Pc gaming community

[xXx_Big_Poppa_xXx]

I'm doing a research paper for my uni on micro-ethnography. I specifically chose the PC enthusiast community because I feel most accepted here. I've been building PC's for the past few years now and I was wondering what do you guys think are the biggest benefits of being a member of this community? How has getting into building PC's helped you? Has this community brought you closer together with others? Any and all responses will be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys!

[Senzelian]

This community sure made me spend a whole lotta money on a whole lotta crap I don't need. But it's great!

[birdflyer]

This community has helped me when I have thought problems unsolvable or can't find the information I need online. Overall, a pretty great community, surprisingly, toxicity is actually pretty minimum as the forum is moderated in a pretty decent and fair way.

[Dedayog]

I don't feel this is a PC Gaming community. It's just a forum.

 

I come here, peruse questions, answer some, laugh at others, decry the future of the human race from others....

 

I don't hang out here, get to know people, want to be a part of the LTT Family, etc.

 

I share my opinions, knowledge and experiences to whoever I feel is asking.  

[da na]

It's helped me find answers to problems/questions just an Internet search would not, and being able to contact people with experience in the field of computers was quite helpful when I was starting out. 

[RONOTHAN##]

Pretty much everyone here just wants to help each other out and talk tech. It's not everywhere I can go up to someone and discuss the subtle differences between the 3080 and 6800XT, yet that's stuff I personally love. Grnted, the more I talk tech, the more I end up wanting the new, latest and greatest thing, so my wallet hates this community, but it's fun.

[WhitetailAni]

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What do you guys think are the biggest benefits of being a member of this community?

This community in particular? Well...

I like this community. Sure, there's a lot of people of varying intelligence levels but after a few months here you'll begin to know who's who, what they do, and what they like talking about. I do help with tech questions sometimes but not too often as I don't like talking about newer hardware as much (and that's almost all that's talked about here). My favorite places are:

And a few others that I don't remember.

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 How has getting into building PC's helped you?

Well, I went from knowing i7 > i5 > i3 to being able to build my own system, troubleshoot it, do decent RAM and GPU OCs, Hackintosh, and futz around with old PCs (iMac G5, Pentium III, Pentium 4, etc.).

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Has this community brought you closer together with others?

Yes.@NZgamer, @Schnoz, @Mel0nMan, @TheCoder2019,@RockSolid1106, @adarw, and@Eviljuche are the people I talk with most often.

[Mark Kaine]

9 hours ago, Dedayog said:

don't feel this is a PC Gaming community. It's just a forum.

I agree, its really more a tech forum, even if the majority of subjects is probably around "PCs".

 

But I think OP meant more like "pc gaming community", not specifically this forum?

 

Which i would sadly have to answer with there is no real community,  people either ignore each other or mostly showcase highly toxic behavior...

 

Sure there are small "communities" around specific games, but they have rarely to do anything with other communities...

 

I tried to get into final fantasy online recently... no one talked, literally no one - in a game where communication is supposedly key...

 

Idk if theyre all talking through Facebook or what,  but to me this doesn't make sense  - its also highly unlikely they all know each other due to sheer amount of people  -- it has been the most antisocial,  dystopian experience i ever had... to me a good online community is everyone talks to each other instead of insulation,  but maybe that's just me lol.

 

*Edit: yeah, OP says "pc enthusiast community" ... i would say it exists, but is rather small and spread wildly throughout the internet...

 

This forum (community) in particular is rather small, lots of members sure, but if you look, its mostly a few regulars who are posting (200-300 maybe,  unless there is a niche part of the forum idk about),  and a gazillion of people with tech issues who most likely never get above 1-20 posts...

 

PS: 

10 hours ago, xXx_Big_Poppa_xXx said:

I'm doing a research paper for my uni on micro-ethnography. I specifically chose the PC enthusiast community

The topic is called "pc gaming community"... thats what threw me off - while there sure are some overlaps, "pc enthusiast community" is something mostly completely different, most pc gamers have no idea about how tech works whatsoever,  and a pc enthusiast doesn't even necessarily play games - some of them even use Linux (lol/jk) 

[Dedayog]

7 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

I agree, its really more a tech forum, even if the majority of subjects is probably around "PCs".

 

But I think OP meant more like "pc gaming community", not specifically this forum?

 

Which i would sadly have to answer with there is no real community,  people either ignore each other or mostly showcase highly toxic behavior...

 

Sure there are small "communities" around specific games, but they have rarely to do anything with other communities...

 

I tried to get into final fantasy online recently... no one talked, literally no one - in a game where communication is supposedly key...

 

Idk if theyre all talking through Facebook or what,  but to me this doesn't make sense  - its also highly unlikely they all know each other due to sheer amount of people  -- it has been the most antisocial,  dystopian experience i ever had... to me a good online community is everyone talks to each other instead of insulation,  but maybe that's just me lol.

 

*Edit: yeah, OP says "pc enthusiast community" ... i would say it exists, but is rather small and spread wildly throughout the internet...

 

This forum (community) in particular is rather small, lots of members sure, but if you look, its mostly a few regulars who are posting (200-300 maybe,  unless there is a niche part of the forum idk about),  and a gazillion of people with tech issues who most likely never get above 1-20 posts...

 

PS: 

The topic is called "pc gaming community"... thats what threw me off - while there sure are some overlaps, "pc enthusiast community" is something mostly completely different, most pc gamers have no idea about how tech works whatsoever,  and a pc enthusiast doesn't even necessarily play games - some of them even use Linux (lol/jk) 

His references to "here" and this community"... I took it that he was referencing LTT specifically.

 

If he's talking about the PC Gaming community as a whole... it's way too broad.  We're talking people from Henry Cavill, Vin Diesel, Terry Crewes to millions and millions of others.  Yeah, no way to even comprehend that.  

 

When you're part of a community, it has to be one you can interact with and be around, or it's too ephemeral to really be considered.

[Mark Kaine]

4 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

His references to "here" and this community"... I took it that he was referencing LTT specifically.

Yeah, i saw that after reading the op twice... the topic name is what I was going off at first "pc gaming community " which certainly exists, but sprinkled around many places, which maybe is typical for communities nowadays - i think really big ones are on discord,  its also the least regulated and most welcoming in my experience...

[8tg]

Getting involved in not just this community but many others like it years ago went from me learning how to do a cpu upgrade on a Thinkpad T42 (which I used daily until 2016), to now being able to do more complex board repairs for laptops, video cards, desktop motherboards, etc

I had (sold most of them) multiple shelves of video cards I bought broken and repaired back to fully working order.

Stuff like that has been useful to know, and just a general understanding of computer technology in general has been useful at work or with helping family.

Knowing how to upgrade a nas at work saved my company 6000$ because corporate tried to get their own IT programs involved and wanted to do a cloud migration and stuff and it was like nah, two 10tb WD golds, upgrade the servers processor from a first gen pentium to a Xeon x3450, total cost under 500$ and now we never have to worry about space again.

And just knowing basic stuff like that, it’s all stuff i learned in technology forums and image boards and such, it’s useful to know.

[Mooshi]

When I think of "PC gaming community", my first initial thoughts aren't so positive. It's a mix between cringe PCMR and people shouting the gamer word (the "N" word) on online shooters.

 

LTT is more a tech nerd community than anything else.