Asklemmy

This was in one of the first emails my dad ever got. We had the video saved to our desktop and would bug our dad to show us "the bear video" over and over again.

Watching flash animations and playing flash games on Newgrounds.

Newsgroups and livejournal.

Also not necessarily my own memory, but getting to listen to albums made of up songs my dad would find on limewire

Usenet Newsgroups before they got overrun by spam bots.
Such great discussion with interesting personalities back then!
Nobody trying to "build their brand". If they were famous, it was because they contributed something good, like consistent reviews or deep dives of stories/movies/TV.

One of my first internet experience was on a forum for a kid tv channel. There was a point system where posting a message would give you a point and certain amount of points would grant you ranks. I discovered that sending private messages also counted and clicking space repeatedly when submitting a message would multiply the message and the points. I am sorry to whoever received thousands of mps every single day back then but I had a lot of fun increasing that rank.

That may also explain why I still like incremental games nowadays

My first experience with the internet was using a Unix shell account that I used to dial into using "Telix for DOS". For browsing I had Lynx, for mail PINE, and for IRC it was some client called "irc" and so on. This was in the early 90s, maybe 1991 or 92.

Everything was text only, dial-up with 9600 baud, and it was glorious because before that all we had was BBSes (which were even more glorious in some ways actually).

Dialing up to Prodigy to try and do homework with info from the Internet, but just using Microsoft Encarta instead.

Sending an email to a colleague in the states and being astounded that he replied instantaneously. 😳

I started using the internet later than some, but finding YTPs and fan-made video game blooper videos on early YouTube. I though they were the funniest things in the world, still do to some extent looking back on how weird and experimental they could be. I'm still recovering from having my sense of humour melted at a young age lol

I'd played Doom with people on networked computers in college, but that wasn't really "internet". But right at the end of the 90's when we started getting online game servers was great. Being able to play Unreal or Battlefield 1942 with random people from anywhere was amazing, and very addicting. Servers would have like 8 or maybe 16 player slots. More than that and lag would make the games unplayable. You'd keep refreshing the server lists looking for an open slot with a low ping, and join in. Actual early internet wasn't terribly exciting. Pretty much just text only, maybe some tiny graphics, since download speeds were unbearably slow.

Warcraft II on battle.net (and modem games with my friend up the street before that!)

How early is early / does early have to be?

My gaming clan.

If it has to be before that, I guess the multiplayer "text" browser games?

The Netscape loading logo was pretty cool, and of course it took a while to load every page!

A bit later than what I'd call the early internet, I'd say my favourite memory was winning a Super Soaker CPS 2500 when I was 13.

GeoCities and spending a whole summer playing Microsoft Ants! on my dad's computer.

The "download complete" Godzilla roar using the GoZilla! download manager. And using WinAmp to play my newly downloaded mp3's.

I remember buying a very specific blacksmith vise from someone on a forum where I spent a lot of time.

I never really discussed with herb specifically on this forum except to arrange the sale but when I met her it was like meeting a friend.

She was in a meet with other people from this forum the week before, she told me about the projects they had and gave me extra pieces of exotic wood and Damascus steel that she made with another member for me to work with.

We didn't knew each other at all be the fact that we belonged to the same online community was enough for us to be instantly friend.

My first Internet connection was based on GPRS and I remember images taking ages to load and loading in chunks. Moreover the connection kept interfering with the surround audio system and sometimes I would hear noises similar to the dial up modems.

I also remember the first times I tried using eMule (is it still up and running?): I was searching for the video song "Elevation" by U2 but I was unaware of rule 34; you can imagine what I actually downloaded.

Posting to a Usenet newsgroup to inquire about a research paper I was interested in, and having the author snail mail me a printed copy of the paper. The power of community blew my mind.

The many NSFL sites that you could very easily end up on, if you didnt take a small amount of care to avoid

AOL keyword NICK

I can't remember the name of the game, but there was this flash powered tank game that I spent hours on during middle school. Oh, and interactive buddy...that game was a trip with its scripting engine!

There's a lot - MSN, forums in their hey-day, Geocities, the days when almost every ISP had free web hosting, long-form letter style emails being a common means of communication, email newsletters, etc. etc.

But three particular things come to mind:

R.E. League at Reality's End (https://www.realitysend.com/) - like many children in the 90s-2000s, I was obsessed with Pokemon. This guy made a web-based Pokemon RPG, with all the usual stuff (battles, badges, etc.) BUT with puzzles and amazing writing. What's more, anyone could make a website and be their own gym leader, WITH BADGE, with just a little code from Reality's End. It. Was. Awesome. Still around, kind of, but most of the fan-made gyms are looong gone, and I'm not certain you can create a new user for the main site stuff anymore. Edit: OMG I WAS WRONG, you can still make new accounts! Nostalgia time! For anyone wanting to try this, see: https://www.realitysend.com/league/gssignup

[Town Redacted]MP3.com - As a young teenager I lived in a small city with a disproportionally lively music scene. This website had recordings from local artists of all genres, and started me off on finding all ages shows [this was also still thriving, I don't see that many posters etc. for these anymore]. Met a ton of other kids, listened to a lot of good music, and it became a 'cool kid' feather in my cap. Also, in a roundabout way, was a catalyst for me discovering pot (listen to music and click on link for the band's webpage -> get into a discussion in their guestbook with a member of a different, all teen girl punk band -> start chatting with members of this band often -> band smokes me out for the first time at a show for the band we met over, which was also my last night in town before moving)

The Pojo.com Forums - Again, Pokemon obsessed kid. Loved Pojo for TCG stuff, but it also introduced me to fanfiction. I wrote my own fanfics that were well received, which gave me a lot of confidence about writing in general. Also met some cool people here, and for nostalgia's sake I find myself Googling usernames I remember sometimes.

Probably that happy zing you got whenever anyone signed your guestbook on your homepage.

There was this guy on an old forum named "budsmoka" that once very shittily spray painted a cannabis leaf on his ps2

My dad trying and failing to dial out and connect to AOL italia to send his sister an email. I have no idea how much he paid for the service and the fact that local calls still cost money and I'm not even sure AOL was local, but it was so slow it took forever to send anything. Forget pictures.

Having my own email address, making a website and pirating a metal album

BBS, ftpmail, archie, veronica, news, mail !! tons and tons of information never before available to me..

AIM! My entire junior high would be up all night chatting away. I figured out my mom's password on her power Mac, and hid out in her office lol. It was so fun and novel at the time.