Your Online Origins

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Founding myth of the WWW community: it was better in the 'old days'. No it wasn't: it was full of tiresome people marking out territory with rhetorical piss and griping about the 'newbies'.

So when did you get online? And when did the web get good? (If it has).

― Tom, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I've been on the web since late 1994, a fact that scares me every time I think about it. Almost 7 years! And it still seems like the modern interweb to me.

No, it wasn't better in the old days, but it was quite cute. I wish someone had saved all the HTML pages from the time. I get nostalgic for pictures of cats with a blink tagged caption.

― Nick, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I got online only around 95 or 96. (My dad had the old usenet or whatever it was called in the very early 90s, but we weren't allowed to use it, hence dud!)

There was a definitely marked commercialisation around the end of the 90s. Like... it used to be that the web would the place that weirdos and freaks would go to get away from shopping mall and meat market mentality. Then, all of a sudden, the web had just become another shopping mall and meat market.

But the weirdos and freaks will always find separate places to gather and continue our freakhood.

The one thing that I will say is continually getting better about the web is the increased female presence. More of the recent stats I've been seeing have been indicating a nearly 50/50 split, which is good and meet and right and as it should be. There was a long time when I'd be the only female on a lot of the forums I hung out on.

― masonic boom, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

1993/94 at first, but not seriously until I went to college in '95. It was so bad that when I left college I had to buy a computer because of internet withdrawal symptoms.

The whole thing has become more and more commercial. It's probably easier to use now though.

― Paul Strange, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

But the 'commercialisation' was also a 'democratisation' - yes there were lots of crappy shops but the HUGENESS of the WWW meant there were lots of everything else too. And also people other than coders and web designers could do stuff quick and easy = good thing.

Gender stats - current web use stats in the US: 52% female 48% male (rounding to nearest %). UK is about 60m 40f - Scandinavian countries about 55m 45f - central Europe (Italy/France/Germany) still about 2/3 male.

― Tom, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

never touched it 'til early 2000. it's hard to believe it was that recent that i knew nuthin about computers or the internet or any of this shit 'cause it is MAJOR in my life now. nobody ever called me a 'newbie' altho' a few mean teenagers sometimes sneered at me (at least i assume that's what they were doing, i could not penetrate their beyond-norman-fay krazy lingo).

― duane, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Dabbled earlier (buying CDs via friend's access) but properly from 96 when I bought a PowerMac. By 97 email wuz my preferred work-related communication method. Am unaware of "old days" nostalgia, tho' don't doubt it exists among select pockets of cackfoamers.

― AP, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

late '93. I was (still am) a nurd. there wasn't actually anything that interesting then, except shareware and pirate software and Usenet before the days of SPAM. WWW was nacent and there were things like gopher and archie to find info. Slow modems and non resumable downloads.

that is my first attempt at a web page, started in 1995 i think.

― Ed, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

The internet will only be good when it's accepted as a means of communication, and not an object in itself. For example, you don't feel ashamed of saying "I was watching this thing on telly..." in the pub but if you say "I was reading this thing on the internet..." it still feels very geeky and out of place. Once it's just a method of getting to more cool stuff then it'll be alright.

― Greg, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I got online in about '91 or so. The web "got good" in the past few years or so, as more and more of my friends started spending time online, and people got over their hangups about it. What the hell is wrong with wanting to chat with people of similar interests, anyway?

― Kerry Keane, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I had an account back in 1991 but never really understood it or its uses -- UCLA could set you up but didn't provide much guidance, so I had to fumble around. When I went to UCI I ignored the Net until a fellow grad did a miniclass on it in spring 1993, so I got a new account there and the ball started rolling. Discovering the newsgroups fully in fall 1993 pretty much sealed it, I heard about this 'alt.music.alternative' website and from there...

The Web/Net/etc. has always been a blast. Like life, there's good and bad, so I can't complain. Though I still remember the ire when aol.com messages started appearing in 1995 or so. ;-)

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

'93, I just kind of used IRC because we thought it was dead funny to go into chat rooms and watch men hit on us for virtue of having a female nick. I started dating a guy with a BBS so I got into that then, probably around '95? Yeah, '95, late '95. Passed the time in college, I skipped math class and went to the computer lab and ordered people around on the bbs instead, it was great.

― Ally, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I started doing the Prodigy bulletin boards in '90, then graduated to Usenet and IRC in '91 when I went to college. Up until this past year, the vast majority of my online community time was Usenet and email based. Thanks, ILM and ILE, for proving that web forums don't have to suck!

― Dan Perry, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I first got online when I went to university in 1996. It took me a further year, however, to work out to receive emails. I'm a bit slow like that. I mean it's not as if computing was part of my.....no, wait...

Like Paul I had to buy a computer when I left uni in order to satisfy my desire for more net.

― Ally C, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

This — well, THAT [points] — was my first ever board. I was offput less by content than format before this, I have to say: bad info organisation, taking forever to download. I get bored quickly. Once here, I like the range of foax and topics, and the fluidity of atmosphere.

― mark s, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

1995, I think - I had a 286 with a 2400 modem, so I could only use BBSs, and it was a bit crap. However in 1997 my brother and I finally persuaded my dad to get a proper PC, so we did, and signed up to...ViginNet if I remember correctly. I used to use IRC all the time, but that got boring and now I use the interweb for communication and research.

― DG, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I used som e terminal email in 1994, but the first time I really realised what the www was becoming was when I went to the COcteau Twins Web site and first learned Princess Diana was dead online before in other media. 1996

― Mike Hanle y, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Blimey a whole year before other media. That was quick.

― Tom, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Conclusive proof that the Cocteau Twins AREN'T TWEE - they murdered Princess Diana and managed to keep up a global conspiracy of silence for twelve months!

― Nick, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I've my pc 3-1/2 years. I'm still klutzy with it, but much better than when I started.

― Lesley Higgins, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Never really used a modern PC/Mac until abt 4/5 years ago. Finally got given my own laptop (nice black G4 mac) by my company when I was promoted at the start of this year - before that had to share my flatmate's puter, not too good for surfing. Browsing S. Reynolds' site one day at work, I click on link for Freaky Trigger/ILM and am gobsmacked when I find that it is the work of my former bookshop colleague T. Ewing. At first, am slightly nervous about invading Tom's patch - and still full of stoopid prejudices abt net nerds etc. - but sheer quality of site, and addictive nature of ILM chat, makes it impossible for me to keep my trap shut and just lurk. Kodwo Eshun begins freelancing at my company - Tom and I used to buy in his review copies, so sort of know him from back in the day - and his v. enthusiastic praise for the site further convinces me that it is not 'uncool' to contribute. Still don't lurk on any other boards/rooms - subscribed to the Wire mailing list for a while but it was v. v. bad - and have absolutely no idea what the fuck IRC is. Hope to finally put a few names to faces this Saturday, but have stupidly taken on some hack freelance work that I've procastinated to death and deadlines LOOM, so we shall see..

― Andrew L, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

i guess i first went online in around 95, not very often, mainly on the stereolab site at university of monash. learnt html and started a site at the tail end of 98. i haven't been on any of these alt.music things people talk about (or newsgroups) - i'm still not entirely sure what they really are

― gareth, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Got online in around 1996, I used to annoy people at a chatroom called "the Cutie Club" (there's one other occasional poster here, who I sorta know from there!)...eventually, I stopped annoying people and got on okay there...then it sort of dissapated (I miss it, but it's gone, well, it's still there), then I went to ILM, which was okay for a while until I posted some question about electronica, and realised I knew jack about music (maybe I like music, but don't love it), then this place started, and I established myself as lower order attention seeker (I like most of you)...though I'd rather be an idiot savant.

― james e l, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Mid 1997, with an Atari ST. Fortunately my brother dropped out of university that year and was forced to sell his Mac to my dad to pay off enormous debts, and I suddenly found out that using it on a proper computer was just as dull and pointless as when I was waiting half an hour per page. I don't think the commercialisation thing really affected the rest of the internet (apart from it now being fantastically difficult to find the Search box on Altavista's home page). I only really started using the internet for anything interesting last year, and discovered loads of interesting things had happened since I started, like the whole world of blogging.

― Graham, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

There's lots of good free from pop up advertising places on the Internet, isn't Google.com (the webs best search engine) a prime example?

― james e l, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

1993 maybe? And it got good, for me, in 1994 or so when I put up a web server, hosting my own pages and everything, and realized just what exactly it let me do.

― Josh, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

SHut up you fuckers, you know what I meant!

― Mike Hanle y, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I was actually there (very briefly) at ground zero of real-time internet chat back in 1987 or 1988, I was just in highschool then but a few times I got to log in to the original Galacticomm multi-user BBS down in Florida from my dad's computer in a government office. I thought that was just the coolest thing, getting to chat with cute boys so far away. I didn't come back until 1996, and found IRC and WBS (Webchat Broadcasting System) which was a graphically based chat board. That was ruined when it was bought up by the pesky GO Network so I looked elsewhere, ending up as a moderator on one of the discussion boards over at ChickClick - I was in limbo for a long while, until I somehow stumbled onto Freaky Trigger and on to ILM last January. I've been only half here tho, as real life intrudes much more now than it used to. heh. But, somehow I think I do actually prefer that initial six to ten months or so when I came on in '96. Something about the enthusiasm and innocence of all the 'newbies'. C-sex was actually still a shocking concept. I know that there's probably just as much good as bad in the world's new 'ho hum' attitude towards sex and taboos in general, but I can't help but miss how exciting that time felt. The desire to simply communicate with others has never seemed as strong since. Most live chat rooms now are utterly depressing, segmented, and predictable - in 1996 they were full of a much wider spectrum of folks, unjaded, which resulted in something that was much more fun.

ILM/ILE captures some small part of that 'newness' for me - hence part of why I like it.

― Kim, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Ten months ago.

― D*A*V*I*D*M, Wednesday, 18 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Best years of the web = your first two.

― Sterling Clover, Thursday, 19 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

been on and off for 4 or 5 years. But cable that is a sexy beast.

― anthony, Thursday, 19 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Absolutely not, Sterling. I was stuck with a godawful e-mail address that ran something like 'eahg119@ea.oac.uci.edu' for my first two years. Icky!

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 19 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

1996. the national capital freenet was still a beautiful thing at that time w/ active discussion groups and irc. a good place to learn about all kinds of things. mostly posted to groups concerning music or politics (was much more of an activist then) but read about philosophy, science, social stuff. usenet was still useful then too. i posted, at various times and in varying degrees, to a.m.a. (how i got into the whole ft loop of course), alt.music.sonic-youth, a.m.joydivision, a.m.lou-reed, a.m.iggy-pop, rec.music.industrial, a.m.smiths, and others.

e-mail became a large part of my life, though it is less so now. it became a social crutch of sorts, allowing me to say to people all the things i could never say to their faces.

― sundar subramanian, Thursday, 19 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.