They really weren’t that impressive. The first 1,200 posts all said “ top 1,000! Wohoo!”
Actually, when it degenerated to that and "What's your inner cheeseburger?" type posts is when I stopped being an active part.
Where we really lost out was the back-n-forth silliness. People posting jokes is good, but people responding and building is even better.
Do you remember opposite day? Of course not!