Do you miss anything from the old internet?

[Prowler]

What is "old", you might ask. Well, I'll tell you what, let's call the "old internet" anything before youtube and wikipedia. I mean wikipedia has technically been around since the year of 2000 or 2001, but no one used it back then. people began using it around 2006 or so only. Youtube launched in early 2005, so let's call the "old internet" anything before 2005.

Now, I didn't get on the internet until 2000-2001, so excuse me for not mentioning anything from 1995-1999, the actual early days of it. But feel free to talk about it if you lived through those days.

I kind of miss how it felt like you were truly surfing through an ocean, as in a space-like ocean. You never know what you were gonna find next. Nowadays everything feels more centralised and more corporate. As in, most of the big stuff belongs to a company like google or something like that. Also, nowadays everyone seems to use the same websites, such as youtube, facebook, twitter, instagram, wikipedia, etc. while back then that wasn't the case. Social media wasn't that big of a thing yet either, and people weren't exposing their lives on the internet 24/7 either. It felt more like an escapism from real life than an integral part of your life.

I guess everything just felt new at the time. Discovering a new place to play flash games(cartoon network's website had a ton of fun ones) or a new fansite of a property you liked made on geocities or tripod was always a blast. That's another thing that has been lost throughout the years. it feels like no one is making their own websites and webpages anymore. Ofc most geocities pages were crap, including the ones I made, but it was through those crappy webpages that I learned the MissingNo cheat from Pokémon Red, and also how I've learnt how to unlock certain characters on SSB Melee.

No one seems to make their own webpages anymore unless they own a business they want to promote. You don't easily find dozens of fansites strictly made out of love and for fun and NOT for profit when you google the name of your favourite property anymore. Nowadays people will just make FB pages or talk about it on places like tumblr, I guess.

Also, forums were on the rise at the time, and they were THE place for good discussions and to get in contact with other fans of the same stuff you like. Forums like this one were founded in 2000-2001.

So yeah, I'm not saying I want to go back to the pre-youtube and wikipedia days of the internet but sometimes I miss the lack of FB, IG, Twitter and also how the internet felt a lot less centralised.

What about you? What do you miss from the old internet?

[sdp]

Why do we call the "old" internet what is old to you? The internet was already fully fleshed out by then. Now I'll admit that those early 00's eras were indeed great times to be on the internet but it was also when we started to see the trends of where things would go which is what you hate about the internet now or so it seems.

The pre-2000 internet was special since it required a level of nerdyness to really be into it, it was like those early video games with no tutorials, nothing was user friendly and you had to find everything yourself. Since wikipedia didn't exist (once wikipedia launched this changed even if wikipedia wasn't as known), you had to do all your research yourself. We're also talking that broadband didn't exist unless you had at school so slow ass internet.

The more mainstream the internet got and the more "casual" money was online the worse things got. Gone were the times where people of different cultures could come together and discuss topics. Back in the day there was more diversity because only the "english" internet existed so everyone was forced to interact with it, nowadays most people prefer not to learn another language and go to their own "countries" internet. And that has been a huge loss. Casual users don't understand the interenet or its culture and yet they complain about the very things that make the internet great. Yes anonymity causes a lot of problems but the benefits from it make it totally worth it, everything became too corporate and new users refused to understand the world they were interacting with and now try to dictate what it is.

While I may have some "fond" memories of doing stuff like leaving my computer on ALL night to download a short video file in 1996 when the Nintendo 64 launched. Or when sites had no images whatsoever. Of course I don't "miss" these things they sucked, the internet is much better now that it's fast, we have video, large files etc. It's the community that's become worse and worse over time. And that's a shame.

I do agree that now it's as bad as it's ever been with blogs only having constant clickbait/fakenews for the sake of cheap hits and YouTube becoming the new television made it all turn to hell, early youtube was so much fun but once they opened adsense to most people it mostly became senseless crap to get cheap money.

[IndigoErth]

Not really, though I suppose everyone's little self made websites, that looked god awful by today's standards, had their charm about them. Back when I taught myself enough basic HTML by looking at the page source info of other sites as examples, rather than just using a freebie site's web builder like now. (Although the old skills still help with tweaking things.)

And the obnoxious GLITTER gifs. Was wondering the other day what became of them. Granted they were still around a while on the "newer" internet (though seem to have died of now) but those things were EVERYWHERE back in the day. (Should go old school and make some new TMNT ones for the hell of it. )

[Vegita-San]

i miss having one of the first turtle sites online. now everyone else does a far better job than I Ever did. I didn't have the skill or patience to really learn how to do html with Attention disorder..

I also miss actual conversation. you could talk about things. everything was new to talk about. no topic had been run into the ground yet.

It was safe to meet strangers from online. I wouldn't dare do it today.

I miss the days before everything became political. you can insult someone just by breathing wrong now. you never know where a person is coming from, either genuine, or just doing it to tick you off..

so, yes, there are things i miss from the old dial up days.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by sdp

Why do we call the "old" internet what is old to you? The internet was already fully fleshed out by then. Now I'll admit that those early 00's eras were indeed great times to be on the internet but it was also when we started to see the trends of where things would go which is what you hate about the internet now or so it seems.

The pre-2000 internet was special since it required a level of nerdyness to really be into it, it was like those early video games with no tutorials, nothing was user friendly and you had to find everything yourself. Since wikipedia didn't exist (once wikipedia launched this changed even if wikipedia wasn't as known), you had to do all your research yourself. We're also talking that broadband didn't exist unless you had at school so slow ass internet.

The more mainstream the internet got and the more "casual" money was online the worse things got. Gone were the times where people of different cultures could come together and discuss topics. Back in the day there was more diversity because only the "english" internet existed so everyone was forced to interact with it, nowadays most people prefer not to learn another language and go to their own "countries" internet. And that has been a huge loss. Casual users don't understand the interenet or its culture and yet they complain about the very things that make the internet great. Yes anonymity causes a lot of problems but the benefits from it make it totally worth it, everything became too corporate and new users refused to understand the world they were interacting with and now try to dictate what it is.

While I may have some "fond" memories of doing stuff like leaving my computer on ALL night to download a short video file in 1996 when the Nintendo 64 launched. Or when sites had no images whatsoever. Of course I don't "miss" these things they sucked, the internet is much better now that it's fast, we have video, large files etc. It's the community that's become worse and worse over time. And that's a shame.

I do agree that now it's as bad as it's ever been with blogs only having constant clickbait/fakenews for the sake of cheap hits and YouTube becoming the new television made it all turn to hell, early youtube was so much fun but once they opened adsense to most people it mostly became senseless crap to get cheap money.

Because the time I'm referring too was over a decade ago already and it's obvious that the internet in 2003-2004 was quite different than what we have now.

Youtube before the google buyout was basically a gold mine for older cartoons and anime and wrestling videos. Other than that it basically had regrogaming speedruns with TAS emulators and people trying to become the new AVGN. Remember when AVGN and Smosh were two of the biggest youtube channels around? And when "the evolution of music" was the most watched video ever? Getting 1 million views in your videos back then was a huge deal.

I remember playing a ton of flash games when I was a teenager.

The problem is, as you said, the internet became too mainstream. In the 90s not many people were on the internet, now everyone and their mother is on it. And ofc with millions, if not billions, of people using it, a ton of them are bound to be uncivil rude idiots.

Are people really sticking to communities of their native languages? If anything, ti seems like globalisation is getting more and more a reality and the cultural differences are getting greyer and greyer. At this point it feels like things are less authentic and lack an identity unlike in the 90s. Back then the world just felt more mysterious and exotic, I guess.

Originally Posted by Vegita-San

It was safe to meet strangers from online. I wouldn't dare do it today.

If anything, back then people were more private and avoided giving their personal info to other internet users. Nowadays everyone is on social media and people use services like tinder and other similar ones to get dates. The risks have always been there and still are, but nowadays it seems people loss a bit of that fear.

[sdp]

I feel the internet has kind of stagnated, I don't think it has changed a lot in the past years as it did at first but we'll eventually see change again sooner or later. Social Media as we know it today will not last that much longer, I have no idea what the future might be but a technological learning curve where only the tech savvy can rise will get rid of the "mainstream" crowd at least for a little while just like how it used to be difficult to make a website, or difficult to edit video.

Originally Posted by IndigoErth

And the obnoxious GLITTER gifs.

I use obnoxious glitter gifs on my website for this very reason, gotta keep the annoying past alive!

Originally Posted by Vegita-San

It was safe to meet strangers from online. I wouldn't dare do it today.

no way, it wasn't safe to meet strangers online, if anything I'd say it's safer now.

Originally Posted by Prowler

Youtube before the google buyout was basically a gold mine

I'd say the biggest changes were blogs in web 2.0 and they slowly morphed into the clickbait stuff we have today. And yes YouTube as we've both mentioned, it was a revolution but it took a turn for the worst.

[Powder]

I miss pixel art gifs decorating everything, certain visual aesthetics, all the various fan-sites & communities, not a whole lot else. To say more would be to wax cynical, & I think the board could use a break from that.

I do wish Myspace never died out though. Old school Myspace was the best.

[FredWolfLeonardo]

I miss the Irate Gamer vs AVGN fan wars

[ABrown]

To me, the "old internet" was when everyone was using AOL. This would been the second half of the 90's and the first few years of the 2000's. Back then "social media" was instant messaging with your friends and relatives. Do I miss that internet? Hmm, no.

[triplexxx]

Maybe just commercials about it. Ex:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=0h0m0s&v=iroDHS8Ixb4

[Andrew NDB]

I miss personal websites. Built crudely but so personally, but still in such a way as it spoke so much to the individual. And Livejournals, even though I never had a thought in my head to make one myself.

I also miss the various number of competing search engines. I don't know that we're better off with a "much improved" version of a singular one vs. different ones that gave differing but equally valid results. Or even in terms of... now there's just one search engine saving all of our results forevermore.

[MikeandRaph87]

I miss ninjaturtles.com as run by Dan Berger most of all. I followed the site shortly before Molly Bode gave it up, but I developed somewhat of a relationship corresponding with Dan Berger.

[Mayhem]

What do I miss? Dumb people not inhabiting it. Oh, and those ubiquitous “under construction” gifs on every single website.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

I rediscovered TMNT around late-November or very-early December 2003 something, when the TMNT had been mostly a childhood memory for me since mid-1993. At that time, I had.

*A bunch of Archie comics (accompanied with Fleetway comics) and storybooks
*Videotapes with episodes of the Fred Wolf Studios cartoon
*Some basic action figures
*I had also seen the three New Line Cinema films. I had no idea of Next Mutation.

Without broadband, you coldn't go online all the time.

I guess this was the case for many of us. We were happy with what we had, no need to bash or hate each other for.

[IndigoErth]

Originally Posted by Powder

I do wish Myspace never died out though. Old school Myspace was the best.

Me too. I much preferred how customizable it was.

Originally Posted by sdp

I use obnoxious glitter gifs on my website for this very reason, gotta keep the annoying past alive!

I think they must have been invented by the late 80s/early 90s Lisa Frank generation. Lord knows there were plenty of Lisa Frank (or inspired) glitter gifs.



In honor of the past... I considered making the whole dang image sparkle, but nah, this isn't 1997.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by FredWolfLeonardo

I miss the Irate Gamer vs AVGN fan wars

That's not "old internet, though. That's like 2007. Irate Gamer was absolutely hated by many, lol.

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

I miss personal websites. Built crudely but so personally, but still in such a way as it spoke so much to the individual. And Livejournals, even though I never had a thought in my head to make one myself.

I also miss the various number of competing search engines. I don't know that we're better off with a "much improved" version of a singular one vs. different ones that gave differing but equally valid results. Or even in terms of... now there's just one search engine saving all of our results forevermore.

There are other search engines, though. Yahoo is still around.... but it uses google now lol. But you always have Bing from Microsoft... but who even uses that search engine?

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87

I miss ninjaturtles.com as run by Dan Berger most of all. I followed the site shortly before Molly Bode gave it up, but I developed somewhat of a relationship corresponding with Dan Berger.

Oh man ninjaturtles.com, I loved that website. It taught me a lot about the Turtles back in the day and I read the first 7 Mirage issues on it.

[sdp]

Originally Posted by IndigoErth

In honor of the past... I considered making the whole dang image sparkle, but nah, this isn't 1997.

https://i.imgur.com/RsSdeEp.gif

This is amazing, can I steal it and use it on my TMNT section of my website?

[IndigoErth]

Originally Posted by sdp

This is amazing, can I steal it and use it on my TMNT section of my website?

Absolutely, steal away.

[Wesley]

I don’t miss much websites. Most of the ones I liked back then are still around.

I kinda miss the old Bebo, though. It was cool being able to customize one’s own profile. Never checked out MySpace.

I do miss the old ninjaturtles.com website.

[Prowler]

Oghh glitter gifs.

Also, remember when website had background music? It could get annoyingly loud at times.

Do people even still make their own personal webpages for fun? Is something similar to geocities, tripod or angelfire still around?

Originally Posted by Wesley

I do miss the old ninjaturtles.com website.

I think we all do. That website was great.