shader
Footballguy
Ahh the early internet. The days of dial-up, and the excitement of getting "online".
Three early memories I have:
1. ICQ. I loved that place. Me and a friend used to meet in ICQ chatrooms, make friendly with the "admins", try to get admin status, and then once we became admins, we would kick out all members and permanently ban them. (Hey we were 16 years old, mid 90's here). It was so much fun and would provide literally hours of hilarity.
2. ESPN chatrooms and the early Rivals chatrooms (before all the boards became locked down and required subscriptions). The first couple seasons of the internet were unbelievably fun as it relates to sports. Previously, all trash talking that I did was in the form of trash talking buddies at school. Now, I could get on the internet and chat football with an unbelievable amount of strangers. I'll never forget a game I watched where Nebraska got embarrassed. I went to the Nebraska chat room and completely started ribbing the Cornhusker fans. They all massed together against me for an hour of hilarity, bragging about how they were the most storied program in the world, as I baited them for fun. Yes, again, this was a jerkish move, and is now considered "trolling". Back then it was unbelievably fun. Debates were new, fresh and extremely exciting.
3. Getting "online". Was there anything more fun that the 20-30 seconds that you spent getting "online". This went away with broadband, and now these young whipper snappers are always online. But "back in the day", the act of "getting online" was almost as exciting as actually being online.
Your memories?
Three early memories I have:
1. ICQ. I loved that place. Me and a friend used to meet in ICQ chatrooms, make friendly with the "admins", try to get admin status, and then once we became admins, we would kick out all members and permanently ban them. (Hey we were 16 years old, mid 90's here). It was so much fun and would provide literally hours of hilarity.
2. ESPN chatrooms and the early Rivals chatrooms (before all the boards became locked down and required subscriptions). The first couple seasons of the internet were unbelievably fun as it relates to sports. Previously, all trash talking that I did was in the form of trash talking buddies at school. Now, I could get on the internet and chat football with an unbelievable amount of strangers. I'll never forget a game I watched where Nebraska got embarrassed. I went to the Nebraska chat room and completely started ribbing the Cornhusker fans. They all massed together against me for an hour of hilarity, bragging about how they were the most storied program in the world, as I baited them for fun. Yes, again, this was a jerkish move, and is now considered "trolling". Back then it was unbelievably fun. Debates were new, fresh and extremely exciting.
3. Getting "online". Was there anything more fun that the 20-30 seconds that you spent getting "online". This went away with broadband, and now these young whipper snappers are always online. But "back in the day", the act of "getting online" was almost as exciting as actually being online.
Your memories?