You should have seen it back in the early 1990s... IRC, Usenet, etc. Mostly freedom-loving intellectuals and hacker types... pre-woke university libertarians and cyberpunks... with few rules or centralized authorities.
Maybe I'm misremembering (completely possible), but it feels like the 2000s was the beginning of the end and shit was REALLY good in the mid-90s.
But then the normies invaded and, with them, corporate interests up the ass. Everything was monetized, sanitized and eventually censored to appeal to the advertisers' whims.
People younger than 30,35 simply do NOT know how good it was.
Yes, it took 5 minutes to load up a low-def picture of a naked woman, so beating your meat was really hard, but that's why those of us who were horny 10 year olds back in 94 would buy/steal physical playboys from newsstands (another thing which I haven't seen in ages: newsstands).
Basically everything was a lot less centralized and you wouldn't just go to reddit/facebook/twitter for all your online social interaction. You'd have to actively hunt down forums for each of your specific interests, which meant:
a) each forum had a pretty... "unique" vibe, so you weren't just always stuck in your little bubble.
b) Each forum was small, usually operated at a loss and was purely a passion project
c) Corporate interests didn't care about these forums. They were only for a tiny minority of nerds, who cares about them?
All of that meant that most people were exposed to a lot of different subcultures, so we'd (for the most part) be a lot more open-minded.
Not making money was crucial, because, if nobody's making money off of this shit, no one's kicking out other people to please advertisers either.
If anything, as soon as you started banning all the trolls and kooky crazy people to "bring order", the forums would GET BORING and everyone else started leaving too. You NEEDED these people to bring life into the forums and spice things up a bit, so censorship was something that was naturally discouraged.
Extra: AESTHETICS
Also, aside from censorship, this is a personal preference which NOBODY seems to share with me: websites simply looked a lot cooler back then. I loved the geocities aesthetic, it was (and still is) a lot more charming than the homogenous made-for-mobile bullshit of nowadays where every website looks exactly the same and feels very lame to use on a PC
Back then people would find weird ways to divide things into tables, there were animated gifs all over the place, music started playing in the background and sites actually used side frames. Mobiles killed sideframes, but it is a very handy and logical way to organize things.
Also: anybody could code a website, because it was just mostly raw html. Sites were essentially fancy word documents, which is how they should be.
Man, that shit was fantastic. Each person's website really felt like a window into their soul in a way that a facebook/twitter profile simply does NOT manage to feel like.
prior to the first smart phone, the iphone, release in 2007, the internet was the domain of "nerds" and techies. After the internet was made available to the unwashed [washed?] masses, that was the start of the downfall. The internet now is carefully curated and controlled. It will never be the same.
i was born in 87, so that "in between" generation. as they call oregon trail? O.o so still growing up in the "olde world" through the 90s but STILL had to learn technology as it evolved. best of both worlds :)
I mean, you CAN make a raw html website, but nobody will want to visit it, because:
a) nobody really visits small websites anymore. They find shit on facebook and twitter profiles instead.
b) even if you did find an audience to view your personal website, the majority of people browse the internet on their phones nowadays.
So you gotta design a "responsive" website to please your audience, but doing that with just raw html and css, even though it CAN be done, is a bit of a nightmare and really hard to test.
You CAN do it, but it's easier to just stack a bunch of frameworks on top of frameworks that deal with this nightmare for you. Or, even better, pay wordpress or something to deal with it for you and create a really bland-looking website.
people still do, you might not be aware of it. Maybe its because you only stick to the mainstream sites. And if more people would visit those sites, they wouldn't be small sites anymore...
b) ... is a bit of a nightmare and really hard to test.
and here I call total bullshit, its esier than it has ever been to that shit.
(first example that came to mind)
Yeah, check out webflow. It gives you the power of responsive web design with GUI web development software. Super powerful stuff. No excuse not to make something flippin' sweet nowadays.
So much has been changed to the point of no return.
Once they successfully patented everything that would allow dissent and only allow verified users to upload on their media, there is nothing left for you, not even that last bit.
I remember going to snopes for fun in like 1997. Reading about how to summon “Bloody Mary” or if Ouija boards were real…… fun stuff. Now the same website gaslights me, but at least I remember that they always were a joke site.
Also the fun of being outside back in the day. No freak cult masks, violence, censorship, police bashing your head. I spent my childhood riding my bike with my friends and just enjoying being outside. Food, water, and air quality were better too.
I actually prefer modern internet. Between smartphones, and the incredible ease of use of apps, it’s easier than ever for information to be shared and for people to come together and interact.
This is not true. There are plenty of places on the internet where snowflakes dare not tread. They arose as the result of the censorship of which you speak, and this is a good thing.
If you poke around, and behave yourself, and find the right places, you might be invited into those spaces. The magic is still there - it is just invitation only - which is NOT a good thing.
You should have seen it back in the early 1990s... IRC, Usenet, etc. Mostly freedom-loving intellectuals and hacker types... pre-woke university libertarians and cyberpunks... with few rules or centralized authorities.
You should have seen it before the Internet. Fido, Bluewave, Compuserve, Xmodem, JANET.
I remember going on some pretty crazy f-servers on mIRC back in the mid to late 90's.
I never started using torrents until the 2010's because I was still using Usenet to get all my "data". Usenet was great!
At least still a bit less worse than TV for now (This post on twitter is proof). But they will try and succeed.
Google and Amazon can easily patent video streaming.
Facebook and Twitter can collaborate to patent blogging.
Reddit can patent imageboards.
Viola - Bitchute, Gab, .Win, 4chan etc...gone.
Only verified users can upload videos or post in FB/Twitter like in PornHub.
You need a real person/name certificate to even connect to the internet or sign into an ISP service.
Viola!
You have nowhere left to go, nothing you can do and you will be happy once they pull this out.
Because iq level was higher at the start.
Thanks internet for the irl sex.
Those were the days.
Maybe I'm misremembering (completely possible), but it feels like the 2000s was the beginning of the end and shit was REALLY good in the mid-90s.
But then the normies invaded and, with them, corporate interests up the ass. Everything was monetized, sanitized and eventually censored to appeal to the advertisers' whims.
People younger than 30,35 simply do NOT know how good it was.
Yes, it took 5 minutes to load up a low-def picture of a naked woman, so beating your meat was really hard, but that's why those of us who were horny 10 year olds back in 94 would buy/steal physical playboys from newsstands (another thing which I haven't seen in ages: newsstands).
Basically everything was a lot less centralized and you wouldn't just go to reddit/facebook/twitter for all your online social interaction. You'd have to actively hunt down forums for each of your specific interests, which meant:
a) each forum had a pretty... "unique" vibe, so you weren't just always stuck in your little bubble.
b) Each forum was small, usually operated at a loss and was purely a passion project
c) Corporate interests didn't care about these forums. They were only for a tiny minority of nerds, who cares about them?
All of that meant that most people were exposed to a lot of different subcultures, so we'd (for the most part) be a lot more open-minded.
Not making money was crucial, because, if nobody's making money off of this shit, no one's kicking out other people to please advertisers either.
If anything, as soon as you started banning all the trolls and kooky crazy people to "bring order", the forums would GET BORING and everyone else started leaving too. You NEEDED these people to bring life into the forums and spice things up a bit, so censorship was something that was naturally discouraged.
Extra: AESTHETICS
Also, aside from censorship, this is a personal preference which NOBODY seems to share with me: websites simply looked a lot cooler back then. I loved the geocities aesthetic, it was (and still is) a lot more charming than the homogenous made-for-mobile bullshit of nowadays where every website looks exactly the same and feels very lame to use on a PC
Back then people would find weird ways to divide things into tables, there were animated gifs all over the place, music started playing in the background and sites actually used side frames. Mobiles killed sideframes, but it is a very handy and logical way to organize things.
Also: anybody could code a website, because it was just mostly raw html. Sites were essentially fancy word documents, which is how they should be.
Man, that shit was fantastic. Each person's website really felt like a window into their soul in a way that a facebook/twitter profile simply does NOT manage to feel like.
prior to the first smart phone, the iphone, release in 2007, the internet was the domain of "nerds" and techies. After the internet was made available to the unwashed [washed?] masses, that was the start of the downfall. The internet now is carefully curated and controlled. It will never be the same.
You have to thank Obama for what we get now because he sold ICANN to...the United Nations.
"Coincidentally", the Pizzagate and Fake News BS happened after that.
Listen, Big Tech is listening to United Nations orders.
i was born in 87, so that "in between" generation. as they call oregon trail? O.o so still growing up in the "olde world" through the 90s but STILL had to learn technology as it evolved. best of both worlds :)
you can't do that anymore?
Not really, man.
I mean, you CAN make a raw html website, but nobody will want to visit it, because:
a) nobody really visits small websites anymore. They find shit on facebook and twitter profiles instead.
b) even if you did find an audience to view your personal website, the majority of people browse the internet on their phones nowadays.
So you gotta design a "responsive" website to please your audience, but doing that with just raw html and css, even though it CAN be done, is a bit of a nightmare and really hard to test.
You CAN do it, but it's easier to just stack a bunch of frameworks on top of frameworks that deal with this nightmare for you. Or, even better, pay wordpress or something to deal with it for you and create a really bland-looking website.
people still do, you might not be aware of it. Maybe its because you only stick to the mainstream sites. And if more people would visit those sites, they wouldn't be small sites anymore...
and here I call total bullshit, its esier than it has ever been to that shit. (first example that came to mind)
Yeah, check out webflow. It gives you the power of responsive web design with GUI web development software. Super powerful stuff. No excuse not to make something flippin' sweet nowadays.
No one EVEN ASKS my asl anymore. Shame
I was chatting with some university students...
They were about 19 yo
I started talking about the days "pre-internet"
they looked at me like I was speaking of mystical days - the time before time.
ahhh drinking whiskey till sundown, and if anybody offended you? you could beat the shit outta them if you wanted LOL
I often lament that once upon a time I enjoyed many hours on my computer before the public Internet existed. Magazines and meet-ups.
Now when there is no network, it seems useless.
Those were the days. Something Awful Goons were fantastic.
I loved ICQ. It actually reminds me of modern Telegram.
Then Microsoft started pushing the inferior MSN Messenger and later IE. Fuck Microsoft.
the internet was the ABSOLUTE BEST in the mid 90s to about 2009 or so. HOLY SHIT it was SOOO awesome!!
I agree with full commitment.
So much has been changed to the point of no return.
Once they successfully patented everything that would allow dissent and only allow verified users to upload on their media, there is nothing left for you, not even that last bit.
I remember going to snopes for fun in like 1997. Reading about how to summon “Bloody Mary” or if Ouija boards were real…… fun stuff. Now the same website gaslights me, but at least I remember that they always were a joke site.
Snopes was great before the hookers and the democrats
Also the fun of being outside back in the day. No freak cult masks, violence, censorship, police bashing your head. I spent my childhood riding my bike with my friends and just enjoying being outside. Food, water, and air quality were better too.
The internet has turned in to one big shit show where everyone is just fishing for Likes and Followers.
Do not like this post!!! I dont' give a fuck about that shit.
I actually prefer modern internet. Between smartphones, and the incredible ease of use of apps, it’s easier than ever for information to be shared and for people to come together and interact.
the internet pushes people further away though. because they all type online, but dont feel comfortable doing in person community things lol
This is not true. There are plenty of places on the internet where snowflakes dare not tread. They arose as the result of the censorship of which you speak, and this is a good thing.
If you poke around, and behave yourself, and find the right places, you might be invited into those spaces. The magic is still there - it is just invitation only - which is NOT a good thing.
But at least it is there.
I just want to find out how to network (IRL) with people in my area. Not kidding.
Urbit.org
I think you have rose tinted glasses. Early internet was shit. Slow as fuck and mostly mediocre.
Just ask Putin to lend you a .su domain and ask Eranet International Limited for DNS services.
That requires you to not be a kike puppet libtard screeching "Chyyna Bad!!!!", though.