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I was a small child around this time but experienced the end of CRT’s and old school projectors. In writing this it has occurred to me that most kids now will not relate to the “when the teacher wheels the TV in” posts. My parents went from flip phones to blackberry style phones to iPhones.. I became computer literate very quickly with what we had, though mostly front end stuff. From an early age I understood that most problem solving with computers just required looking up the proper instructions. I didn’t even have computer access at home and would try to spend as much time at my grandparent’s house as possible where I did.. Unfortunately my parents are definitely of the “scared of everything” generation. I had 1-3 neighbors I could hang out with that lived close by. Every other friend hangout was carefully structured. There was no biking around town getting into stuff as my dad always talked about doing. Growing up in a very sanitized developing suburb resulted in most of the interesting parts of my childhood being spent online. Those bulldozed, copy paste housing developments didn’t exist near me yet, but the lack of community was a very real thing even that early on. I think mass online communication was the last nail in the coffin for suburbia in a way, but I don’t want to turn this into a rant about that lol
Jul 20, 2025
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🌐My family moved back to Japan in ‘97 🫣 and the military base commander held a town hall. The subject? The base’s residents having American cable or the internet. We mostly watched old ‘70s and ‘80s U.S. tv shows while occasionally receiving current U.S. shows a season or two behind. Overall, having internet won. I was excited since it meant freedom outside our bubble and better educational experiences.
I remember the day my dad finished building our new internet accessible computer–my sister and I fought over who could use it first. I won. First sites I hit up and kept coming back to:
Hotmail.com (had to set up an email account to email my friends) MSN.com HotBot Excite Ask Jeeves Lycos (was mainly used to search for music videos) AOL/AIM BBS (early forums) about various subcultures
A lot of times I randomly ended up on some Geocities site dedicated to whatever obsession the site owner had. Some of them were pretty cute and cool, while others were questionable (the internet wasn’t censored back then). And I couldn’t read half of them due to it being in a different language and/or because the site was so badly designed. But I didn’t care–I had the whole world at my fingertips.
I remember the day my dad finished building our new internet accessible computer–my sister and I fought over who could use it first. I won. First sites I hit up and kept coming back to:
Hotmail.com (had to set up an email account to email my friends) MSN.com HotBot Excite Ask Jeeves Lycos (was mainly used to search for music videos) AOL/AIM BBS (early forums) about various subcultures
A lot of times I randomly ended up on some Geocities site dedicated to whatever obsession the site owner had. Some of them were pretty cute and cool, while others were questionable (the internet wasn’t censored back then). And I couldn’t read half of them due to it being in a different language and/or because the site was so badly designed. But I didn’t care–I had the whole world at my fingertips.
Apr 10, 2024
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⭐I enjoyed the internet in healthy doses from ages 12-17 which was late 00's, early teens and had so much fun socializing as well as learning about new stuff like music, history, and politics. I felt the internet had a perfect amount of algorithm at that time to nudge me into the direction of what I like as well as me stumbling onto random stuff. I also bad times learning about new stuff but it has shaped me into the person I am. This site is still confusing to me but I also felt confused all the time trying to adapt to new websites so maybe that is the appeal? It's about fun, new information, and my interests.
Feb 14, 2025
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i’m here because i’m desperate to relive my childhood innocent love for the internet.
sensitive topics include: gaming all day, club penguin, skype, sitting under a deer head trophy next to a cast iron fireplace in my cousins’ grandparents‘ house in the middle of an eastern european half forgotten town and asking for permission to download CS GO.
sensitive topics include: gaming all day, club penguin, skype, sitting under a deer head trophy next to a cast iron fireplace in my cousins’ grandparents‘ house in the middle of an eastern european half forgotten town and asking for permission to download CS GO.
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🙈My god everything is experienced better this way. Stop looking at guides, walkthroughs, endings explained (my least favorite), even the blurbs on the back. Such a rare opportunity in this time to go into something without knowing anything about it, yet so rewarding. To be pleasantly surprised or blown away, to have no idea what’s happening, to find that you really didn’t like it, an opinion formed on your own.. nothing is more valuable
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In the future I hope I will have a cool local diner to do this at
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💞You know who you are.. the website is a better place with you here.. thanks for all the tea LOL