Carly and I spent a good hour dissecting how actually glorious was the internet in the 90s in this week’s Sweet Teen Club podcast episode, and it was one of the best goddamn hours EVER.
I was knee-deep in email chain letters, WinMX chatrooms (my screen name was empty_boxes_make_me_hungry, long story), being frightened of eBay because I didn’t have a credit card, looking up the toys I had when I was a kid anyway, researching sea stars for an assignment, reading band websites, having my mind blown much and often, and generally falling down a giant, animated, auto-music-playing rabbit hole when the internet arrived in my world. It was life-changing.
Later when I got caught up in MSN Messenger was the absolute ultimate, I couldn’t wait for those little green lights to turn on and get a notification someone was talking to ME! The internet is evil and it’s full of trolls and grossness, but it’s also played host to some of the most memorable experiences in my very strange life. Double thumbs up from this gal (most of the time)!
You can listen to Message Received: The Internet in the 90s here, or pop over to your app of choice for the sweet, sweet sounds of internet nostalgia. What did you use the internet for in the 90s? Let me know, because I could have talked alllll day, so missed heaps in the podcast! Let me talllkkkk to yooouuuu aboutttt ittttttt
Haha I remember the websites in the 90s had SO MANY COLOURS AND FONTS. Everything had a black background for a while too. Band websites – OMG. So much researching of the band Hole and Silverchair fan pages! I remember finding out I could put together my own page on some obscure platform (there was no blogger or wordpress then and I’d not really heard of geocities). It was probably the earliest form of blogging for me! I was probably the only person reading it haha.
I feel oddly proud to have been in the generation that got to try the internet first!
yeah it’s kind of cool! I had no idea what I was doing but it was so damn exciting. And the thought of writing stuff on the internet that other people might read… was so weird! Still is, but I love it. I’m so glad the wacked-out colours and animated fonts are gone though hahah