Man it sounds so lame to say “I prefer the good old days” but its genuinely true when it comes to the internet, back when forums were the only social media, where banner ads were the only ads to worry about, before every website started collecting cookies and profiles, before celebrities started jumping on AMA’s on reddit, I mean even when reddit was small enough there was a stupid phrase so you’d know if someone else was a redditor. When does the narwhal bacon?
The narwhal shall forever bacon at midnight, even if its home has turned to shit :(
It all comes back to community. Back in those days, forums and platforms like IRC were great. They had a human scale; you quickly learned about the regulars, their personalities, likes and dislikes. Heck, on most forums that I visited, plenty of people used their actual name - including myself. The internet felt like a nice, safe community, like its own digital suburb.
Sometimes that was even literal. I used platforms like Cybertown and later on Second Life. Those let you own actual houses and and build stuff on there. In Cybertown - we usually just called it CT - I knew every resident on my block. I hosted house parties, had giveaways. We’d even have commemorative digital statues as gifts for guests. I still kept in touch when CT died. I still miss it.
Man it sounds so lame to say “I prefer the good old days” but its genuinely true when it comes to the internet, back when forums were the only social media, where banner ads were the only ads to worry about, before every website started collecting cookies and profiles, before celebrities started jumping on AMA’s on reddit, I mean even when reddit was small enough there was a stupid phrase so you’d know if someone else was a redditor. When does the narwhal bacon?
The narwhal shall forever bacon at midnight, even if its home has turned to shit :(
It all comes back to community. Back in those days, forums and platforms like IRC were great. They had a human scale; you quickly learned about the regulars, their personalities, likes and dislikes. Heck, on most forums that I visited, plenty of people used their actual name - including myself. The internet felt like a nice, safe community, like its own digital suburb.
Sometimes that was even literal. I used platforms like Cybertown and later on Second Life. Those let you own actual houses and and build stuff on there. In Cybertown - we usually just called it CT - I knew every resident on my block. I hosted house parties, had giveaways. We’d even have commemorative digital statues as gifts for guests. I still kept in touch when CT died. I still miss it.