6. The Conversation Happens With or Without You

A funny thing happened when the Internet went mainstream. Ordinary people could talk to more people than just their neighbors, co-workers, and social club friends about what they were passionate about. Believe it or not, this started happening long before the term social media was even a forethought in anyone’s mind.

Conversations about brands, products, and services started happening online with the advent of message boards, forums, and web-based chat rooms. From 1992 on, comic book collectors could talk all about which series they loved, advertise any extras for sale, speculate on what might happen in the next issue of their favorite comic, and announce whether they were planning to attend local or national comic cons (conferences dedicated to comic collectors) through message boards and forums dedicated to the topic.

These conversations weren’t just on a national level, either. People from around the world could now speak about their passion for comics to fellow enthusiasts in countries thousands of miles away. Have a rare comic you’d like to trade? Wondering what really happened to Gambit in the last issue of the XMen comics? Wondering if Stan Lee would make an appearance at the latest comic con? These are just a small sampling of the types of conversations that still go on in these forums.