NeoGAF

About

NeoGAF is a gaming forum, originally hosted on the news site Gaming Age as “Gaming-Age Forums”. Due to the significant impact it and its communities have on the industry and the talented members, it has been the origin of many memes and gif images. The site is particular active during the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) held every June.

The forum is notable for its strict moderation, with new users having to wait months or more than a year to be approved to reach the “junior member” status and at least another 6 months to become regular members. A slight case of misbehavior may result in ban or permanent ban by the administrators.

Origin

The original “Gaming-Age Forums” was established in 1999, and was later relaunched as “NeoGAF” in 2006 with two major forum sections: “Gaming”^[1] and “Off-topic”^[2]. It has been said that a lot of the members joined the forums for the gaming side, and stayed for the off-topic discussions. Two more sections: “Gaming Community” and “Off-topic Community” were later added.

Memes

Some of the memes that came out of the forum include, but not limited to: Dudebro, Translator San, All my friends are dead, the #TeamCG vs. #TeamReal debate and Adam Orth’s “Always On” Twitter Gaffe.

Logo and Mascot

The official logo of NeoGAF is a green and orange colored circle. This logo featured in the video game “Scribblenauts” as an easter egg.

Although the forum does not have an official mascot, in a recent thread where users were asked to create one, two popular candidates emerged. One of them being GAF-Man, a socially awkward superhero figure. The second one being Belle Eve, the mascot of PonyGaf from one of the site’s communities^[3].

Traffic and Search Interest

As of April 8, 2013, Neogaf.com is currently ranked #3,922 in the world according to Alexa traffic rankings^[4]. On October 11, 2010, a local journalist visited the site from North Korea, which at that time marked the moment when the site had received visits from all the countries in the world plus Antarctica^[5].

External References