If you have any pressing questions you need answered, think quick: Yahoo Answers is shutting down next month.
A message on the Yahoo Answers site announced that the forum will cease to exist on May 4, and that as of April 20 it will be “read-only mode,” meaning no new questions can be submitted. A letter sent to Yahoo Answers community members states: “While Yahoo Answers was once a key part of Yahoo’s products and services, it has become less popular over the years as the needs of our members have changed.”
This truly is the end of an era. Yahoo Answers, which debuted in 2005, gave us one of the most enduring memes: “How is babby formed?” And we can’t forget the follow-up question on that 2006 post: “How girl get pragnent?” This was the nature of Yahoo Answers—cringeworthy, often misspelled questions, and answers that weren’t always accurate or factually correct. One recent question about President Biden asks, “Why does Joe stutter so much like a r****d and looks older than the tales from the crypt keeper?”
On Twitter, people lamented that with just a month’s notice, the Yahoo Answers archiving process won’t be funded or supported, or that an important part of early aughts internet culture will be lost. Some people started archiving the best posts for posterity.
People are already stepping up to try to save Yahoo Answers. Fans of the podcast My Brother, My Brother and Me, which is heavily focused on answering Yahoo Answers questions, are calling on the McElroy brothers to save it.