09-15-2022, 11:01 PM
I saw this question being asked around the other day and I think that it has a lot of merit to be discussed.
The internet I joined back then was an entirely different beast compared with what we see today when we go online, but I think that that's precisely what makes it an interesting point of comparison.
There were a couple of social media sites (most notably: MySpace and Fotolog) but not much more and the majority of the talking was being done through a variety of forums and on the deep-end of chat services, like obscure IRC channels (most of which have survived to this day, actually) and even activity sites such as Yahoo! Games, which promptly became warning tales of their own for reasons that we should soon explore.
Was I too young to be let loose on such a landscape? Legally no, for at 13 years of age I had just crossed the legal age of registration for most sites, but I definitely wouldn't have allowed myself to be online if I knew what awaited on the other side.
Those activity sites were filled to the brim with dubious characters who would often talk about shady things back in the open (and right to the point where you started wondering what the hell were the moderators doing and even if there WERE moderators at all). It became an almost fascination of mine to join these sites (especially the "Rainy Sunday" domino game lobby) very late at night on weekends and seeing the kinds of things that would happen right there on the main screen. Incredibly weird things like passive-aggresive flirting, personal attacks amongst newcomers and even a "hierarchical pecking order" in which a selected few would direct the masses towards someone they found unpleasant until they had been successfully kicked out were common occurrences on those parts of the internet. I honestly ended up spending more time reading the chat than playing the intended rounds of pool and domino. It was THAT interesting.
... But the experiment was ended when one of the shady characters somehow found my e-mail address and began harassing my contacts. Thankfully, they were blocked immediately and the thing was sorted out quickly, but that was all the "wake-up call" I needed.
Taking the above into consideration (and the fact that forums were a lot more hostile back then) I really do think that I was way too young to be allowed online at the time, despite the fact that I needed to have an active connection to do my schoolwork.
What about you?
The internet I joined back then was an entirely different beast compared with what we see today when we go online, but I think that that's precisely what makes it an interesting point of comparison.
There were a couple of social media sites (most notably: MySpace and Fotolog) but not much more and the majority of the talking was being done through a variety of forums and on the deep-end of chat services, like obscure IRC channels (most of which have survived to this day, actually) and even activity sites such as Yahoo! Games, which promptly became warning tales of their own for reasons that we should soon explore.
Was I too young to be let loose on such a landscape? Legally no, for at 13 years of age I had just crossed the legal age of registration for most sites, but I definitely wouldn't have allowed myself to be online if I knew what awaited on the other side.
Those activity sites were filled to the brim with dubious characters who would often talk about shady things back in the open (and right to the point where you started wondering what the hell were the moderators doing and even if there WERE moderators at all). It became an almost fascination of mine to join these sites (especially the "Rainy Sunday" domino game lobby) very late at night on weekends and seeing the kinds of things that would happen right there on the main screen. Incredibly weird things like passive-aggresive flirting, personal attacks amongst newcomers and even a "hierarchical pecking order" in which a selected few would direct the masses towards someone they found unpleasant until they had been successfully kicked out were common occurrences on those parts of the internet. I honestly ended up spending more time reading the chat than playing the intended rounds of pool and domino. It was THAT interesting.
... But the experiment was ended when one of the shady characters somehow found my e-mail address and began harassing my contacts. Thankfully, they were blocked immediately and the thing was sorted out quickly, but that was all the "wake-up call" I needed.
Taking the above into consideration (and the fact that forums were a lot more hostile back then) I really do think that I was way too young to be allowed online at the time, despite the fact that I needed to have an active connection to do my schoolwork.
What about you?
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