st round in Hollywood
Amanda Avila: extra footage/original audition (Las Vegas), 1st round in Hollywood
Travis Tucker: original audition (D.C.), 1st round in Hollywood
Sarah Mather: original audition (D.C.), 1st round in Hollywood
Nadia Turner: original audition (San Francisco), 1st round in Hollywood
Janay Castine: 1st round in Hollywood, 2nd round in Hollywood
Jessica Sierra: last round in Hollywood, recap of 1st round in Hollywood
Judd Harris: last round in Hollywood, recap of 1st round in Hollywood
Bo Bice: 1st round in Hollywood
Nikko Smith: original audition (St. Louis)
Celena Rae: recap of 1st round in Hollywood
Jared Yates: recap of 1st round in Hollywood
Joseph Murena: NOTHING!
Melinda Lira: NOTHING!
Aloha Mischeaux: NOTHING!

 

[KelseyW]

On my 13th year of using IDF I'll always remember how crazy things used to be and how it was always my go to place for post-AI news updates before the dawn of social media!