IsilZha@reddit

IRC is what I got on... somehow.

In 2000, before reddit I really go into a sci-fi forum.

That forum is still around, doing better than ever (it's shifted focus over the years.). I'm an admin of that forum.

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CenTexPlmbr@reddit (OP)

It's crazy to Google something and find it on a 15 year old forum only to look over the entire forum and find its still active.

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IsilZha@reddit

Yeah so many are dead. There were many other forums I posted on from early to mid 2000s and most of them are dead/gone.

When I first joined the forum I run now, I remember the high count of users on used to be like .. 100, with an average of 20. Basically knew all the regulars. It grew a little bit, but stayed pretty steady for years.

fairlyaveragetrader@reddit

I think those things are what created so many helicopter parents. My girlfriend, her friends, pretty much every woman I know has some type of story of being 15 and telling guys that you were 18 and then going to meet said guys. Let's see what else, endless porn browsing, staying up late and being exhausted when you're supposed to go to school.

It's literally a how-to guide of what parents are really on top of these days and I swear it's all because of what so many people went through. Like that story is not unusual in the slightest

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CenTexPlmbr@reddit (OP)

Spot on.

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col_akir_nakesh@reddit

We got internet at home when I was in the 8th grade along with a Windows 98 Compaq Presario. I remember getting AIM to talk to my buddy Tim, but I really got into playing a web game on this site called 2am games. There was a war strategy game on there called Chain of Comand that was really similar to the Close Combat games. That's really when I started chatting a lot on the clan chats.

Triette@reddit

AOL? Rookie. I was raised in IRC.

A/S/L baby.

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sprinklesadded@reddit

I loved the AOL chat rooms and message boards! I mainly stuck to anime ones. I think my life is normal - ish now but I do have fun teaching my tween the y2k Internet lingo.

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rfgrunt@reddit

AOL->Slashdot-> Digg -> Reddit after digging exodus

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jffiore@reddit

This exactly for me. I'm surprised it doesn't have more votes. Slashdot was huge until digg.

AOL chat rooms were great. I was a big one in the movie room where everyone would come in and say Leo was gay and I’d have to slap them down and reply “who cares if he’s into men, we still all hate Titanic around here…”

Also remember punters and progs to like phish, IM bomb, email bomb

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euclid0472@reddit

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Bobbie_Sacamano@reddit

Not me. I started on WBS and IRC.

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KW5625@reddit

I started in AOL chat rooms back in 94, and found Reddit many many many... When did Reddit start again?... years ago but didn't like it because it wasn't instant like chat rooms.

No I hate chat rooms because you can't reference back to things that were said.

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Fabulous_Check_4266@reddit

Who else remembers the tony hawk pro skater on the old gateway pc

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SatBurner@reddit

I started on bbs. Never got into AOL chat because AOL was a long distance number for me, by the time AOL chat Was being used by people without AOL, I was already spending all my time on other chat services.

Gorkymalorki@reddit

Yeah mIRC is where I started out. For some reason I would hangout in a LOTR chat room. It was pretty cool though once I became a regular and would get greeted by a bunch of people that I got to know over the years whenever I would log in.

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jackfaire@reddit

I started in The Chathouse. Never had AOL

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stupidassfoot@reddit

I used to troll AOL chatrooms in the 90s as a teen, and didn't start checking out Reddit until about 2 years ago. Though I'm not a troll on here. Trolling days are long behind me. I'm also lacking the wit and braincells I once had to do so.

AoHell turned to shit pretty fast, though.

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puma_pantss@reddit

I was more of an MSN and ICQ kinda guy.

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Koss424@reddit

love the flowers

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Dartmouthest@reddit

Yeah and prior to these two I used a dial up BBS (bulletin board system I believe?) the really cool good old days what a time

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VegetarianCoating@reddit

My friend's dad was super pissed at me about a $40 long distance phone bill he received when I called a BBS to download a Doom WAD that replaced the enemies with Barney.

Anyone remember AOHell? Why did we hate Steve Case so much?

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IonizedHydration@reddit

Those of that used AOHell also remember using LuciferX .. core memories are unlocked from this thread

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Ordinary-Gap-6974@reddit

i remember using a lot of them but they're all lost to me now

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Not_Rob_Walton@reddit

I made some of those back when I was a rebellious 13-year-old. Those programs were really obnoxious in hindsight, but I guess it started me on a path learning to program computers.

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Siphoneder@reddit

"Da Chronic" claimed that when he confronted AOL's TOSAdvisor about it, he was met with an account deletion:

AOL constantly closed the "Hackers" Member room, but refuses to do anything about all the pedophilia rooms. I once IMed TOSAdvisor and asked him why he closes the Hacker room, but does not close the kiddie porn rooms. He did not reply, instead he cancelled my account. I guess we see where AOL's priorities lie.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOHell

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Admirable_Average_32@reddit

In 1998 (freshman year of college) I used my roommate’s computer to try AIM for the first time. One thing I remember is that I was chatting with someone late night that I thought was female and I was trying to get fresh. Then she messaged that she was a Venus fly trap and caught me. I never knew what that meant but I thought I caught some computer virus on his computer so I logged off immediately. I always wondered what that was about.

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FemaleMishap@reddit

Not AOL, freenode and a few other IRC servers. Met my spouse in the Yahoo chat rooms. I've been on Reddit for like, fifteen years or so, this is like my third? account on it. Others were either hacked or just not used anymore.

I was a member of ESP lol. Pr: Smut. Used to serve/mm and upload. Thinking back on it was basically a job with all the hours we put into it.

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CenTexPlmbr@reddit (OP)

🤣 Right! The amount of online flirting i did that I now question is unreal.

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0sqs@reddit

I was more of a Yahoo Questions person than AOL chat rooms.

I found reddit via imgur in 2014.

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HallucinatedLottoNos@reddit

Myspace and then fundamentalist internet forums lol...

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CenTexPlmbr@reddit (OP)

MySpace was extremely shortly lived for me.

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HallucinatedLottoNos@reddit

Only a couple of years for me, too, really.

From BBSs with meet-ups to email lists to IRC to instant messengers like ICQ and AIM.

banned-in-tha-usa@reddit

Started in 95. I still have my 4 letter screen name as my personal email. I was in 5th grade.

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Nope8000@reddit

I can still here those dial-up modem connecting sounds… 😝

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I was on AOL chat rooms in the early to mid 90s. My reddit account says 15 years, but I was active here for years before I signed up for an account. So probably 17-18 years ago, I came here.

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clabuen@reddit

A/S/L?

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ObieUno@reddit

First went on AOL in 1991, but I started to become more active on AOL around version 2.0 — 2.5.

I was on AOL a lot by the time v3.0 dropped and had a copy of the 4.0 beta.

I was using a few messengers before I finally bothered with chat rooms.

After Google got rid of Reader, I was looking for a replacement for timely news. Eventually I found Reddit and that mostly scratched the itch. Now Reddit is nearly garbage for that.

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ChickadeePine@reddit

Chat rooms at age 16, reddit at 39.

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djkidna@reddit

I was 12, it was 1998, and it was a BeSeen chat room for role playing as Sonic characters

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giraffemoo@reddit

I was like 12 and 13 in AOL chat rooms, mid 90s. I didn't find reddit until my mid 30s, like 2018-19.

It was a confusing time for a bit, I was actually a 16/f/miami for a while and nobody believed that because apparently that was like a default that people used to sound cool.

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millavemoe@reddit

NetNoir Teen Chat Black Voices Teen Chat

Names I still remember from that room:

SilkiSmurf MissShawty Vidaloca14 NetN Zona Markissluv BigTymerC1 Tiv0n Milez

Neat-Gift-3624@reddit

You may be entitled to compensation…

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platypus_farmer42@reddit

I loved AOL chat rooms and ICQ. I didn’t start using Reddit until about a year ago

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cupokelly@reddit

AOL Aim here - 2000ish.

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aspbergerinparadise@reddit

i got a little too deep into AOL. Was probably '94/95 when I was 12 or 13. I would collect those trial CDs like infinity stones and then use a credit card number generator to make new trial accounts. They'd last 2 or 3 days until the trial ran out and they tried to run the card.

Also, lots of "secret" chatrooms where uncensored material was shared - some of which left permanent scars on my brain (remember tubgirl?)

i remember to get pirated software you'd go to the "warez" chatrooms (just enter private room warez1, warez2, etc). And wait for someone to advertise a mass mail going out. You'd opt in and then your mailbox would get spammed with download links that would take FOREVER to download.

Those downloads were the main reason i needed to spin up so many trial accounts. You'd use up all your free hours so fast when you had to leave downloads going overnight.

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jachildress25@reddit

I was still a face to face guy in the 90s. If I wanted to talk to my friends I either called or went to their house. We usually made plans during school.

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CenTexPlmbr@reddit (OP)

I was very much still a irl person more than online. Still am.

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DifficultMinute@reddit

I was on a lot of old message boards, email groups, and chat rooms including AOL. My main source of chatting was mIRC though, outside of my own friends who were all on ICQ.

I bookmarked reddit when StumbleUpon would bring me here every other jump. I figured that, if I was going to spend time here, might as well just read the page. I made my first account a few months after because, at the time, you couldn't opt out of subs without one. Nearly half of the default front-page posts would be kids complaining about their religious parents in /r/atheism, so I subbed to get rid of those.

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drewism@reddit

I started on IRC, MUDs, gopher (even pre-world wide web). I first got on the internet back in 1991 when the internet infrastructure was still run by universities. I remember when the infrastructure was handed over to like AT&T and other companies to run, it was a sad day for me.

I first got on reddit in \~2006-2007 time frame but didn't create an account until 2008. It was very different, primarily techie libertarian types back then.

That's kinda what made me pose the question! How many of us have met and never know.

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ABH1979@reddit

I was on PowWow and ICQ before AOL was a thing.

For regular chat rooms, there were so many little ones that I don’t remember them all, but the GeoCities chat was one of my main hang outs. Later on it was all about WBS.

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Funny_Collection8362@reddit

My first experience was chatting to people over napster, in the napster chat. It was a good ice breaker because you could see all the music they listed to. Then, if you got to know them better you added them on MSN messenger. The good old days!

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pifumd@reddit

Irc, icq and powwow! Also the WBS. I think wbs was first, actually.

TwilightTink@reddit

I never had AOL, but I spent a lot of time in chat rooms, starting in '97. I've been on reddit since 2012

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I spent many hours on Warcraft 2 over modem with friends. Then there was a program called Kali that would emulate an IPX network over the Internet, so we all bought that so we could play LAN style with all of us at the same time instead of just 1v1.

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aznxk3vi17@reddit

I, uh, spammed Hansen chat rooms with a prog. Looking back, I was an insufferable little shit but boy did my friends and I think it was the funniest thing ever.

Was aware of Reddit ever since its inception but I don’t know what prompted me to join (or not join, for that matter).

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ThatGhoulAva@reddit

Many an hour was spent rolling Christian chat rooms as a Satan worshipper & vice versa. Pinnacle comedy at 12. Oh and fending off the constant bombardment of pervs asking for pics.

I started on local BBSes back before AOL and AIM were a thing. In fact when AOL first started getting big their service was a long distance phone call so we would have had to pay like $.10 or $.15 per minute plus AOL's fee. Of course my parents said absolutely not! (Yes, I know AOL has been around a lot longer, they even had QuickLink (IIRC) back on the Commodore 64. There were other services like Compuserve and Prodigy, but we never used those either since they were also a long distance call.)

I skipped AOL and went from BBSes directly to a true dialup Internet provider. Remember Trumpet WinSock anyone? Many of my friends from school would hang out on IRC (ahh, the fun of writing bots in mIRC) then switched to ICQ when it came around. I didn't even get AIM for a long time after it came out because I didn't know anyone that used it. Then I started using MSN Messenger after that since it was required for Microsoft Game Voice that my friends all used when playing Everquest. Trillian and Pidgin were great cross-platform chat clients until all of them started closing off their ecosystems. Now I primarily use Telegram with my family and most friends, but I do have a few on WhatApp and Facebook Messenger. And Discord of course when gaming.

As to finding Reddit, well I've been on it for almost 15 years now. I discovered it when Digg decided to become stupid, and the popularity of Slashdot was on the decline. Prior to that I participated in many niche forums, and even had a LiveJournal and have dabbled a few times trying to start a blog.

MSN in late 90s (18 or so)

Message boards and forums in the early 2000s (20s)

Early social media + blogs in late 2000s/early 2010s (late 20s and 30s)

Didn't get on Reddit till 2018 at the ripe old age of 37!

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sbotzek@reddit

I started on Prodigy/CompuServe in the late '80s and early '90s. I spent most of my time on comic book bulletin boards. Around '93 we got AOL, where I eventually racked up a giant bill playing Neverwinter Nights.

Then in '94 we got the real internet. Time between midnight and 5am was unmetered. So I would stay up until midnight, be online until 1 or 2am, go to bed, and be up the next morning at 7am for school.

ipsumdeiamoamasamat@reddit

In my experience Yahoo chat rooms were filled with bots. Not legit chatters.

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Scruffy442@reddit

Was there that many bots back in 97-99? Maybe my teenage brain couldn't tell the difference.

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ipsumdeiamoamasamat@reddit

Later on I meant, in the late 2000s.

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Scruffy442@reddit

Ah, it could be. I had moved on from chat rooms after high school.

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I still use my original AOL email as my main email. Every time I have to share my email, they can't believe I still have it and use it

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tedsgloriousmustache@reddit

plastic.com > digg.com > reddit.com

I really wasn't into chat rooms per se.

And I never see plastic.com talked about as a precursor. It was an awesome site very similar to reddit, if not exponentially smaller and shorter lived.

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pinelands1901@reddit

Started with BBSs in the early 90s, AOL chat rooms in the mid 90s, then AIM, MSN*, and Yahoo messenger in the late 90s.

Jumped on Reddit in 2014 when I was at a Star Trek Convention and wanted to chat on DaystromInstitute.

It cracks me up that Skype for Business was just MSN Messenger reskinned, and I was used it up until last year.

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Didn't have AOL, I used mIRC primarily for my chatting/pirating needs until I graduated HS and left home. Then I didn't have a computer or the internet for 3-4 years.

I started using Reddit around five years ago. Been away from all socials expect for the main job one out there. Reddit brought some old school back since we have a choice to be aliases. I also enjoyed bulletin boards and niche forums back in the day.

The aggregation of all niche forums is a good idea. However, I can see how it’s quickly turning bad. I’m now waiting for this to decentralize or see what other applications develop from this.

This place gives me a bit of an old school feel in a new package. Like that new toaster I got when there was nothing wrong with the old one.

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SaltyAir-StarrySkies@reddit

Geocities then ICQ 👌🏼

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FelixMcGill@reddit

I had AOL to begin with. Then migrated over to having AIM, MSN and ICQ all running, usually at the same time.

But I was more of a message board person. Something Awful, AnimeX (RIP), several sports boards and some others. Nowadays Something Awful is the only one I still visit.

Akiranar@reddit

I came from Prodigy.

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ODB247@reddit

No AOL chatrooms but I was on Fark for a long time. Then Reddit for maybe 15+ years?

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gimmeslack12@reddit

I’m Scott to earn my 19 years badge on Reddit. I was a digg refugee.

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TonyNoPants@reddit

My first encounter with the internet was in the late 80s. My mother purchased something called Compuserve and managed to buy me a DnD book online. I didn't quite get it at the time and then I didn't hear about the internet for several years until the early to mid 90s when AOL came out.

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drimmie@reddit

I had AOL dialup when I was 16 (early 1997), got banned from there a few months later. Went to a local ISP for dialup (56k!) and moved on to Yahoo! chat until 2002 IIRC.

The internet was pretty bland back then, but chat rooms were the shit.

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Seven22am@reddit

AOL chat rooms, 14-18 or so. AOL instant messenger in college a couple of years beyond. Then I didn't really do much social media, tbh. Never made a MySpace or a Facebook. I was a big fan of Andrew Sullivan's The Dish. I read Twitter through the web but didn't have an account. Then I started a Reddit account 4.5 years ago. Jury's still out on whether or not that was a good idea.

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Obsession88@reddit

Went from MSN to Digg to Reddit

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GonePhishingAgain@reddit

1995 with AOL. Reddit sometime around 2012 maybe.

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Equivalent-Pride-460@reddit

“Emo Chat” and “Guess Song By Lyrics”

I’m thinking it was early 2000’s. It took me awhile to turn the corner because I saw how this dude from my high school got clowned for having an imaginary internet girlfriend. I actually really enjoyed meeting people that way and kept a handful of chat room friends for years after.

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Swamp_Donkey_7@reddit

AOL chatrooms for me. I started in the Yahoo newsgroups as well before going over to BBS and online Forums.

I didn't make it to Reddit until a couple years ago. Believe it or not, the way reddit staggered the replies turned me off, as I preferred forum style posting.