..

Are they popular?

ya, there are many many forums for all topics and some of them are extremely popular

ATRL is one of the most popular ones and still it won't scratch how much MySpace is popular NOW

Some forums are massive and very popular, others get about five posts a week.

Forums are popular. ATRL isn't the only one. There are popular forums for music, bodybuilding, fanboards, politics, movies and TV, gaming, sports, etc etc.

Of course, none of them are at the popularity of social networking sites at their peaks, like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.

No, off all my friends i know maybe one uses forums.

Forums are popular within their own niches. But they are not as popular as social networks. Some people just tend to float towards forums rather than the social networking route.

reddit is pretty dang mainstream, I think
neogaf is pretty damn popular too.

basically sums up the whole argument.

With forums,you have a few more restrictions than social networks.For example,social networks don't have moderators or waiting restrictions,and you don't get plugins for forms everywhere.

Not as popular as social networks.

Plus, a forum's opinion on music is different than what people would say on Facebook and stuff. As is people's opinions on us.

For example - people on this website tend to dislike me, but these opinions aren't relevant to my real life at all (I get that NOW...of course I didn't earlier this year as everyone here knows)

The same goes for LMFAO, Nicki Minaj, Carly Rae Jepsen, and so forth.

However, that might be different for other forums. Some forums might have a more popular opinion than Facebook or twitter. You won't see many people talking about Hurricanes or tornadoes unless it's happening to them, but you can talk about them a lot on Storm2K.

Same with JustUsBoys and GayTeenForum...but people are meaner on GTF than people on Facebook.

I love forums, always have, always will. I still consider them "mainstream" and popular, but they are definitely past their peak due to the rise of social networks and blogs and everything having some sort of commenting system.

Eh, depends on each forum itself.

forums are popular. I can name extremely popular Rap/R&b etc forums who gets posts that can be 20 pages a day.

Some forums are popular like ATRL and Spill it Now. They are active all the time. But I've seen some forums that look like they are vacant. But I don't think forums are in the same status as social media.