What do you miss about the mid-to-late '90s internet?
Posted Jul 8, 2022, 11:56 AM UTC
931
“Under construction” banners.
11
The internet was the wild west then. Everyday I discovered some new website. Everyday I discovered a new passion. Fear lurked around every corner because you never knew which websites couldn't be trusted.
Nowadays I go to like...2 websites that aren't streaming services. And my computer wont even let me load a risky website. This is mostly good, but there is a sense of adventure missing.
9
Back then every bad word didn't launch a police investigation. Nowadays it's daily news that someone has been a bit naughty with words and is so sorry about it.
3
Random people's blogs. I loved that slice of life stuff where it was just someone trying to grow the perfect tomato or knit the perfect sock and it wasn't quite so highly curated
8
Traditional internet forums. I liked how communities were mostly separate, and you'd talk to the same people enough that you'd become friends with them. Modern social media sites seem so soulless by comparison, since you basically never recognise anyone there, or feel any real connection to them (if you don't know them elsewhere).
6
The weird websites that were insanely popular. I feel like once the bigger companies and stuff caught on and we got a bunch of websites for everything the weirdness got pushed out of the way. Similar to what I miss about old youtube really. Those things still exist but they are significantly harder to find.
4
RealPlayer
4
Macromedia flash games and videos
3
I'm an 00s kid, but what I still caught a glimpse of what was left of the wild west internet. In the early 10s it was already centralized around social media but you still had very active forums and weird little sites you could get lost in. And each and everyone of them has its own vibe and personality. Even on reddit, one favorite things about it before the UI update was the fact each subreddit could customise their interface, it lost its magic now.
3
The intese color pallette and buttons that had visible button animation when clicked.
3
Those banner ads that were actually interactive. They usually had some stupid mini game you could play for a bit. I mean, ads have always sucked, but at least with those old ones were more fun. Super glad we have as blockers now.
3
Newgrounds, MySpace, Neopets
3
Chatrooms. I have so many memories in AOL, MSN, and IRC
3
I loved the rush of being invited into a private chat room and just the fun of people who got invited coming in. Then something like Instant Messenger with the rush of somebody you were fond of coming online and it would sometimes take them 30 seconds to start chatting. Just those sounds were dopamine.
3
I miss watching the early South Park videos on QuickTime.
2
there was a woman in Australia that had a blog with stories, jokes, music, etc. and she was in remission from cancer but didn't talk about it much, but it meant she had this cute fake red wig on in all the pictures of her. And she was naked and hairless in all the pictures too. I don't think she was very tall either, so basically a cute little red haired pixie that was naked doing stupid shit.
Also Sheldon's bike page where I learned how to do weird shit with bike wheels and re-lace and fix bike wheels.
Also pages of jokes, stories from around the world, tips on you to use programs that you had pirated. finding music to pirate. the web was a wild place, mostly ungoverned. now it's 3 sites that you circle endlessly hoping to find something that doesn't suck more of your life away.
2
Usenet BBS. I spent way too much of my college years on rec.television.xfiles & rec.arts.comics. The nice thing was you knew they were real people posting back then unlike nowadays
2
How the internet was the wild Wild West. Ads used to be a lot more bright and they just looked crazy! How hard it was to find different websites you were looking for
2
Napster.
As a broke kid, your music collection was very sparse and mix tapes were an art form. Napster was this complete world change. Suddenly any song you wanted, from any band, ever... was at your fingertips. It was mind blowing.
2
When I had access to Napster plus a CD burner, it was on.
There was also this really risky thing I was on in the early 2000s where you would list all the albums you had and you would burn CDs for other people and you would pick 20 albums you wanted and they would pick 20 albums they wanted and we would just mail the CD-Rs to each other. Seemed like a bad idea to just give your address to a stranger who could have been an RIAA plant.
1
How ‘new’ and ‘futuristic’ it felt back then. There was just this feeling of connecting to the internet that made it exciting yet terrifying at the same time because of what it might cost you later, THE bill. When we used the internet back then it had to be worth it and I have to say it really was. You could find something interesting but then something terrifying, I miss the shock factor of this adrenaline rush. I often think about those early years fondly and I miss what being online felt like back then.
2
The novelty of it. I still remember my first email.
I had a pen pal in France that I had to write actual, handwritten letters to, put a shitload of stamps on, and have it sent overseas. Replies could take weeks. One day, my father came home and said we'd try something new. He just got a new email address for work. My pen pal's dad worked in academia and already had one. I remember being shocked by the simplicity of it: "Ok, I hit send. Now what?" "That's it." The reply came the next morning.
Due to the nature of Dial-up, I miss not being plugged into the Matrix 24/7.
2
I miss that time when most people on the internet viewed each other as fellow pioneers. Most of the people who used the internet were tech-savvy. There were trolls and weirdos, but nothing like what's going on now.
even the trolls were better then. they put some effort into it and was actually funny.