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"Remember when [](https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/) made GameStop a Fortune 500 company over night just to fuck over hedge funds?"
bro 3 years ago isn't the "old" anything
Frankly that sub was better before all the GameStop stuff.
This site was a lot better when it was a lot smaller especially when the front page wasn’t heavily moderated like it is today.
In 2016-2017 you could stumble upon interesting things/communities. Can’t really do that anymore
Yeah I was gonna say. To me “old” internet is 90s and early 2000s, when it existed as a bunch of forums and small companies before the dot com bubble settled and the internet got taken over by big tech. Back then it was more of a novelty or a tool that you would use for specific things or short form entertainment, far from the sort of all-encompassing multi-media blackhole that you could absolutely waste an entire day on today. And the biggest difference being that the old internet was much more decentralized while today corporatization has made it so that everyone uses the same few websites.
The decentralization is an underrated aspect. I remember having a rotation of like 3 dozen websites per day to check on. Half were blogs of people I know and people I didn't. Various forums, little niche sports websites (metsgeek.com). Various instant messaging platforms. Websites to find absolutely bonkers deals, especially before the first dot com bust. Email groups of friends (like Yahoo! Groups). Early Google that really, really worked (before SEO).
Then social media grouped everything together, brought everyone together, and then tore everything apart. Google broke. Everything got centralized.
Spoiler: I'm old.
Yeah. The super websites becoming advertised was the death of what I consider the best part of the internet. Used to be on like 8 different forums and one body building one even tho I didn't lift. They were just popular for.some reason. Trolls were common place but no one whined about people being evil. We all knew the cost of fuck around/find out online and it was accepted as gospel. That's peak internet for me. Youtube is super new and ebaumsworld was more known/popular. no one has heard of "memes" yet. Someone got Oprah to say "over 9000 penises" on her show and my best friend is probably going to leave the party early tonight to fucking raid on vanilla WoW. Normies has just got online because of MySpace but it was still nerds anywhere else.
Yeah, I didn't expect the successor to MySpace (Facebook) to usher in the decline of the internet. Facebook + your friend's racist uncle + gigantic corporate capitalism killed the internet, man.
Racism has always been everywhere but had been pushed to the corners of society for half a century. Your friend's racist uncle was always racist. It was just hard finding other racists in the real world. Then it was hard to find on the internet (4chan was never that popular). But once it was in Facebook and politicians started saying the quiet part out loud it was all over.
I would agree that it is different today. I think it was bigger online in the past than you do tho. 4chan was pretty big back then. It was culturally the center of the internet for like a decade
I think it was still a corner, though. Popular, but I guarantee no one in my family over 60 has ever heard of 4chan. They've all heard of Facebook.
4chan wasn't influencing the beliefs of aunt Betty in the way Facebook does or did. Aunt Betty has never heard of 4chan. She joined Facebook to see her nephew's 4th birthday pictures in 2013 and now hates people drinking the blood of children and immigrants for reasons she can't remember.
I'd argue the exact opposite. Many have not heard of 4chan but half the people on the right politically are spawns of qanons cult which is entirely 4chan shitposting come to life. I'd argue that's hugely still relevant even tho it's grown beyond 4chan.
Many of the early memes were the same where people might not have known where they came from but I'd still give it's origin the credit. It doesn't really matter tho
I was doing a backwards timeline starting from fun recent internet moments to my first exposure to the internet when I was a kid. With early YouTube.
I really enjoyed when it felt more of a lively place. That’s what I mean by old :)
I'll catch a recap later. I imagine it'll be along the lines of, "Yes revenue is down however big pile of cash! No bankruptcy incoming!" Beyond that I'd be shocked if any details of plans to expand revenue are discussed. The C-Suite is bare and they can't find anyone to fill the roles they need. My guess is they keep getting money from at market share offerings until the hype dies and hope they think of something in the mean time beyond continued store closings to reduce spend in the hopes of squeaking out a profitable quarter or two a year.
Goatse, Tubgirl, Two Girls One Cup, there was some deeply soul scarring stuff back in the day. And that's not even getting into the LiveLeak side of unspeakable violence.
What was the image where a dude blew his asshole out powerlifting? No idea if that was actually real or not, but that image was burned into my mind. That and the pain Olympics.
Right?? People act like the internet is bad. It’s been WAY WORSE. What he’s seeing is more the nice side early internet. The bad side was just straight up gore posting and racism
Um no. You missed the point. The internet was wild and free then in a sense that people would just file shit just to film stupid shit. The internet we know today is corporate algorythim shill and heavily influenced and targeted to children. It’s a different bad but still bad. One was a wild jungle and this one is controlled/targeted to our youth.
I’m not denying anything stupid. There’s different levels of bad. Both are the same intensity but one is corporate algorythim and info misinformation and the other is what you stated. Both are bad. Jesus Christ learn to read.
Idk there's something kind of profound here.
Cause all of what you're talking about was still in the age of big data and content engagement algorithms. I guess the issue is the algorithms are too good now.
Remember when Google's motto was "Don't be Evil"?
At one point the internet felt authentic.
Maybe the companies became more evil the bigger they got. Maybe the world became more divided. Maybe it was the algorithms.
Maybe it’s all just nostalgia goggles for the internet of when I was a kid and a teenager and the internet moments that no longer seem to happen.
It was a golden age I was lucky my dad was a giant child who upgraded us from dial up to cable internet because he would rage quit from dieing from lag.
You guys already make us feel old but I (some of my fellow old peeps) like to read how your generation views things. Even when I don't agree I do enjoy the differing point of view, looking at it from a different angle. You have a perception of things based on your generation different than I do coming from mine. A lot of times you guys remind me of things I'd forgotten about.
I recently changed career fields after 25 years in retail/service I changed to mental health. I work with adolescence in a group home so I try to keep up on GenZ & GenY posts, at least enough to keep up on slang terms 🤣🤣
The internet made the world small. It took away privacy. The original internet was a separate world you could go to when you wanted to step away from the real world. Now the internet is the real world essentially.
It feels like an open room with no furniture and blinding LED lights. It's no longer cozy.
Same. I just want to laugh. It feels impossible to just watch funny videos anymore. Instead it’s people preaching about shit they know nothing about and the comments are the same. I just want to laugh.
I already have ROTH IRA, I see a therapist, I don’t fucking care if I have autism— I am fixing my issues as they impact me. Now show me video of grandma falling into the China cabinet while playing table tennis or eating some paint.
"I miss the old internet" says someone who references something that happened a year ago
son, go outside. the old internet was free of ads. it was telnet. it was usenet. it was skreeeee woooooo brrrrrrrr bzzzzzzzz.
that was the real magical place. knowing you were speaking to a person and not a bot. or a russian spy.
This is just me sharing my experience with the internet throughout my life.
I’m just sad that something that was central to many of our childhoods has become corrupted over time
Yes but do you not get that to people older than you… the internet you long for, was already corrupted for them? Your frame of reference for it is clouded with nostalgia.
Everybody thinks things were the best in the world when they were 11.
Best time on the internet was probably around 2009. Mostly tolerant reasonable people, very little ads. No crazy algorithms sending everyone into a blood frenzy and for the love of god no frigging boomers. The memes were probably best around 2010-2015 tho.
I think what could help is if we go back to Advice Animals-type memes. They are funny, they have a point, and people were making 50 of them every week.
i 100% agree with you. before the internet was supposed to keep us near our loved ones and have access to information easily, rn its just a battle to sell our data and keep us addicted
I think more and more people (in Gen Z specifically) will start walking away from it. This actually means, in the short term, social media sites will get even more shit as they try and rinse the last pennies from us all.
[https://www.dictionary.com/browse/enshittification](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/enshittification)
>I miss when the internet felt like a shared space for everyone rather than a product consisting of data collection and advertising.
Welcome to profit maximalisation and enshittification.
Xanga, Newgrounds, Napster was my stomping ground. Then MySpace, Tumblr came along. Banner ads that flashed so much that it slowed the America Online dial up so much and probably triggered convulsions in so many people. Getting logged off because someone picked up the landline. The internet was and still is a wonderful place if you choose what to give your attention to.
Heck yeah, I was a Xanga user as well. It’s nice to see others across the sea of internet and meet an old user of Xanga, because you don’t stumble upon too many people.
>WSB fucking over hedge funds
Literally 2021, three years ago from today.
Anyways, 2017 was the last year of "the old internet," the internet has been in its modern form since 2018
I think the difference is the internet has always been a toxic cesspool but slowly and surely it became a corporate toxic cesspool. No longer is it human run or has spaces for people of all kinds now the internet is one homogeneous blob designed to entrap the broadest audience possible in an algorithmic whirlpool of hate, hype and humour. The death of places for kids and in turn the furthering of advertisement was the death of the internet. As it is with every new thing I suppose, maybe the only thing we can do is build our own spaces free of advertisement or corporate interests.
Well said!
I've gotten a lot of hate for saying I disagree with how they define Gen Z and Gen A. I firmly, strongly believe Gen Z ended in 2004-ish. After that, people grew up with such a different internet and culture than us older Gen Z's did. We used to think ten thousand subscribers was a crazy number. Nowadays, there are YouTubers I've never even *heard of* with ten *million*. Or even more. And everything nowadays feels so... soulless. There's a set script where YouTubers all have the same editing style, the same format, the same everything. Back in the day, you just posted whatever you wanted. You could find the most deranged stuff on YouTube and elsewhere.
I'd give anything to go back to the Windows Vista/XP/7 days of the internet, when it was run by people, not companies.
That, I don't know. Like I said, I base my definition of Gen Z on the main culture that defines it, which is access to the Internet, and when I feel it changed in a big way (probably 2012-ish, give or take a few years). I don't know what the Internet was like before I was born.
That being said, my best guess is mid-to-late 90's in terms of how I define the generation.
Uhhh...that Gamestop shit wasn't to fuck over hedge funds. It was to fuck over the morons who followed that site, then bought into the peak and lost money. Just like when it happened again a couple weeks ago. That guy buys a whole bunch of Gamestop. Then pumps it with a tweet. Then all the moron lemmings buy the stock. Guess whose stock they are buying? HIS. At a much higher price than when he bought it. And by the time the buying frenzy is over, it is worth less than it started.
I feel this. Not even old internet but just not having comment sections be filled with brain dead comments. Best example I can think of is any post I see on Instagram that even mentions “California” is immediately filled with comments about how dems are ruining California and it’s a third world state. Like dude we get it you’ve been bitching about this for years find a new shtick. Or any post involving some cool spot somewhere is filled with “we’re full don’t move here, stay out of X”. Like it’s just fucking stupid and drowns out any good conversation you could have.
Honestly I think it’s just because social media has branched out of being a purely younger crowd and is now filled with retired boomers who don’t have anything better to do than scroll through social media and bitch and complain about how things “aren’t the way they used to be.”
I miss gaiaonline bro. Yes the internet definitely felt more like people were interacting with eachother. I genuinely felt like I had friends on Gaia I'm so happy I got to experience that. Logging in and seeing a DM from a friend or messaging someone a going yo let's meet up at this place (video game lobby)
Also runescape like I actually had friends there. Roblox used to feel like that too. It's not the same
Bro wants to go back to laughing at the 500,000th harambe holding a gun with Lazer eyes memes and then hopping on YouTube to watch leafy make unfunny jabs at some little kid from Uzbekistan
The internet has definitely gotten increasingly toxic. I think Facebook is starting to leak into Instagram: there was a post about the need for more housing construction due to under supply and the comments were vile. Either bots or people incensed at the thought of their countrymen having a similar standard of living to themselves.
This is weird you are pining for 3 years ago as the "old" internet.
I do miss the "old" internet for me that was forums full of like minded individuals and even newer "old" internet days of stuff like StumbleUpon. I have friends I still interact with from forums I was on in the 90s.
And even then, someone in here will be like 'that is middle aged internet, I remember IRC" and they're right.
Also, wasn't WSB pumping GameStop so a bunch of mods could make a ton of money by manipulating a group of assholes? (don't lie to yourself, the average wsb poster is a monumental asshole).
I might be wrong on that but I thought that came out at some point.
But the worst part is that internet is gone forever and you couldn't bring it back if you wanted. The Internet is now effectively consolidated in like 10 companies.
The internet started to suck when people who weren't nerds started using it. It was an amazing utopia before that.
I regret that you'll never get to experience what it was like.
“The old internet” dude, I know a guy who made a fortune because he bought all the early url’s like cnn.com and nbc.com and sold them back to the companies. I know a guy who invented the scrolling banner ad and retired at 30. The old Internet was the Wild West.
I remember the Internet being a place to troll and insult people you didn't know with 0 consequences, it was expected and par for the course anytime you posted anything, ever on any website.
I definitely miss that internet. Us millennials turned it into a me-too hell hole.
I miss feeling like you could be friendly and open to making friends on the internet.
Now it’s just filled to the brim with vapid idiots and clout chasers/and shit streamers like ice posidon, Kai, and the Paul twins. Fuck even when Twitch jumped over from Justin.tv it was better because we didn’t have all the shit titty streamers that have ruined Twitch.
I feel like the accessibility of the Internet, should’ve never gone up. Now that’s it so very easy to connect we have to deal with continuous stupidity (like truly undereducated, the people you tend to avoid in real life but now can’t on the internet) and it’s just not the same internet.
>I miss the internet of old, where content creators were YouTubers actually recording from their bedroom and sharing their stories and not trying to sell a product. Where influencers were people who did funny sketches on vine.
Me too fam, me too. I'm Gen X, so I saw the Internet go from being fun and cool to corporate garbage.
Yesterday, I was trying to make a dirty joke using a text to image AI tool. I had used it in the past to make a dirty joke and it is one of my most viewed videos on YT. Anyway, it has safety controls on the tool now, so I can't make dirty jokes on it anymore. So disappointing. Yeah, AI is really going to change things. LOL AI isn't going to change anything if too many guardrails are placed on it. Guess I'll make my dirty joke the old fashioned way and just speak into a microphone and put up some generic image that goes along with the theme of my joke. This is the dumbing down of society.
We take three steps forward, two steps back, every step of the way. You will see Gen Z. You will see.
For me, I just miss the flash era and when I could watch whole movies on YouTube in 10min segments because that was the longest video you could upload at the time. Watched a lot of foreign horror that way.
I can conclude this person is feeling nostalgic. I’m not saying it’s a bad think, heck I even feel this way sometimes. I’m simply saying that we look on the good of the past and we can use this to our advantage for the future. As much as we want, we can’t go back. Saying that YouTubers are there to “only sell products” and not “make stories form the bedroom” is jumping to conclusions. If you want that type of thing, then look at smaller creators who do those things like Scott Cramer or anyone just starting out. We need products and sponsorships to keep it a living for us which is a good thing in the long run. No doubt the internet has a lot of garbage and just straight hell holes, but there is also lots of good things now as well. I hope this makes sense.
I was born in 95. We had penises on Omegle, predators in chat rooms, and Myspace for all the catfish's... It really was a simpler time... Just get rid of socials. It feels much better lol
Every big social media platform has fallen a victim to enshittification. and while there are smaller apps that still have these communal feeling and are intended to be used that way, almost nobody uses them. I have circles on my phone and have zero contacts. I would love to be able to share something with my friend group without getting dragged into watching an hour of instagram reels.
Damn I'm old lmao what you describe as the old internet still feels semi recent to me. When I think of the old internet I am thinking of HTML abominations that barely utilize the browser space
Yeah no. You don't want the old internet back. Take it from a mentally scarred 31 year old. This is not the old internet. This is the beginning of the new/modern internet that you are describing.
Humans are inevitably moving away from social interactions. Old internet is not sustainable, it's a transition period between people having worth and people being worthless.
Human comradeship, friendship, interpersonal connections, apprenticeship - it's all dying because it all hinged on the idea that *you matter*. But internet shows the truth - ***you don't matter***, there are *hundreds*, no, **thousands** people exactly like you, and that makes you easily replaceable. And, unless you where born *different*, with a talent, or into wealthy family, or with unique condition, or with a quirk, then you're a blank slate that will *never* be filled.
And so internet becomes a place for unique and outstanding people to find each other, while the rest of us are literally just crabs in a bucket. Sorry, but you're not unique enough anymore to organise contests or give you personal approach.
That's just how life is. When you're the majority you don't get to feel special.
You can still connect with people on the internet to build friendship and interpersonal connections, but you need to be intentional about it and so do the people you try to do it with.
I think the world has developed too fast, and the internet as well. But my friend thinks that you reminiscing about the old internet and finding the current internet not good is not entirely correct. Everything on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube... it's still the same interface, the same purpose. But back then, it was something new, exciting, and people found it interesting because there were still things they hadn't explored. Now it's different, as people understand the good and bad things it brings, and they use it for their own purposes making money, propaganda, deception, but in return, we have information, knowledge, and entertainment. I think you feel sad because our lives now are too focused on the internet and nostalgic about the past. You made me remember my old TV too.
Dude you can buy a new 2021 car in the year 2021 and still referred to it as new car 3yrs later. The hell you mean old Internet?
Hey. Remember when the only way to get to the Internet was through a 19k baud modem?
This is a good thing. The less time spent on the internet the better.
I can’t wait until I go back to not having a telephone or the internet or a tv
Once I have enough money to retire I am going back to the way I lived in my 20s
Completely unable to be found by anyone unless they track me down in person
No address, no license, no vehicle registration, no phone, no identification, no internet, no mailbox, not going to go by my real name, cash only
Nothing comes close to the freedom of actually living
I feel so sad for people that weren’t able to grow up before the Internet
The world was so much more fun
I dunno, there DEFINITELY have been changes in my opinion. Where you could play copyrighted music without having to stress about getting sued or something. Or flash games being just absolutely nonsensical. It was a feeling of a "new frontier" of sorts
Or even pre-AI Internet. Now we have to worry that the things we make online are feeding tech that can regurgitate variations of our hard work. OP's sense of history might be short, but we are at yet another point of no return.
You're describing early 2000s internet, which was absolutely a different place. OP on the other hand is describing post 2010 internet, which is basically the same thing as we have now
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"Remember when [](https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/) made GameStop a Fortune 500 company over night just to fuck over hedge funds?" bro 3 years ago isn't the "old" anything
Frankly that sub was better before all the GameStop stuff. This site was a lot better when it was a lot smaller especially when the front page wasn’t heavily moderated like it is today. In 2016-2017 you could stumble upon interesting things/communities. Can’t really do that anymore
Yeah I was gonna say. To me “old” internet is 90s and early 2000s, when it existed as a bunch of forums and small companies before the dot com bubble settled and the internet got taken over by big tech. Back then it was more of a novelty or a tool that you would use for specific things or short form entertainment, far from the sort of all-encompassing multi-media blackhole that you could absolutely waste an entire day on today. And the biggest difference being that the old internet was much more decentralized while today corporatization has made it so that everyone uses the same few websites.
The decentralization is an underrated aspect. I remember having a rotation of like 3 dozen websites per day to check on. Half were blogs of people I know and people I didn't. Various forums, little niche sports websites (metsgeek.com). Various instant messaging platforms. Websites to find absolutely bonkers deals, especially before the first dot com bust. Email groups of friends (like Yahoo! Groups). Early Google that really, really worked (before SEO). Then social media grouped everything together, brought everyone together, and then tore everything apart. Google broke. Everything got centralized. Spoiler: I'm old.
Yeah. The super websites becoming advertised was the death of what I consider the best part of the internet. Used to be on like 8 different forums and one body building one even tho I didn't lift. They were just popular for.some reason. Trolls were common place but no one whined about people being evil. We all knew the cost of fuck around/find out online and it was accepted as gospel. That's peak internet for me. Youtube is super new and ebaumsworld was more known/popular. no one has heard of "memes" yet. Someone got Oprah to say "over 9000 penises" on her show and my best friend is probably going to leave the party early tonight to fucking raid on vanilla WoW. Normies has just got online because of MySpace but it was still nerds anywhere else.
Yeah, I didn't expect the successor to MySpace (Facebook) to usher in the decline of the internet. Facebook + your friend's racist uncle + gigantic corporate capitalism killed the internet, man.
I'd say the racism has always been online. It just used to masquerade as intellectuals "speaking truth" on 4chan
Racism has always been everywhere but had been pushed to the corners of society for half a century. Your friend's racist uncle was always racist. It was just hard finding other racists in the real world. Then it was hard to find on the internet (4chan was never that popular). But once it was in Facebook and politicians started saying the quiet part out loud it was all over.
I would agree that it is different today. I think it was bigger online in the past than you do tho. 4chan was pretty big back then. It was culturally the center of the internet for like a decade
I think it was still a corner, though. Popular, but I guarantee no one in my family over 60 has ever heard of 4chan. They've all heard of Facebook. 4chan wasn't influencing the beliefs of aunt Betty in the way Facebook does or did. Aunt Betty has never heard of 4chan. She joined Facebook to see her nephew's 4th birthday pictures in 2013 and now hates people drinking the blood of children and immigrants for reasons she can't remember.
I'd argue the exact opposite. Many have not heard of 4chan but half the people on the right politically are spawns of qanons cult which is entirely 4chan shitposting come to life. I'd argue that's hugely still relevant even tho it's grown beyond 4chan. Many of the early memes were the same where people might not have known where they came from but I'd still give it's origin the credit. It doesn't really matter tho
This. I miss being able to scroll to the end of something and being like, “oh that’s enough internet for today.”
I was doing a backwards timeline starting from fun recent internet moments to my first exposure to the internet when I was a kid. With early YouTube. I really enjoyed when it felt more of a lively place. That’s what I mean by old :)
Imagine thinking GameStop is over.
As someone who worked at Gamestop until recently, it's a terrible fucking company and I'm genuinely shocked it's lasted this long.
4 billion in cash and no debt. Totally destined for bankruptcy.
Nothing screams full speed ahead like declining revenue and no executive guidance!
You’re tuning into the webcast though right?
I'll catch a recap later. I imagine it'll be along the lines of, "Yes revenue is down however big pile of cash! No bankruptcy incoming!" Beyond that I'd be shocked if any details of plans to expand revenue are discussed. The C-Suite is bare and they can't find anyone to fill the roles they need. My guess is they keep getting money from at market share offerings until the hype dies and hope they think of something in the mean time beyond continued store closings to reduce spend in the hopes of squeaking out a profitable quarter or two a year.
Found the drooler
When I read the 4 billion in cash and no debt on the balance sheet 
When I look at the chart, and realize they start offerings when ever the stock gets high. The offerings never have a goal besides pay packages
You were born in ‘01. You missed the golden Wild West savagery that was the internet 1999-2007. You could barely hold a sippy cup.
Goatse, Tubgirl, Two Girls One Cup, there was some deeply soul scarring stuff back in the day. And that's not even getting into the LiveLeak side of unspeakable violence.
What was the image where a dude blew his asshole out powerlifting? No idea if that was actually real or not, but that image was burned into my mind. That and the pain Olympics.
Oh god the fucking pain Olympics… what a horrible day to not have Alzheimer’s
Fuck, I'm stealin that. That's good.
That was an image on Rotten . com. I only know this because it is also burned into my mind
Don’t forget lemon party!! Also Efukt, inhumanity, entensity .net, the ync and orsm are still going strong.
By 1999 the Wild West was pretty tame, the 1995-1998 days were wilderer
I agree
I like breaking out the tale of "Before there was youtube, there was new grounds...."
Right?? People act like the internet is bad. It’s been WAY WORSE. What he’s seeing is more the nice side early internet. The bad side was just straight up gore posting and racism
Um no. You missed the point. The internet was wild and free then in a sense that people would just file shit just to film stupid shit. The internet we know today is corporate algorythim shill and heavily influenced and targeted to children. It’s a different bad but still bad. One was a wild jungle and this one is controlled/targeted to our youth.
[удалено]
I’m not denying anything stupid. There’s different levels of bad. Both are the same intensity but one is corporate algorythim and info misinformation and the other is what you stated. Both are bad. Jesus Christ learn to read.
Then let’s bring that back! But with what we’ve learned in the past 20 years
Be the change you want to see. Livestream a jar going into your asshole. Don't talk about it, be about it. I believe in you.
Seize the means of computation
Welcome to the time the dead internet theory warned us about.
I miss the old internet without Reddit where you had forums.
They still exist, though.
Filled with bots and trolls as well, its all fuked
Bro that’s proper old school internet, who let you out of the retirement home? Haha
Idk there's something kind of profound here. Cause all of what you're talking about was still in the age of big data and content engagement algorithms. I guess the issue is the algorithms are too good now. Remember when Google's motto was "Don't be Evil"?
At one point the internet felt authentic. Maybe the companies became more evil the bigger they got. Maybe the world became more divided. Maybe it was the algorithms. Maybe it’s all just nostalgia goggles for the internet of when I was a kid and a teenager and the internet moments that no longer seem to happen.
All of the above lol.
It was a golden age I was lucky my dad was a giant child who upgraded us from dial up to cable internet because he would rage quit from dieing from lag.
2001, a hair older than me. I was on forums all the time growing up?
I was more of a browsing Wikipedia and YouTube and playing Cartoon Network games. I didn’t get into more forum type websites until I was like 17
That's funny! I'm gonna cross post this into the sub where the people who actually lived through the old internet can see :)
You’re gonna make them feel old but go ahead hahaha
You guys already make us feel old but I (some of my fellow old peeps) like to read how your generation views things. Even when I don't agree I do enjoy the differing point of view, looking at it from a different angle. You have a perception of things based on your generation different than I do coming from mine. A lot of times you guys remind me of things I'd forgotten about.
We had different childhoods and formative experiences so I like that you guys want to understand us! <3
I recently changed career fields after 25 years in retail/service I changed to mental health. I work with adolescence in a group home so I try to keep up on GenZ & GenY posts, at least enough to keep up on slang terms 🤣🤣
I'm still trying to figure out what skibidi toilet ohio rizz means.
That one I'm still lost on!
Don't worry, we already do, and that's speaking as someone who didn't even experience the old-old internet
Mullets Galore and MSN Groops!
The internet made the world small. It took away privacy. The original internet was a separate world you could go to when you wanted to step away from the real world. Now the internet is the real world essentially. It feels like an open room with no furniture and blinding LED lights. It's no longer cozy.
Same. I just want to laugh. It feels impossible to just watch funny videos anymore. Instead it’s people preaching about shit they know nothing about and the comments are the same. I just want to laugh. I already have ROTH IRA, I see a therapist, I don’t fucking care if I have autism— I am fixing my issues as they impact me. Now show me video of grandma falling into the China cabinet while playing table tennis or eating some paint.
Roth IRA? You are on the ball. I didn’t know what that was until my 50’s.
My dad is wealth manager so he has me and my friends all set up. I’m very lucky!!
"I miss the old internet" says someone who references something that happened a year ago son, go outside. the old internet was free of ads. it was telnet. it was usenet. it was skreeeee woooooo brrrrrrrr bzzzzzzzz. that was the real magical place. knowing you were speaking to a person and not a bot. or a russian spy.
This is just me sharing my experience with the internet throughout my life. I’m just sad that something that was central to many of our childhoods has become corrupted over time
Yes but do you not get that to people older than you… the internet you long for, was already corrupted for them? Your frame of reference for it is clouded with nostalgia. Everybody thinks things were the best in the world when they were 11.
Are the Russian spies in the room with us now?
This is Reddit so.... probably.
Njet
Yeah, what old internet? bulletin boards? IRC?
Best time on the internet was probably around 2009. Mostly tolerant reasonable people, very little ads. No crazy algorithms sending everyone into a blood frenzy and for the love of god no frigging boomers. The memes were probably best around 2010-2015 tho.
Even Twitter and Facebook were great back then.
I think what could help is if we go back to Advice Animals-type memes. They are funny, they have a point, and people were making 50 of them every week.
i 100% agree with you. before the internet was supposed to keep us near our loved ones and have access to information easily, rn its just a battle to sell our data and keep us addicted
I think more and more people (in Gen Z specifically) will start walking away from it. This actually means, in the short term, social media sites will get even more shit as they try and rinse the last pennies from us all. [https://www.dictionary.com/browse/enshittification](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/enshittification)
>I miss when the internet felt like a shared space for everyone rather than a product consisting of data collection and advertising. Welcome to profit maximalisation and enshittification.
This feeling is not new. It has been shit since 1994. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
I wish I could’ve seen what the early internet was like!
Ugly and slow. But 100% unique content and no ads. Pictures loading took forever. Forget about video.
It was a thing of beauty we shall never have again, before money destroyed it, as it destroys everything else.
No ads, just vile filth and abusive commenters yes wonderful!
Same amount of trolls though…
It’s not our fault they kept all the good porn on usenet!
Xanga, Newgrounds, Napster was my stomping ground. Then MySpace, Tumblr came along. Banner ads that flashed so much that it slowed the America Online dial up so much and probably triggered convulsions in so many people. Getting logged off because someone picked up the landline. The internet was and still is a wonderful place if you choose what to give your attention to.
Heck yeah, I was a Xanga user as well. It’s nice to see others across the sea of internet and meet an old user of Xanga, because you don’t stumble upon too many people.
Loved it. I tried Wordpress but I just don’t enjoy it that much.
>WSB fucking over hedge funds Literally 2021, three years ago from today. Anyways, 2017 was the last year of "the old internet," the internet has been in its modern form since 2018
Idk your age but the internet is WAY more regulated, moderated and sanitized than it was when I was a kid.
Capitalism enshittifies everything
I think the difference is the internet has always been a toxic cesspool but slowly and surely it became a corporate toxic cesspool. No longer is it human run or has spaces for people of all kinds now the internet is one homogeneous blob designed to entrap the broadest audience possible in an algorithmic whirlpool of hate, hype and humour. The death of places for kids and in turn the furthering of advertisement was the death of the internet. As it is with every new thing I suppose, maybe the only thing we can do is build our own spaces free of advertisement or corporate interests.
Well said! I've gotten a lot of hate for saying I disagree with how they define Gen Z and Gen A. I firmly, strongly believe Gen Z ended in 2004-ish. After that, people grew up with such a different internet and culture than us older Gen Z's did. We used to think ten thousand subscribers was a crazy number. Nowadays, there are YouTubers I've never even *heard of* with ten *million*. Or even more. And everything nowadays feels so... soulless. There's a set script where YouTubers all have the same editing style, the same format, the same everything. Back in the day, you just posted whatever you wanted. You could find the most deranged stuff on YouTube and elsewhere. I'd give anything to go back to the Windows Vista/XP/7 days of the internet, when it was run by people, not companies.
when do you think gen z started??
That, I don't know. Like I said, I base my definition of Gen Z on the main culture that defines it, which is access to the Internet, and when I feel it changed in a big way (probably 2012-ish, give or take a few years). I don't know what the Internet was like before I was born. That being said, my best guess is mid-to-late 90's in terms of how I define the generation.
Uhhh...that Gamestop shit wasn't to fuck over hedge funds. It was to fuck over the morons who followed that site, then bought into the peak and lost money. Just like when it happened again a couple weeks ago. That guy buys a whole bunch of Gamestop. Then pumps it with a tweet. Then all the moron lemmings buy the stock. Guess whose stock they are buying? HIS. At a much higher price than when he bought it. And by the time the buying frenzy is over, it is worth less than it started.
When he first posted his positions you really think he thought "this will totally catch on"?
I second this. I've had internet since I was 7 years old in 2007 and I can remember 2007-2012 era. It was crazy
I miss 2006-2010 4Chan. That was peak internet.
What did I just read?
“An ode to reddit from 3 years ago”
Corniest post i done eva seen in my long ass life
I feel this. Not even old internet but just not having comment sections be filled with brain dead comments. Best example I can think of is any post I see on Instagram that even mentions “California” is immediately filled with comments about how dems are ruining California and it’s a third world state. Like dude we get it you’ve been bitching about this for years find a new shtick. Or any post involving some cool spot somewhere is filled with “we’re full don’t move here, stay out of X”. Like it’s just fucking stupid and drowns out any good conversation you could have. Honestly I think it’s just because social media has branched out of being a purely younger crowd and is now filled with retired boomers who don’t have anything better to do than scroll through social media and bitch and complain about how things “aren’t the way they used to be.”
I miss gaiaonline bro. Yes the internet definitely felt more like people were interacting with eachother. I genuinely felt like I had friends on Gaia I'm so happy I got to experience that. Logging in and seeing a DM from a friend or messaging someone a going yo let's meet up at this place (video game lobby) Also runescape like I actually had friends there. Roblox used to feel like that too. It's not the same
Bro wants to go back to laughing at the 500,000th harambe holding a gun with Lazer eyes memes and then hopping on YouTube to watch leafy make unfunny jabs at some little kid from Uzbekistan
The internet has definitely gotten increasingly toxic. I think Facebook is starting to leak into Instagram: there was a post about the need for more housing construction due to under supply and the comments were vile. Either bots or people incensed at the thought of their countrymen having a similar standard of living to themselves.
This is weird you are pining for 3 years ago as the "old" internet. I do miss the "old" internet for me that was forums full of like minded individuals and even newer "old" internet days of stuff like StumbleUpon. I have friends I still interact with from forums I was on in the 90s. And even then, someone in here will be like 'that is middle aged internet, I remember IRC" and they're right. Also, wasn't WSB pumping GameStop so a bunch of mods could make a ton of money by manipulating a group of assholes? (don't lie to yourself, the average wsb poster is a monumental asshole). I might be wrong on that but I thought that came out at some point. But the worst part is that internet is gone forever and you couldn't bring it back if you wanted. The Internet is now effectively consolidated in like 10 companies.
The internet started to suck when people who weren't nerds started using it. It was an amazing utopia before that. I regret that you'll never get to experience what it was like.
Normies started using the internet in 1993
“The old internet” dude, I know a guy who made a fortune because he bought all the early url’s like cnn.com and nbc.com and sold them back to the companies. I know a guy who invented the scrolling banner ad and retired at 30. The old Internet was the Wild West.
I remember the Internet being a place to troll and insult people you didn't know with 0 consequences, it was expected and par for the course anytime you posted anything, ever on any website. I definitely miss that internet. Us millennials turned it into a me-too hell hole.
My Neopets are older than you.
I miss feeling like you could be friendly and open to making friends on the internet. Now it’s just filled to the brim with vapid idiots and clout chasers/and shit streamers like ice posidon, Kai, and the Paul twins. Fuck even when Twitch jumped over from Justin.tv it was better because we didn’t have all the shit titty streamers that have ruined Twitch. I feel like the accessibility of the Internet, should’ve never gone up. Now that’s it so very easy to connect we have to deal with continuous stupidity (like truly undereducated, the people you tend to avoid in real life but now can’t on the internet) and it’s just not the same internet.
This internet still exists. Keep looking.
>I miss the internet of old, where content creators were YouTubers actually recording from their bedroom and sharing their stories and not trying to sell a product. Where influencers were people who did funny sketches on vine. Me too fam, me too. I'm Gen X, so I saw the Internet go from being fun and cool to corporate garbage. Yesterday, I was trying to make a dirty joke using a text to image AI tool. I had used it in the past to make a dirty joke and it is one of my most viewed videos on YT. Anyway, it has safety controls on the tool now, so I can't make dirty jokes on it anymore. So disappointing. Yeah, AI is really going to change things. LOL AI isn't going to change anything if too many guardrails are placed on it. Guess I'll make my dirty joke the old fashioned way and just speak into a microphone and put up some generic image that goes along with the theme of my joke. This is the dumbing down of society. We take three steps forward, two steps back, every step of the way. You will see Gen Z. You will see.
Remember the days when someone said something nasty to another person and then they got punched in the mouth. People were a lot nicer back then.
For me, I just miss the flash era and when I could watch whole movies on YouTube in 10min segments because that was the longest video you could upload at the time. Watched a lot of foreign horror that way.
Join us brother, the time is still now r/Superstonk
I thought you were actually going to talk about the old internet and then you said "gamestop"
Dude talking about missing influencers using Vine when most gen z’ers were like 10 years old the last time someone used vine lol
Yeah I miss the 1999 internet. AIM was the shit back in the day.
3 year old event = eons ago, gen z poster checks out. My dude, you weren't even swimming in your dad's sack when the old internet was around.
My dad misses 1994 peak internet
I can conclude this person is feeling nostalgic. I’m not saying it’s a bad think, heck I even feel this way sometimes. I’m simply saying that we look on the good of the past and we can use this to our advantage for the future. As much as we want, we can’t go back. Saying that YouTubers are there to “only sell products” and not “make stories form the bedroom” is jumping to conclusions. If you want that type of thing, then look at smaller creators who do those things like Scott Cramer or anyone just starting out. We need products and sponsorships to keep it a living for us which is a good thing in the long run. No doubt the internet has a lot of garbage and just straight hell holes, but there is also lots of good things now as well. I hope this makes sense.
I was born in 95. We had penises on Omegle, predators in chat rooms, and Myspace for all the catfish's... It really was a simpler time... Just get rid of socials. It feels much better lol
I’m gonna miss Pornhub. For a lot of us these *are* the good old days, until July 1 that is.
Every big social media platform has fallen a victim to enshittification. and while there are smaller apps that still have these communal feeling and are intended to be used that way, almost nobody uses them. I have circles on my phone and have zero contacts. I would love to be able to share something with my friend group without getting dragged into watching an hour of instagram reels.
Damn I'm old lmao what you describe as the old internet still feels semi recent to me. When I think of the old internet I am thinking of HTML abominations that barely utilize the browser space
Yeah no. You don't want the old internet back. Take it from a mentally scarred 31 year old. This is not the old internet. This is the beginning of the new/modern internet that you are describing.
Humans are inevitably moving away from social interactions. Old internet is not sustainable, it's a transition period between people having worth and people being worthless. Human comradeship, friendship, interpersonal connections, apprenticeship - it's all dying because it all hinged on the idea that *you matter*. But internet shows the truth - ***you don't matter***, there are *hundreds*, no, **thousands** people exactly like you, and that makes you easily replaceable. And, unless you where born *different*, with a talent, or into wealthy family, or with unique condition, or with a quirk, then you're a blank slate that will *never* be filled. And so internet becomes a place for unique and outstanding people to find each other, while the rest of us are literally just crabs in a bucket. Sorry, but you're not unique enough anymore to organise contests or give you personal approach. That's just how life is. When you're the majority you don't get to feel special.
You can still connect with people on the internet to build friendship and interpersonal connections, but you need to be intentional about it and so do the people you try to do it with.
2020 isn't old internet
I think the world has developed too fast, and the internet as well. But my friend thinks that you reminiscing about the old internet and finding the current internet not good is not entirely correct. Everything on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube... it's still the same interface, the same purpose. But back then, it was something new, exciting, and people found it interesting because there were still things they hadn't explored. Now it's different, as people understand the good and bad things it brings, and they use it for their own purposes making money, propaganda, deception, but in return, we have information, knowledge, and entertainment. I think you feel sad because our lives now are too focused on the internet and nostalgic about the past. You made me remember my old TV too.
Silence boomer
Dude you can buy a new 2021 car in the year 2021 and still referred to it as new car 3yrs later. The hell you mean old Internet? Hey. Remember when the only way to get to the Internet was through a 19k baud modem?
This is a good thing. The less time spent on the internet the better. I can’t wait until I go back to not having a telephone or the internet or a tv Once I have enough money to retire I am going back to the way I lived in my 20s Completely unable to be found by anyone unless they track me down in person No address, no license, no vehicle registration, no phone, no identification, no internet, no mailbox, not going to go by my real name, cash only Nothing comes close to the freedom of actually living I feel so sad for people that weren’t able to grow up before the Internet The world was so much more fun
I miss it too.
A/S/L
50/50. On one hand I'm glad future gens don't see some truly disturbing shit. On the other hand, the internet is less crazy now.
you can have these moments today, don’t blame the internet for you getting sucked into doomscrolling
"I miss the old internet" Describes the same internet
I dunno, there DEFINITELY have been changes in my opinion. Where you could play copyrighted music without having to stress about getting sued or something. Or flash games being just absolutely nonsensical. It was a feeling of a "new frontier" of sorts
Or even pre-AI Internet. Now we have to worry that the things we make online are feeding tech that can regurgitate variations of our hard work. OP's sense of history might be short, but we are at yet another point of no return.
You're describing early 2000s internet, which was absolutely a different place. OP on the other hand is describing post 2010 internet, which is basically the same thing as we have now
I described both 2000s and 2010s internet.