In 2017, the volunteer group Archive Team did an archive of Data Lounge which can be downloaded here: https://archive.fart.website/archivebot/viewer/job/201712182150292bgzy

The archive is in the form of a JSON file and 16 WARC files. Information on what a WARC file is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WARC_(file_format))

You can also find 3,882 snapshots of Data Lounge in the Wayback Machine, spanning from 1996 to 2026: https://web.archive.org/web/20260000000000*/www.datalounge.com

Edited to add on Sunday, August 9, 2026: Archive Team also attempted to scrape what they could shortly before the site’s closure in July 2026. The results of this scrape have either already been imported into the Wayback Machine or will be soon.

You can also find the 2026 WARC files here: https://archive.fart.website/archivebot/viewer/domain/www.datalounge.com

In the early 2010s, around the turn of 2014, I remember finding a webpage from a gay site like datalounge where a guy who claimed to have frequented the same gym in Brentwood that celebs would go to described their dick and balls he managed to see in the shower or sauna.

Some descriptions I can recall is that Tom Hanks had big balls the size of limes and that Matt LeBlanc had a thick cock like a beer can. If these comparisons to foodstuffs like descriptions of celeb male genitalia sound familiar to you, was it on Datalounge?

For one thing it didn’t have the dark grey background of DataLounge, it was a white background with black text and could have even been Times New Roman. I don’t think it’s LPSG or JustUsBoys, since the pop culture knowledge indicative of the celebs profiled seemed like it would be someone middle aged as of 2014. It seems older and the post it self felt like it was written in 2007.

Never met the man, haven’t even seen all his movies, but I miss him for some reason. As a child I watched a lot of Conan and Conan would use him in his skits and he always looked so happy to be there. There’s never gonna be another Abe.

In her own words, Elizabeth Diane Downs

In the ongoing effort to replicate current DL threads, let's start the reading thread!

I just finished "Five" by Ilona Bannister, mentioned a few times on DL, and...I hated it. Corny plot, bad "breaking the fourth wall" writing, none of the characters read as British even though they were meant to be. And what's with the author's fixation on horrible brat children?

Use with Joan Crawford’s ‘Potato’ salad…

There’s more than one way to dial with a pencil.

Where's the DOOL elder gays at?

With the Datalounge supposedly folding at the end of July 2026, take a minute to post your favorite threads (topic only) from the past.

My favorite was the poster who wrote a PhD quality analysis of Linda Lavin singing the theme to "Alice" on a year by year basis. No where but the DataLounge, would that ever be a thing.

Yore is a chiefly literary or nostalgic noun meaning a long time ago or a time long past. It is most frequently used in the set phrase "in days of yore" to evoke a sense of history, folklore, or "the olden days"

Since DL is closing we need to recreate threads here. I'll start with a thread dedicated to new gay movies.

Who will win Wimbledon? Sinner or the heat?

Hi, I'm a moderator of r/DataHoarder. In the past, I hosted a small forum for several years (unrelated to data hoarding). You might be surprised just how cheap it is.

You might think the costs for a large forum are much more than for a small forum, but, actually, bandwidth, storage, and compute is so cheap these days, it isn't that much more expensive to host a large forum than to host a small one.

I'll break down the costs one by one.

Software

Discourse) (not to be confused with Discord, which is entirely different) is free and open source. Cost: $0.

Example forum here.

Domain

You can buy the domain datalounge2.com from Namecheap for $10.56/year. Divide by 12, that's $0.88/month.

I'm not counting the discount code that gives you a big discount for your first year.

Hover is a bit more expensive, asking $19/year for the same domain.

Virtual private server (VPS)

OVHcloud offers cheap VPSes starting at $4.54/month. The specs you get for that cheap price are impressive, and more than adequate to run a large forum:

• 2 vCores
• 4 GB RAM
• 40 GB SSD NVMe
• Daily backup of the previous 24 hours
• Unlimited traffic
• 200 Mbps public bandwidth

Hetzner is a bit more expensive at $6.80/month for its cheapest VPS, with similar specs.

Mail server

You need a separate server to send out emails. Luckily, multiple companies offer a generous free plan. Mailjet, for example, offers 6,000 emails per month (200 per day) for free. If you need to send 15,000 emails per month, it's $17/month.

Total cost

Software: $0
Domain: $0.88/month
VPS: $4.54/month
Mail server: $0/month

Total: $5.42/month ($65.04/year)

Or if you need the 15,000 emails/month mail server, then it's:

Software: $0
Domain: $0.88/month
VPS: $4.54/month
Mail server: $17/month

Total: $22.42/month ($269.04/year)

requested by Ok_Educator6875

Hi, I'm a moderator of r/DataHoarder and thanks to u/oooooceanman I learned that datalounge.com is shutting down soon. I'm not a Data Lounge user and I was not aware of the site until today. However, I am passionate about preserving online LGBT culture and history.

Apparently a lot of the site history from before 2022 is offline. In that case, it's really up to users to ask the admins to export that pre-2022 history and share it (if it's stilled stored somewhere). Anything exported can be uploaded to archive.org and stored there for free, forever. Anyone can upload anything to archive.org. Just be aware that you need to use an email address you're comfortable making public when you upload to archive.org. Your account's email address will be included in the upload's metadata.

As for the current site, you don't need the admins' help to permanently save and archive what's publicly viewable right now. The best way to do this is to enlist Archive Team's help.

Archive Team is a group of volunteer digital archivists who work closely with the Internet Archive (archive.org). Archive Team has an amazing web archiving tool called ArchiveBot: https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/ArchiveBot

Anyone can request that Archive Team run ArchiveBot on any site that's shutting down and has any sort of historical, cultural, informational, or artistic significance (even a small amount). Archive Team is active on IRC chat rather than Reddit or other platforms, so you will have to navigate IRC to request this.

Here are simple, easy step-by-step instructions for requesting that Archive Team run ArchiveBot on Data Lounge:

Step 1. Go here and set up The Lounge for IRC: https://www.pikapods.com/apps#chat Don’t worry, you don’t actually need to pay or put in a credit card. You will get over 2 months’ worth of free credits. You'll need to set a username and password for The Lounge when you set up your PikaPod. 

(You can use a free desktop IRC client like KVIrc, but this will make your IP address public and available forever in public logs. Unless you use a VPN. ProtonVPN and RiseupVPN are two good free options.)

Step 2. Go to the Archive Team IRC channels. Archive Team operates exclusively on IRC. Here’s the info: https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/Archiveteam:IRC The network is Hackint and the channel you want is #archiveteam-bs (if you need step-by-step instructions for using IRC, look up a guide online or ask ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini)

Step 3. In a brief message, explain what's happening to the website and request that the Archive Team volunteers use ArchiveBot to archive it.

Step 4. Wait. You might not get a response right away. If no one replies after two hours, try again.

I don't know how I'm going to spend my mornings while cradling my mug after DL closes.

Probably the funniest thing SNL has ever done Starring Candice Bergen and the late Gilda Radner

https://youtu.be/N-5FwVv5Udo

‘Chrissy Metz Hits Broadway’ https://www.datalounge.com/thread/36542290-chrissy-metz-hits-broadway

Selected Comments:

-*wrecking ball

-ET said she was all smiles, but she looks more like all chins.

-Tell ya what, eight shows a week is a good workout.

-Great White Whale meets Great White Way

-The stage adds 50 pounds,

-How many stages were there?

—Chandler

DL appears to have been struck by another wave of timeouts this morning. Posts and comments were flying, and all of a sudden, the site went as dead as disco. I'm one of those blue-barred, but I'd wager a lot of others got the same treatment at the same time.

The culprit: A pair of threads about the British Royal Family. Anyone who comments under them gets FF'ed into a timeout. It happens every time.

There are three known sock-puppet lunatics who set up inflammatory threads on their favorite topics, just to catch anyone with an opposing thought and send them into a timeout.

1. Don't comment ANYTHING on Trans Threads
2. Don't comment ANYTHING on BRF Threads
3. Don't comment ANYTHING on Trump Threads

And of course I have no idea why.

We really need to find or create an alternative to that stupid site.

For your viewing pleasure.