The thread was created by @TheBuddha on 8.20.2017 as an encouragement and incentive for others to share their joy of playing music. The very first thread was titled "Is this where we share our work?" with a comment by him of "Should we do this again, say in about a week?". It wasn't until about 3 months later it became a weekly thread, still with no "official" title, and comments such as "Even non-guitarists can share their work, I suppose. We might as well do this on a regular basis." and "Let's open up the weekly guitar thread - see commentary. All musicians and fans are welcome to contribute." Even with a constant invitation for other instruments to participate, it was the guitarists who responded for the first year or so.
It was 2/23/18 when he first used the term "Friday night guitar thread" (notice the lower case) IN the title but not as a formal branding. For quite a while after that it was mentioned as "...Weekly Guitar Thread". The first time I can find where it was called Friday Night Guitar Thread was in a reminder post I made on 9/7/18, over a year after it started, and first used in the actual thread title was 9/29/18 by @crazy_eyes. It still wasn't used each week until 3/3/19 when it became the default title used. BTW, crazy_eyes was the second person to ever post a track and has since become the most prolific submitter.
After 3.5 years and being the longest-running, most consistent thread on Voat, on 12/24/2020 we held our last thread on Voat. The site shut down for good the next day but we were prepared and moved the FNGT to Poal.co. As of this writing we have yet to hold our first thread there but have high hopes it will be well received and be successful there. Many Voat submitters are following the thread over there and a few new musicians have said they'll become submitters. The future is being written anew.
Along the way, it was mentioned in almost every thread that all musicians and instruments were not just welcomed but encouraged to submit. In fact, we still are doing that even now. We have had everything from banging on pots and pans, to marimba, bagpipes, piano, violin, ukulele, drums, synths, and more contributed.
