People have been posting on bulletin boards since the 80's iirc, the kind where you had to have your computer's 28k modem dial into the local server and post. Forums as we know them today started really popping up in the mid to late 90's. afaik
A lot of ISPs in the 90s came bundled with Usenet "newsgroup" bulletin boards. Before Limewire and the like, they were a good way to share movies, porn and software (though it required breaking the files up into hundreds of posts). Unfortunately in the 2000s it got overrun with viruses and CP, and most ISPs shut down their Usenet servers by the end of the decade. Of course by then, torrenting had pretty much taken over.
My personal favorite Usenet gem is the board for rap discussion:
In 1991 one guy straight up admitted that he was trolling before saying that MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice were the best rappers in the game and that the Five Percent Nation only used 5 words, and people got legitimately mad at him
people were insisting that Kris Kross couldn’t be slept on in 1992
Apparently in 1993 there was a rumor in Pittsburgh that Snoop Dogg(y Dogg) had died
Vanilla Ice and Markey Mark had still tainted white rap’s public opinion in 1996
Someone in 1997 said that rap was at its peak because Biggie and Pac died, and that it wouldn’t be as popular in 20 years (lmao)
One guy was asking who an up and coming rapper named Eminem was in 1998
In 98/99 someone said that Missy Elliot was the worst new MC (incorrect) but that MF DOOM had the best 12” (correct)
I get some real "tears in rain" feelings when I think about all the forums and chat rooms I was in, all the time spent with those people and how those little moments and injokes are gone.
There are memes completely lost to time. For every Hampster Dance or Dancing Baby, there are hundreds of old memes that now exist only in the memories of those who participated in those forums.
oof at the original. 97 and G*mers are literally still the same today.
Maybe I'm too zoomer but I'm just surprised forums were around in '97. I mean I thought the internet was only for email and shit back then
People have been posting on bulletin boards since the 80's iirc, the kind where you had to have your computer's 28k modem dial into the local server and post. Forums as we know them today started really popping up in the mid to late 90's. afaik
A lot of ISPs in the 90s came bundled with Usenet "newsgroup" bulletin boards. Before Limewire and the like, they were a good way to share movies, porn and software (though it required breaking the files up into hundreds of posts). Unfortunately in the 2000s it got overrun with viruses and CP, and most ISPs shut down their Usenet servers by the end of the decade. Of course by then, torrenting had pretty much taken over.
My personal favorite Usenet gem is the board for rap discussion:
There was a much, much smaller userbase and generally less streamlined (or less anti-streamlined, monetized) systems, but it was there.
They also generally had their own self-contained cultures, and their own memes that never left that website.
I get some real "tears in rain" feelings when I think about all the forums and chat rooms I was in, all the time spent with those people and how those little moments and injokes are gone.
There are memes completely lost to time. For every Hampster Dance or Dancing Baby, there are hundreds of old memes that now exist only in the memories of those who participated in those forums.
forums are like multiplayer email
IRC is like multiplayer notepad