Open Question:
Why do you like gaf so much? Do you think you can go without gaf if it shut down? Why does a site like gaf give meaning to your life?
Back when I was on GAF, I liked it because it was a great news aggregate site: if it was remotely relevant, someone made a thread about it on GAF.
Then sometime around 2007, something went very wrong and the site started turning into shit, first the gaming side but things weren't looking too rosy on the OT either. Less legitimate discussion, moar shills, moar console warrior apologists, moar zany personalities desperately seeking validation, moar stupid Gaborn news (which he ripped off fark.com; don't think people didn't know, loser), and moar bullshit to wade through.
Then about a couple of years later, the OT went to shit, stupid fark.com stories were replaced with I Wish I Didn't Know type stories (
http://iwidk.com/) and then everyone got extremely hypersensitive. All the while, discussion tailed off to nothing, and gaming side was a festering shithole.