Oh, you think the darkness is your ally. But you merely adopted the dark.
I was on social media before web browsers existed. I am Legion.
Submitted 2 weeks ago by BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/dba47e57-3459-4350-bf0a-fdbfee294f5c.jpeg
Comments
Hackworth@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
hOrni@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Do not cite the deep magic to me witch, I was there when it was written.
wjrii@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m not trapped in here with you. You’re trapped in here with me!
Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
I came here to make this exact quote. Good job bro!
phx@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
“I have usernames older than you” is actually a pretty sick burn
doug@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
My Reddit account was 19 years old before I was permabanned by their stupid AI for liking Luigi pics and saying I wish Trump wouldn’t wake up in response to a pic of him napping 😔
DagwoodIII@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Saw it on an episode of MASH.
Henry is dating a 22 year old nurse. Hawkeye tells Henry that Henry has bunions older than his girlfriend.
knobbysideup@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Not really.
CaptPretentious@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I will income the old words
A/S/L
WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
WhiskyTangoFoxtrot slaps CaptPretentious around a bit with a large troutmusubibreakfast@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s like I’m back on quakenet!
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
DiscworldMUD?
W98BSoD@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
18/Cali/F
BreadOven@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
55/male/Stalingrad
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
We were and still are all f16s
SuspciousCarrot78@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
head nod
16/F/Cali
LemmyThinkAboutIt@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I actually was 15/f/ca. I love that it has become an internet inside joke. I spent way too much time in the Yahoo star wars chat rooms back then 😅
usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
These kids have never been slapped around a bit with a large trout and it shows.
W98BSoD@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
W98BSoD slaps usualsuspect191 around with a large trout
greedytacothief@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Shit, my steam account is older than most of the highschoolers I work with
Alaknar@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
My Steam account is almost 18 years old and I still have to select DOB when viewing “adult” games…
ulterno@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Well, I guess Steam won’t have a problem with California law
SleeplessCityLights@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
My steam account is older than the fresh University grad we just hired.
YoiksAndAway@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
I’ve known adventures, seen places you people will never see, I’ve been on university work terminals and back… frontiers! I’ve stood on the back deck of Usenet bound for Mosaic with sweat in my eyes watching Netscape Navigator fight on the shoulder of the internet… I’ve felt wind in my hair, riding Lynx off of monochrome monitors and seen usegroups burn like a match and disappear. I’ve seen it, felt it…!
JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Like ASCII tears in a digital rain
slaacaa@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Time to dial
SanctimoniousApe@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
The true measure of your worth: do you prefer amber, green, or true B&W?
FrChazzz@lemmus.org 2 weeks ago
Pretty sure the first C prompt I ever encountered was amber. Will always have a soft spot for it.
JaymesRS@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
My terminal used to be set up such that local terminal usage was green & black and remote was amber.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
When my main (only) programming language was TurboBASIC, I was amber all the way.
DmMacniel@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
bye
VoteNixon2016@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Assuming y’all aren’t just fucking around, reading the comments here is actually really cool, tangentially interacting with people who have internet stories from well before I was born
I’m just from the dialup era, and I still feel old online a lot of the time, but then someone here is like “yeah, Berners-Lee invented HTTP just to make a website to mock me”
gluestick@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
We are of similar eras. I just missed the days of building phreak boxes and it was always a bit of wonder to me.
While it’s harder these days for a litany of reasons I think it’s still in our collective interest to be bearers of stories, old and new, to the neophytes of the current generation.
I guess what I’m saying is, I am in your camp but to my kid’s generation we are still warlocks
VoteNixon2016@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
So much of the wonder of computers and networks and just… all of it has been abstracted away
So many people just have phones or tablets as the majority of their computer experience
Hikermick@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I got my first “home computer” in the days of the BBS’s when there was such a thing as a “long distance call”. Internet access was crazy expensive and not for the average geek. Back then it was a bit “underground”. There were professionals and there were passionate hobbyists. Most people didn’t have or need a computer in their lives. Things changed in the late 90’s boom. A cultural shift when suddenly everyone joined in. The geeks were no longer king
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
When we upgraded from the Atari whatsit box to a 286 it was amazing
gigastasio@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Friends, hear my story…
In the days of old, the days where 300 baud modems were bought by us, the Early Adopters, there were meetings in dark places where code was exchanged on cassette, to be loaded from our tape drives, to create a new BBS, and you - yes you, dear reader - could be your very own SysOp. A king! Let them fall before you as you interrupted their email to live chat. Behold a world where encryption dare not tread, and you, My SysOp, could read the thoughts of all your subjects! Enter a universe where mom picking up the phone downstairs, only to be greeted with digital screeching, turned your conversations into garbled, alien characters before your eyes!
This is where it began. This is where I began. And thus shall I endure, today, tomorrow, and all tomorrows. The lore is mine and mine alone to carry.
Post on, dear friends. I did all this for you.
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
I was on BBS forums in the '80s.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
wasn’t usenet fun?
billwashere@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Well not sure about the other poster but the BBSes I used were ones you had to dial into and you were the only one there. Well unless it was a fancy one that had multiple phone lines. I even ran one for a short bit my junior year of high school on my commodore 128 and a 1200 baud modem. Good times. Then I got to college and learned about usenet and IRC. This was like ‘89.
MeowerMisfit817@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Okay, I get this may be off-topic, but “It is okay to bully–”, no, it’s not okay to bully anyone. What is passing by these people’s minds?
Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Is it okay to bully nazis?
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
That’s not bullying, that’s enforcing social mores.
zip@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Is it still bullying then? Seems less like ‘bullying’ and more like ‘self defense’ and ‘standing up for what’s right’ to me.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I am one of the few people, it seems, that can not for the life of me remember my ICQ number… but I was there, using it.
Anyone remember Trillian? Having your Yahoo, AIM, ICQ, Messenger, etc all in one program…
ramius345@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Or pidgin when it was called gaim.
LemmyThinkAboutIt@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I also don’t remember my ICQ number, but I had one. And I remember my first time stepping into a 99 cent only store and their registers used that “uh oh” sound from it. I always felt like nobody else recognized where it was from.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I absolutely remember Trillian. It’s what convinced me to finally make an AIM account to talk with my “mainstream” friends who didn’t have ICQ or IRC, since I wouldn’t actually need to run any new software.
dev_null@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
And Facebook Messenger and Gmail Chat (or whatever it was called)! There was a glorious period of time where you could talk to pretty much anyone on any service from one chat app.
SuspciousCarrot78@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Still can :)
liimnok@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Omg Trillian! I haven’t heard that name in forever. You just unlocked a flood of memories.
merc@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I remember my ICQ number, 4170129, but I don’t remember why I know it.
Surely I didn’t have to type it in every time I logged in, did I? That would be a really stupid UI.
SuspciousCarrot78@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I remember trillian. You might like this -
SuspciousCarrot78@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
ICQ? Listen here, young blood.
I grew up in outback Australia, in the before times. My first time online was a 1200-baud modem on a BBC Electron, piggybacking on the HF radio network used for School of the Air.
MidsizedSedan@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I have usernames older than you
Can’t wait till I can use that did someday.
Abbysimons@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Honestly, the people who were around in the early internet days helped build the online world we all use now. A little respect for the veterans of dial-up isn’t a bad thing. 😄
Monstrosity@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Old man yells at the Cloud.
thewebroach@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
23715769
Social media used to be about socializing and communicating. These days its all drivel that has bren productized into a vehicle where streaming addictive brain rot keeps the advertisements flowing and lowers self esteem.
Gen Z may have adopted the internet but it was born of us- AIM, yahoo messenger, ICQ, IRC servers, news groups… all on a dial-up modem. The good old days where there wasnt enough bandwidth for all the ads of today, and the most intrusive ads were a 468x60 pixel banner at the top or bottom of the netscape page
Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Do not speak to me of the old magic, I was there when it was written.
ClownStatue@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
If you bought your dial-up internet from your local newspaper, there’s a pretty good chance I was doing tech support for it.
ugandan_airways@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I watched the Adam Friedland interview with Clavicular yesterday, and Gen Z is so fucked. I realize not all of them are like that, but that someone like Clavicular has gained any traction is a sign the youth is not alright.
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Yeah, seems there is a belief that past a certain age, you should have zero fun, be nothing but a wage slave, and die somewhere quietly, where no one will see what fate awaits you.
Well, I happen to think minors especially should not have access to social media, or at least somehow have minor only social media.
Prevents them interacting with predators, getting brainrotted, and most importantly: leaves us with more mature people to interact with.
orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
My ICQ number was 737916. A hacker stole it 20 years ago because I thought, “why would anyone want this?” and used the password “buddha” for some reason.
I loved that platform. Those were innocent by comparison days.
tidderuuf@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Bragging about how long you have been on social media is like bragging that you are the coolest kid in a special needs classroom.
daannii@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I got a Gmail account back when you had to get an invite.
Drops mic
absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz 2 weeks ago
I remember trying to play online quake in the 90’s, I live in new Zealand… We had dial up, my latency was around the 5s mark. I have up pretty quick.
If I wanted to play multiplayer games, it was taking my desktop computer to a friends house, connecting them together with 10Mb BNC networking, and don’t forget the 50ohm terminators.
A friend spent a week trying to download the original pirated version on XP, the couple of hundred meg file would get stopped for various reasons.
I have my full name as a gmail account, I got it as soon as it possible. firstname.lastname@gmail.com
forwhomthecattolls@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I’m so sad that I missed out on this era of the internet. I only got online in 2020, just horrible timing. all you older folk were so lucky
TheImpressiveX@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
I have usernames older than you.
1984@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
I had an icq number in the 184000 range. :) Bragging rights!
Every time this topic comes up, I feel very nostalgic. Of course the tech was not as good, but the internet was free of big tech.
SethTaylor@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
My YouTube account is older than Pewdiepie’s account… and that’s my second YouTube account.
glorkon@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
- My ICQ…
And when young people ask me if I ever play multi-player games… my dude, I played the first one. Midimaze on Atari ST.
ObtuseDoorFrame@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
It’s surreal to think about how genuinely good Facebook used to be, before they added the algorithm. It made our social lives better instead of replacing them. You could go on Facebook to peruse events in your area, having an idea of who would be there before you went.
backalleycoyote@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Back when I was booking shows it was great because you could blast a small event and know it was reaching a lot of people. Bands would share it, every band member would reshare it. But then I noticed the growing discrepancy between the amount of people who claimed they’d attend online and who showed up. Like so much on FB, the illusion of being a part of something became more important than actually being a part of something. But yeah, for a brief moment there was a bit of “social” in social media. Then came the yelling.
LurkingLuddite@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
rofl tell me you do not understand how FB got started without telling me…
That shit’s been a privacy nightmare from the beginning.
lechekaflan@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Why now he has a doomsday bunker in Hawaii, and I’m damn sure he also has a squad of PMCs on retainer.
chaogomu@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Before Zuck hired Joel Kaplan to specifically cater to right wing interests.
It was kinda nice yeah.
NoPanko@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Events was what kept me on the site for far too long after they went bad. Being able to organise events with friends so easily was incredible. I can track the decrease in my social activity along with fb making their system worse and it makes me sad
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Ive been around the internet since early dial up days, and while I haven’t used every social platform that appeared, Facebook was the one where I saw everyone was really just posting their projected self, the world is amazing fake lives. I dont think it necessarily started immediately like that, but it quickly became that.