For those of us old enough to remember, it’s easy to be wistful about the days before social media when we weren’t facing a constant barrage of unfiltered thoughts from strangers. But the truth is those thoughts had an outlet long before the existence of Twitter or Facebook, thanks to the now-archaic realm of the message board.
Message boards have existed for nearly as long as the internet itself and have always been the domain of the hardcore, chronically obsessed fans of any given subject, which obviously includes college sports fans. Some of these online communities have existed for well more than two decades at this point but often remain pretty self-contained and unseen by the outside world.
Enter BoardGeniuses, a Twitter account specializing in giving the social media world precious glimpses into the unique world of the college football message board.
“I never belonged to any message boards or posted to them but I read them a lot,” says the man who runs the account, who has asked to remain unnamed to protect his identity and online safety. “I would read the boards of the teams that my team was playing against that week. I’m a Utah State fan, so I’m in a good spot to make fun of everyone else. Nobody really cares about us.”
The account, which was started in the summer of 2020, highlights some of the wildest and most hilarious (intentionally or unintentionally) posts on some of the most active college football message boards and started to gain a following after being retweeted by media figures like ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt. The man behind the account says that while there are a handful of boards that consistently give him great material, he doesn’t believe any of college football’s fan communities are any better or worse than the others.
“All schools have the exact same makeup of fans, it’s just that bigger schools have more fans and in turn have more extreme personalities in that fanbase. It really just depends on what they’re going through at that time.”
That said, BoardGeniuses says there are a handful of schools he can go to and expect to find good material at a moment’s notice.
“Texas A&M, Clemson, Oklahoma, Auburn, Tennessee, Ohio State. Those are the ones where if I need to find a post in the next five minutes, they’re going to provide.”
We asked BoardGeniuses to give us his picks for the wildest posts he’s seen this offseason and he did not disappoint.
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