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30 Weird Things About The Early Internet You May Have Forgotten Shared By People On Reddit
The internet has come a long way. A really, really, really long way. Though since I don't remember much of the early internet, I often forget about the fact that it used to be a lot different than what we have today. After all, I'm only 22—I haven't been around for that long.
Despite that—or, perhaps, because of that—it was always quite interesting for me to hear stories and learn new facts about the old-school interwebs. That's why this particular Reddit thread was just right up my alley. A few weeks ago, a Reddit user @DevilYouKnow posted on the site asking fellow users to name the weirdest things they remember about the early days of the internet. As per usual, redditors delivered. In addition, while looking through the users' answers, I happened to learn quite a few new things that I had no idea about. For instance, I didn't know that back in the day, people weren't able to simultaneously use the internet and the phone!
Without further ado, Bored Panda invites you to look through some of the weirdest things people remember about the early internet. As always, feel free to add your own in the comment section!
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I dunno. But, I really miss the way recipes used to be shared online. No scrolling through a giant website of background story of the recipe and countless ads. It was literally just the text of the recipe, with comments under of how to tweak that recipe. We were so spoiled by the simplicity and immediacy of ingredient lists back then and we didn’t even know it.
Starting a download before you went to bed so it would be done when you got up the next morning.
Only to find out that someone disconnected you from the internet and your download failed.
Telling people not to use the phone because you were on the internet.
And that download that stopped at 99% because your mother had to call aunt Betty.
I miss the independence and creativity of the early web. You could surf it for interesting topics developed by people as a hobby for hours and not ever run into anything corporate. That has completely reversed now, sadly.
The days that Google was your friendly search-engine. That has completely reversed now, sadly.
Who here remembers Netscape Navigator being the best browser?
"BADGER, BADGER, BADGER MUSHROOM MUSHROOM!"
I only have to see the picture and the song starts playing in my head. Thanks BP, back into therapy for another six months now!
I remember entire websites dedicated to customizing your cursor
The early days of CSS & HTML with cursor effects, far too many different fonts, visitor counters on every website, inexplicable scrolling text, animated gifs everywhere, etc.
It was an assault on the senses, but it was also glorious!
Amazon was still a bookstore.
Amazon was a bookstore? That makes a little sense because of their logoś meaning...
The always present 'under construction' sign as well.
The early internet was awash in black background with dayglo fonts and it was glorious. And they were all connected in little rings.
Ah, yes, I recall the Web Ring thing fondly. I had a VERY popular X-Files site back when, for example, and (once you passed the audition and someone approved) you could join a group of other X-Files sites in a ring. At the bottom of your page, you'd display the group's ring graphic and it linked to the next site on the list. Funny to remember that one of the reasons your site would not be approved is if you had too much advertising or commercial links. How refreshing would that be today, eh?
Dial up that would charge you by the minute. People today don't know how good they have it.
I remember my friend showing me some flaming text on his school intranet page and I thought it was the absolute f****** future
I must be older than anyone here, because the "early days" of the internet was back when years still started with 19. And there were NO RULES. There was no online tracking, no ad-bots, just no enforcement of any kind. Essentially the internet then was what the dark net is now. Anything could be found, but only if you knew where to look. Search engines were all but useless and nothing was protected for s***. A few hours in a dumpster full of paper could get you access to nearly anything. That was the early days of the internet.
The early Internet was arcnet, used by the military. The fact that nothing was protected meant that creepers could freely pass along things like child porn without getting caught. Oh the good old days. Yes, that’s sarcasm.
Part of it was. Other parts were academic networks. The one I remember in was Janet in the UK (Joint Academic Network). We used to spend hours on UglyMUG.
Load More Replies...There still isn't any enforcement. Governments pretend that they can rule what's happening on the internet or what you are allowed to see, but in reality there are endless possibilities to dodge all the rules and bans and blocks.
alt.binaries. If you could think of it, there was probably a usenet group for it.
Not that different now, again it's all about knowing where to look.
Those were the times. Even the internet for dummies books sold in the mainstream bookstores were explaining the use of usenet news with pointing to very NSFW alt.s* groups.. :D
The fact that muting your computer didn't get rid of the dial up noise.
It your computer had a virus, you knew. Nowadays, aside from ransomware, viruses are a bunch of uncreative sneaky bois that steal passwords or slow your computer down for a botnet.
My old computer had this weird worm virus that would give a countdown to when it would shut my computer off randomly. I would be chatting on MSN or Yahoo! and I'd have to tell everyone "worm attack, brb"
Aol chat rooms. I do miss those tho.
Newsgroups filled the chat hole for me. I'm still friends with people I met on the alt.culture.us.1970s group from some 25 years ago.
This just gave me flashbacks. This is why I think a lot of GenX/early Millenials are pretty tech saavy. There were no GUIs for software, no pretty websites on the internet, nothing to "Google" for help. You had to be so damned persistent but it made you really understand things. Now I teach GenZ students and although they mostly have superior social media skills, they really struggle to understand how parts of a computer function together. I've spent hours trying to explain the difference between a local and remote drive, browsers and enabling extensions, clearing a cache, using suites of apps like Google Apps or Office, etc. Especially with so much college learning shifted to a remote format this year, it really showed some of the holes in our childrens' education in using technology.
My friend's mom's reaction when I replaced AOL's "you've got mail" with "you've got porn"
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t see anyone mentioning the dancing baby??? He was so creepy! My mom was stunned that technology could create something “so lifelike” and was obsesssssed. I miss the program I had to create ‘storybooks’, it let you edit the stickers and recolor everything, clicking tiny little pixel boxes for hours Clickclickclick
Never needing to pay for AOL. Free discs were everywhere. I used them as frisbee.
All the random s*** on Limewire under completely different titles
Trying not to blow your load waiting 30-50 seconds for a picture to load fully from top to bottom
Every software you download was a toolbar on internet explorer
How AOL didn't use URLs. Every "website" had a keyword, meaning that every topic literally only had one website. I remember when Nickelodeon would constantly promote themselves on TV and said "Log on to AOL keyword 'Nick!'" meaning that that was literally the only place you could see Nickelodeon content.
AOL definitely did have urls, the aol keywords were just like using a search engine
An email costing 5p. Every minute of being online costing 1p. Having to manually write http://www. Otherwise the website wouldn't load. Trying multiple times to log on using a dial up modem. Some days it just wouldn't work. The fact that you couldn't be online if someone in your household was on the phone. The agony when after logging on after 10 attempts someone in the household would pick up the phone which would instantly drop the connection.
Waiting 5 minutes to load one email page (AOL)...You've got mail.
The idea that websites with psychedelic colors was a thing
Mp3 sites where you'd click a link, and be transferred to a similar site... in which you should click and repeat the process, only to find nothing in the end. Some had names like "illegal-mp3s.com" or something.
And MP3 files that didn't contain the song you were looking for, but an ad of some kind.
Usenet newsgroups. I downloaded more stuff through that than any torrent sites now.
It's still a huge source for all kinds of content. Music, video, e-books, pictures.
Might be dating myself, but I guess what constituted as memes. Basically all of them could be found on albinoblacksheep or newgrounds. I realize it’s not the EARLY internet, but it was nearly 20 years ago in maybe 2002? I basically only visited those two sites and neopets...
Neopets! I went there, still got the old account from my youth lol. That was a blast from the past!
My step dad made a ‘receiver’ to steal the neighbours internet out of a strainer covered in tinfoil. I’m sure there was more to it but that’s how my 12 year old brain perceived it.
TIME CUBE. Look it up.
I have no words for this site... if you want life to make sense don’t look this up, kids!
Angelfire
Windows Themes customs. Where you'd download a theme and it would change icons, cursors, color, text, sounds, Everything! Now it's just backgrounds. booo
I'd forgotten about that. There is a dark theme. Not the same, I know, but it is nice when you enter "cave mode" during winter and just want to sit in the dark.
Load More Replies...I have my mom's old computer from when she was just out of college and teaching(late 1990's i think). There is no wifi, but there is a Crossword app and several games. oh, and a really basic text editor. That's it, but it's kinda fun to play on! (i'm 13)
I'm not sure "google" and "css" qualify as early days of the internet. I remember using Altavista for searches. Can't recall if it was the first search engine I used, though.
Amen. I remember Google was the new kid on the block after Ask Jeeves and Altavista etc.
Load More Replies...I miss the optimism and the sense of adventure on the internet, before the corporations moved in and made it all samey-same corporate safe. Now there is no free speech, only the grumblings of ill mannered peons against their overlords and sycophants. Those that grumble too loudly or with too much heresy are subjected to the Inquisition of the Twitterati. Even the transaction brokers like Mastercard have bent the knee to our corporate overlords and ceased to service heretics. The internet, which was a great and freeing invention, has turned to our snare and our chains. And the worst of it is that we are being manipulated by algorithms that control the information we see, and that informs the opinions we hold about ourselves and our world.
I definitely agree about modern algorithms: how can I learn anything new or see anything that us contrary to my current opinions, when my feed is being cut and tailored *scowl*
Load More Replies...I used to be a webdev back in the asp on iis 4 thru 6, the web designers and us would spend ages optimising the code, the html and the graphics so the pages would load as fast as possible. It's one of my pet peeves with the current iteration of web design, they've never had to deal with slow connections and clunky browsers so nothing's optimised properly and the sheer number of professional companies with slow plodding retail sites that swallow memory and processor, not to mention the 3rd party crap that's embedded into the sites, half of which is a massive security risk.
ICQ! And that uhoh sound when you got a message. Napster, Winamp and Winamp Skins. Ah those early days of the internet were glorious!
I do have the ICQ uh-oh as my mobile message tone as we speak.
Load More Replies...Ah yes, the segue between paper encyclopedias and the internet being reliable! I've still got Encarta '96, I remember the best part was there were game activities, and some weird maze too
Load More Replies...I really wanted there to be “ cat I’m a kitty cat and I dance dance dance and I dance dance dance” sad also! Sesame streeet
Chatrooms, cheap Angelfire sites of famous people made by teens, slow loading, dial up sounds, not sharing with the phone... I also used floppy disks! First day with Internet in 1996, I was almost 11. Typed in burgerking, mcdonalds, saw the logo and thought it was cool. Then, to be silly, typed in playboy. My older brother yelled to my mom-who didnt hear-but I had to close it and announce I was kidding.
Everyone had their own websites hosted by angelfire. I remember teaching myself HTML so I could do scrolling text. ICQ was a popular chat app. MPlayer was a popular voice chat.
There was so much random creative content. My husband used to find parody songs of all sorts of topics he loved to listen to and now it's so hard to find good parody songs. He used to listen to one that was supposed to be Sadam Hussein singing "Why you hate me, George Bush?" and he's sad he can't find it anymore. YouTube has done a lot to end original creative content, too, which is just sad.
I long for the days our computers shall scream at us again
Load More Replies...When you had a paper due and went too the library! Reading books at night instead of YouTube because your parents were watching 60 minutes on the only tv in the house! Asking a girl out in person instead of facebooking her! And a ton more
You are out of the loop if you think kids are on facebook these days. That is like three new popular platforms ago.
Load More Replies...I remember the early 2000s when it was a thing to try and get past the firewalls that blocked sites on school internet networks. Using Proxy sites and hacking into the teacher's internet network that had more freedoms.
And what do you get now? Advertisements. Everywhere. Once there were a network for imformation sharing, how that is for pushing random stuff to your face to buy it. :(
(Simply search for how to take apart something to repair it. You will not find on Google, but you can buy a ton of the same device :D )
Load More Replies...Windows Themes customs. Where you'd download a theme and it would change icons, cursors, color, text, sounds, Everything! Now it's just backgrounds. booo
I'd forgotten about that. There is a dark theme. Not the same, I know, but it is nice when you enter "cave mode" during winter and just want to sit in the dark.
Load More Replies...I have my mom's old computer from when she was just out of college and teaching(late 1990's i think). There is no wifi, but there is a Crossword app and several games. oh, and a really basic text editor. That's it, but it's kinda fun to play on! (i'm 13)
I'm not sure "google" and "css" qualify as early days of the internet. I remember using Altavista for searches. Can't recall if it was the first search engine I used, though.
Amen. I remember Google was the new kid on the block after Ask Jeeves and Altavista etc.
Load More Replies...I miss the optimism and the sense of adventure on the internet, before the corporations moved in and made it all samey-same corporate safe. Now there is no free speech, only the grumblings of ill mannered peons against their overlords and sycophants. Those that grumble too loudly or with too much heresy are subjected to the Inquisition of the Twitterati. Even the transaction brokers like Mastercard have bent the knee to our corporate overlords and ceased to service heretics. The internet, which was a great and freeing invention, has turned to our snare and our chains. And the worst of it is that we are being manipulated by algorithms that control the information we see, and that informs the opinions we hold about ourselves and our world.
I definitely agree about modern algorithms: how can I learn anything new or see anything that us contrary to my current opinions, when my feed is being cut and tailored *scowl*
Load More Replies...I used to be a webdev back in the asp on iis 4 thru 6, the web designers and us would spend ages optimising the code, the html and the graphics so the pages would load as fast as possible. It's one of my pet peeves with the current iteration of web design, they've never had to deal with slow connections and clunky browsers so nothing's optimised properly and the sheer number of professional companies with slow plodding retail sites that swallow memory and processor, not to mention the 3rd party crap that's embedded into the sites, half of which is a massive security risk.
ICQ! And that uhoh sound when you got a message. Napster, Winamp and Winamp Skins. Ah those early days of the internet were glorious!
I do have the ICQ uh-oh as my mobile message tone as we speak.
Load More Replies...Ah yes, the segue between paper encyclopedias and the internet being reliable! I've still got Encarta '96, I remember the best part was there were game activities, and some weird maze too
Load More Replies...I really wanted there to be “ cat I’m a kitty cat and I dance dance dance and I dance dance dance” sad also! Sesame streeet
Chatrooms, cheap Angelfire sites of famous people made by teens, slow loading, dial up sounds, not sharing with the phone... I also used floppy disks! First day with Internet in 1996, I was almost 11. Typed in burgerking, mcdonalds, saw the logo and thought it was cool. Then, to be silly, typed in playboy. My older brother yelled to my mom-who didnt hear-but I had to close it and announce I was kidding.
Everyone had their own websites hosted by angelfire. I remember teaching myself HTML so I could do scrolling text. ICQ was a popular chat app. MPlayer was a popular voice chat.
There was so much random creative content. My husband used to find parody songs of all sorts of topics he loved to listen to and now it's so hard to find good parody songs. He used to listen to one that was supposed to be Sadam Hussein singing "Why you hate me, George Bush?" and he's sad he can't find it anymore. YouTube has done a lot to end original creative content, too, which is just sad.
I long for the days our computers shall scream at us again
Load More Replies...When you had a paper due and went too the library! Reading books at night instead of YouTube because your parents were watching 60 minutes on the only tv in the house! Asking a girl out in person instead of facebooking her! And a ton more
You are out of the loop if you think kids are on facebook these days. That is like three new popular platforms ago.
Load More Replies...I remember the early 2000s when it was a thing to try and get past the firewalls that blocked sites on school internet networks. Using Proxy sites and hacking into the teacher's internet network that had more freedoms.
And what do you get now? Advertisements. Everywhere. Once there were a network for imformation sharing, how that is for pushing random stuff to your face to buy it. :(
(Simply search for how to take apart something to repair it. You will not find on Google, but you can buy a ton of the same device :D )
Load More Replies...