That little bit of personality is what made forums so much fun. The early 2000s somethingawful forums were such a goldmine. I've never laughed so hard in my life at the antics between users. When this person or that guy or some infamous user would show up, it would kick off a thread and it felt so much more "real" and personal.

The ultra niche subreddits have that vibe, but as soon as they get to around 10k users, it turns into nothing but an upvote dopamine chase.

The era of niche subreddits is over these days. Reddit started ignoring subscriptions and just pooling all posts together and suggesting things the algorithm thinks you are interested in regardless of subscriptions.