What happened to the OG's?

Walt and Jeff do a phenomenal job keeping this site running decade after decade, but I can't help but notice some of the regulars have been quiet this season.

Under my original login, (campfreak06) I've been here since 2006, and some of the names who who would post/comment several times a day are MIA.

Hope everyone is okay! Check-in when you get a chance to let us know you're still around!

It seems like there has been a lot less activity in general here in recent months.

Two people who come to mind are ShawnMeyer and Thabto.

I'm not sure I've done a phenomenal job recently. It's been a strange and stressful year. But to answer your question, people come and go as interests, time, and life change. New voices arrive and keep the community evolving. We've seen that cycle play out for 25+ years.

Time of year and news stories drive interest and activity as expected. This has been an odd season (in sports ball they call it “transition”) where recent major news events like mergers and staff changes are mainly left to speculation on our part. And conversations around that are circular and tiresome. While we had a spectacular and unexpected ride debut, there was nothing much else to spark pages of convo. No big announcements, no accidents, and from what I know nobody was caught getting jiggity up in a bucket somewhere.

I’ve been around here a while and have limited my participation for a couple of reasons. I don’t visit the park(s) like I used to. I get tired of on-line noise. And just like the communities where we live, people come and go and for various reasons - they move away, they lose interest, and sometimes, sadly, they pass away.

Over at Coasterbuzz we have a member that likes to look waaay back for news and info. And sometimes all we need is a direct quote or a throwback reference to an old thread to realize that many of the contributors, for whatever reason, aren’t around any more. It blows my mind every time.

I think we all realize the importance of keeping our on-line communities alive, but sometimes we outgrow the thing, have life-changing events, or at the very least just need a break.

After being a near daily user/poster for maybe 10-12 years, I've mostly taken up infrequent lurker status for the better part of the last decade. These days my time at the park is much more likely to be spent working than riding, so that certainly plays a big part, plus changing online habits (more time spent on things like Facebook and Reddit) and just life in general.

Have just the OGs gone quiet, or has activity here declined in general? I wonder if people are switching to sites like ParkFans...

My job gets in the way of how much time I spend on the internet these days. I have been living in Germany since July and working almost non-stop, with a little bit of time to at least skim the threads. But between here and CoasterBuzz, I usually come in so late on a topic that it takes awhile to read it all, and by then anything I wanted to post has already been covered.

I had the pleasure of meeting Shawn Meyer & Thabto once in the park, in fact they were together when I chatted with them. I recall Shawn would post on here how RougaRoo was his favorite ride. Thabto was a very kind and smart young guy who I seem to recall posted that his family has moved to Florida.

First off, traffic and participation are not the same. There is so much history here and so many pages indexed by search engines that no one could post anything and we'd still dish out thousands of pages everyday. This year, there are fewer page views but more users. But there are literally twice the users compared to 2023, which illustrates a change in Google's algorithm.

There's a larger problem that people, especially younger people, don't understand the web. They think that if there's not an app, how do you Internet? (And really, most apps could be web sites.) By extension, people think that the big platforms are the Internet. If you're 40 or older, you remember the web being like the wild west, where niche interests were filled by a million independent people putting up their own sites. Every college kid had a little space on their college servers and put up hideous sites with blinking text, but it was awesome.

Now everything is Facebook groups, Reddit, Discord, etc. It's not that sites like this don't exist anymore, it's that people are too lazy to go there. I equate this to shopping at Walmart instead of a locally owned store. You can keep giving money to Zuck and let him sell your information, or you can not. People don't care.

Also, it's worth noting that we've lost a lot of OG's. Pete, GregLeg, Chitown, etc., have all passed. We almost lost RideMan, but for now I imagine he has more important things to do.

I've been getting into pinball again lately, and I'm surprised to see that it still has a fairly active web-based forum that's kind of an authority. It has better information than FB groups. I hope that we shift back to these sites for a lot of things. I don't think platforms are good for society, or the Internet.

I've been here since '99 (or whenever the GTTP/Virtual Midway sites were still existing), but have kids playing sports and doing other things year round now so I am freaking busy. I only made two trips to CP this summer. I speak up when the topics interest me and I feel like I have something meaningful to say, but even then I feel like I've kind of said the same things over and over in recent years so I don't want to just be a broken record.

I've probably been here from the beginning, too...although not a very frequent poster. I've lived within an hour of the park my whole life, and we even camp in Sandusky sometimes. The last couple of years, we've even had a small day boat at the CP Marina.

I've met RideMan and Jeff once or twice, and Ralph Wiggum a few times...never had the pleasure of knowing Pete. I think I made it into the gates for a total of 5 or 6 hours this year, and even fewer in the marina. It's just been a weird year.

I don't want to post too much, for fear of sounding like even more of the grouchy old guy that I am. But the atmosphere has changed for me. Maybe that's because our daughters are in college now; maybe that's because Live E and sit down dining operations have been scaled back; maybe that's because of the (perceived) overcrowding and (perceived) horrendous operational inefficiencies. I'm not (and never) faulting the employees themselves--most are usually exceptionally friendly and helpful. For me, I don't know if it's the "Six Flags Effect" or just memories through rose colored glasses.

Don't get me wrong; I still love the place and it will always have special meaning for me. I still enjoy lurking on here. I still make it a habit to check this site daily.

I'm grateful for the conversations here, even if I don't contribute often.

Kinda the point I was trying to make with my Reddit/PB post. Seems like the traffic has declined but I don’t want to see that happen. It seems like it’s always the big name sites like X, FB and Reddit that the normies visit to read about cp. I take pride that most anyone posting or visiting this website are real fans that care about the park with a passion (for better or worse). This is our “safe space” as it were to speak freely about the park without people thinking we’re weirdos for loving something. I ain’t planning on going anywhere until my final lap has been taken around the sun.

Been here since 2004. I don't go to the park as much as I used to. Life gets in the way and I cannot handle the coasters as much as I used to. Im actually a ticket of a lifetime holder.

I actually came here to see if anyone has received redemption codes for 2026 ticket of a lifetime renewal. My family hasn't received them yet and we usually do by now. I fear that with six flags they might not honor the prize anymore.

Funny. This thread prompted me to revisit some of my earliest posts, which led to some interesting observations. Apparently, I joined in 2007, when I was still in high school, and my spelling and grammar confirm that beyond any reasonable doubt.

It was surprisingly fun scrolling through those old jokes about Aquatrax!!!111!!! and joking about how Midway Market needed to be blown up with a "mysterious gas leak". It also reminded me of several people I’m still friends with on social media because I first met them here. Makes me feel old, man.

For me, and I am not sure why this didn't come to mind the other day when I posted, is that I have genuinely shifted interests over the years. I still enjoy Cedar Point, it's been a big part of my life even before I spent 11 years working there, but after moving to Florida, I don't know much about the park anymore. Cedar Point, and amusement parks in general, were my hobby for years until I turned it into a career. I love my job and what I have managed to accomplish in the industry, but since it is now a career and no longer my hobby, my free time is spent with new hobbies which unfortunately means less time on sites like this.

Ditto...

Jeff:

Now everything is Facebook groups, Reddit, Discord, etc. It's not that sites like this don't exist anymore, it's that people are too lazy to go there.

Coincidentally enough, one of my personal goals has been to start spending less time endlessly scrolling on Facebook and Reddit, and in doing so I've started checking back here more frequently. Need to check in on Coasterbuzz sometime too.

The only thing that really gets my time in volume on my phone is NYT Games. I take "genius" on Spelling Bee very seriously. 😊

Do I qualify as an "OG"? Been here since 2005, so I suppose I do.

This thread has me thinking about how much life has happened since that day I hit the join button and started talking. I was recently married, but was still in grad school at "The" Ohio State. My wife grew up going to Kings Island, and it was so fun introducing her to the place I grew up loving, while she did the same (my first ride on The Beast was in 2004!). Then kid 1 came, then the move to NE Ohio (because I snagged my gig at Mount Union), then kid 2...and here we are.

I do find it interesting that Campfreak started this thread, because he was the first P-Buzz human I actually met at the park. We were both unlucky enough to be selected for the Shoot the Rapids commercial shoot.

The Facebook CP groups are absolutely nauseating. I suppose there is some entertainment value from time to time, but it's mostly either people trying to become "internet famous" by turning themselves into a park character, endless arguing, or just misinformation. I don't like Reddit's interface, have zero interest in "X", and honestly don't know what Discord is. I didn't really learn to appreciate how great the Buzz sites are (I'm on both with different names but the same avatar) until I joined other forums on unrelated topics (Star Wars and The Exorcist....I know....I said they were unrelated).

I can happily say I have made some genuine friendships here and on C-Buzz, and while I don't post here as much as I have in the past, it's really for no other reason than I am busy as hell with every other aspect of my life. I still enjoy it, though, and PBuzz and CBuzz are two websites I at least check in on nearly every day. Then again, I still live close to the park and I still pinch myself because I found a way to make Cedar Point an actual part of my job at Mount Union.

Mikeybo2004:

I actually came here to see if anyone has received redemption codes for 2026 ticket of a lifetime renewal. My family hasn't received them yet and we usually do by now. I fear that with six flags they might not honor the prize anymore.

Fear not. We are also TOL people, and they are honoring it. I was also worried and emailed them (ticketofalifetime@cedarpoint.com). They sent me 5 codes to use. Why 5? No idea. But 4 of them worked. They also said they are having internal issues with the "system" (whatever that means), but all TOL passes will be given the chance to renew.