The Simplicity Of Recipes

1

"I dunno. But, I really miss the way recipes used to be shared online. No scrolling through a giant website of background story of the recipe and countless ads. It was literally just the text of the recipe, with comments under of how to tweak that recipe. We were so spoiled by the simplicity and immediacy of ingredient lists back then and we didn’t even know it."

"Mom, Put Down The Phone, I Want The Internet!"

2

"Telling people not to use the phone because you were on the internet."

Who Remembers "Netscape Navigator"?

3

"Who here remembers Netscape Navigator being the best browser?"

Downloads Taking Literal Hours

4

"Starting a download before you went to bed so it would be done when you got up the next morning."

The Badger Song!

5

"BADGER, BADGER, BADGER MUSHROOM MUSHROOM!"

Hamster Gifs Everywhere

6

"Hamster dance

It was just hamster gifs"

"I Miss The Independence And Creativity Of The Early Web"

7

"I miss the independence and creativity of the early web. You could surf it for interesting topics developed by people as a hobby for hours and not ever run into anything corporate. That has completely reversed now, sadly."

"It Was An Assault On The Senses, But It Was Also Glorious!": Overburdened Web Design

8

"The early days of CSS & HTML with cursor effects, far too many different fonts, visitor counters on every website, inexplicable scrolling text, animated gifs everywhere, etc. It was an assault on the senses, but it was also glorious!"

Extremely Intricate Fonts

9

"I remember my friend showing me some flaming text on his school intranet page and I thought it was the absolute f@#king future"

Amazon Was A Bit Different

10

"Amazon was still a bookstore."

We Somehow Survived Without YouTube

11

"YouTube wasn’t around."

Having To Pay For Every Single Minute Online

12

"Dial up that would charge you by the minute. People today don't know how good they have it."

"Under Construction" At All Times

13

"The always present 'under construction' sign as well.

The early internet was awash in black background with dayglo fonts and it was glorious. And they were all connected in little rings."

Viruses Weren't As Sneaky

14

"It your computer had a virus, you knew. Nowadays, aside from ransomware, viruses are a bunch of uncreative sneaky bois that steal passwords or slow your computer down for a botnet."

Absolutely No Rules

15

"I must be older than anyone here, because the "early days" of the internet was back when years still started with 19. And there were NO RULES. There was no online tracking, no ad-bots, just no enforcement of any kind. Essentially the internet then was what the dark net is now. Anything could be found, but only if you knew where to look. Search engines were all but useless and nothing was protected for s@#t. A few hours in a dumpster full of paper could get you access to nearly anything. That was the early days of the internet."

Personalizing AOL's Notifications

16

"My friend's mom's reaction when I replaced AOL's "you've got mail" with "you've got porn""

The Fun Of Customizing Your Cursors

17

"I remember entire websites dedicated to customizing your cursor"

Dial-Up Noises

18

"The fact that muting your computer didn't get rid of the dial up noise."

You Had To Figure Things Out Yourself

19

"This just gave me flashbacks. This is why I think a lot of GenX/early Millenials are pretty tech saavy. There were no GUIs for software, no pretty websites on the internet, nothing to "Google" for help. You had to be so damned persistent but it made you really understand things. Now I teach GenZ students and although they mostly have superior social media skills, they really struggle to understand how parts of a computer function together. I've spent hours trying to explain the difference between a local and remote drive, browsers and enabling extensions, clearing a cache, using suites of apps like Google Apps or Office, etc. Especially with so much college learning shifted to a remote format this year, it really showed some of the holes in our childrens' education in using technology."

The Good Old AOL Chat Rooms

20

"Aol chat rooms. I do miss those tho."

Random Stuff On Limewire

21

"All the random s@#t on Limewire under completely different titles"

Free Stuff

22

"Never needing to pay for AOL. Free discs were everywhere. I used them as frisbee."

The Horrors Of The Dancing Baby

"Maybe I missed it, but I don’t see anyone mentioning the dancing baby??? He was so creepy! My mom was stunned that technology could create something “so lifelike” and was obsesssssed. I miss the program I had to create ‘storybooks’, it let you edit the stickers and recolor everything, clicking tiny little pixel boxes for hours Clickclickclick"

Internet Explorer Owning The Place

23

"Every software you download was a toolbar on internet explorer"

Who Needs URLs Anyway?

24

"How AOL didn't use URLs. Every "website" had a keyword, meaning that every topic literally only had one website. I remember when Nickelodeon would constantly promote themselves on TV and said "Log on to AOL keyword 'Nick!'" meaning that that was literally the only place you could see Nickelodeon content."

Loading Taking Hours. Well, Minutes, To Be Less Dramatic

"Waiting 5 minutes to load one email page (AOL)...You've got mail."

Usenet Newsgroups

"Usenet newsgroups. I downloaded more stuff through that than any torrent sites now."

Waiting For Pictures To Load

"Trying not to blow your load waiting 30-50 seconds for a picture to load fully from top to bottom"

Everything Being Much More Complicated

"An email costing 5p. Every minute of being online costing 1p. Having to manually write http://www. Otherwise the website wouldn't load. Trying multiple times to log on using a dial up modem. Some days it just wouldn't work. The fact that you couldn't be online if someone in your household was on the phone. The agony when after logging on after 10 attempts someone in the household would pick up the phone which would instantly drop the connection."

Trying To Find Music. Unsuccessfully

"Mp3 sites where you'd click a link, and be transferred to a similar site... in which you should click and repeat the process, only to find nothing in the end. Some had names like "illegal-mp3s.com" or something."

Albino Blacksheep And Newgrounds

"Might be dating myself, but I guess what constituted as memes. Basically all of them could be found on albinoblacksheep or newgrounds. I realize it’s not the EARLY internet, but it was nearly 20 years ago in maybe 2002? I basically only visited those two sites and neopets..."

Stealing Internet From Your Neighbors

"My step dad made a ‘receiver’ to steal the neighbours internet out of a strainer covered in tinfoil. I’m sure there was more to it but that’s how my 12 year old brain perceived it."

Websites With Psychedelic Colors

"The idea that websites with psychedelic colors was a thing"

The Webpage Created By The Self-Proclaimed "Wisest Man On Earth"

"TIME CUBE. Look it up."

Sites Being Hierarchical

"Hierarchical sites instead of search engines"

Phone VS The Internet Dilemma

"Picking up a phone would kick you offline."

Usenet And IRC Shenanigans

"Usenet and IRC had a lot of weirdos on em. I was one of em."

"The Internet — 10 Years Ahead Of Its Time"

"The NABU Network was linked to a precursor of the Internet, operating over cable TV. It operated from 1982 to 1985, primarily in Ottawa, Canada. It has been called "The Internet — 10 years ahead of its time""