“The Formspring clone has successfully passed.”
– Anonymous

The personal Q&A format borrows the Q&A system and repurposes it for individual use, allowing users to answer questions that are meant for themselves and not for a broad community. Most services allow anonymous questions, but there's usually an option to turn these off for a reason.

Considering the format's evolution from survey-taking software, the personal Q&A format is meant to be a more efficient way to collect questions, considering that the alternative is sifting through several letters and publishing them in a blog post. Obviously, there is a small element of 'ego' involved, but these platforms mainly exist for the individual's short-term personal amusement and the sender's own convenience.

However, these platforms aren't built to last since reducing clicks is the entire point, you kinda have to go out your way to read these answers, shouting at the individual on a microblogging platform is free, and you won't eliminate nasty messages either way. On the other hand, it's still important to allow shy and quiet people to have a voice that doesn't come with the baggage of a name.

The format can be traced back to Tumblr in the late 2000s where users would borrow Formspring.com to collect questions, and the two companies picked up on this, so Formstack launched Formspring.me in November 2009¹⁾ and Tumblr would release the 'ask' on January 6, 2010²⁾³⁾ which later became iconic for the 'ask blogs' phenomenon in fandom spaces. AskFM came much later in June 14, 2010.

Unfortunately, Formspring struggled with finances,⁴⁾ rebranded in 2013,⁵⁾ and eventually shut down in 2015,⁶⁾ so alternatives like CuriousCat and Retrospring emerged. Then in the mid-2020s, we'd watch CuriousCat,⁷⁾ AskFM,⁸⁾ and Retrospring⁹⁾ shutter within a 7-month span. Now, we're left with an open-ended question about what platforms could rise to the occasion: Strawpage? Neospring?

The ability to ask questions anonymously comes with the obvious downside of cowards abusing the ability for cyberbullying and harassment.¹⁰⁾¹¹⁾ This is more of an issue with younger minds that haven't figured out that you don't have to respond to every question, especially complex or loaded ones, and you ultimately have control over what people see,¹²⁾ so it's better if you silently vent to friends and/or family.

Regardless, it has led to cases of suicide^{13)14)15)16)17)} and unconventional self-harm,¹⁸⁾¹⁹⁾ which brings us to these platforms issuing empty reassuring statements^20)21)22)23) and further restrictions on anonymity. In the end, just remember to 'vent' about these things, since bottling up your emotions is unhealthy, and you have to remember that other humans are not mind readers.

From a business standpoint, these platforms do not generate a lot of traffic and have low retention by design, which is 'bad' if you're using social networking logic. Typically, the enshittification phase begins with the platform introducing more 'social' aspects, then desperation sets in once your inbox gets flooded with random questions that intend to provoke a reaction, and then the platform dies or transfers your data.

In other words, attempting to convert a personal Q&A website into a social platform is like putting the cart before the horse, it just won't work. The format arguably thrives when it's introduced as a small feature of a much larger platform, sometimes unconsciously,²⁴⁾ but you'd still have anonymous cyberbullying and hope that the staff has thick skin so they aren't trigger happy to ban you.

• The BBC News ran a news story claiming that ISIL was recruiting people on AskFM in 2014.²⁵⁾ Honestly, the internet was just like that back then, so it's kinda funny looking back at it now.
• In 2024, the FTC banned NGL from serving users under the age of 18, over deceptive practices and falsely claiming that the platform had AI content moderation.²⁶⁾

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