2000s-era Internet Nostalgia

[Nobody]

It was pre-2000, but I liked the old simple style of websites from when the Internet was brand new.  The ones which would load in Navigator, or AOL if that was your ticket.

 

I dunno, it all just felt calmer.

[lazygecko]

I hold little to no nostalgia for that period of the internet, or pop culture in general. I'm glad that's far behind us.

[Chezza]

Stickdeath, Newgrounds, Zthing, Tboneland, ebaumsworld etc were my introductory sources of online entertainment back then.

[Nikku4211]

I was a baby back in the early 2000s but I remember watching a lot of YouTube in the late 2000s.

 

A lot of Lego Mario videos, and videos about retro (as in even-back-then-retro) games, a lot of tutorials where some kid types on Notepad with Unregistered Hypercam 2/Camstudio, sometimes even full episodes of animation split into parts, and plenty of Flash animations were reuploaded to YouTube even back then.

I really miss the old Windows Movie Maker 2.x days of editing.

[Fletcher`]

6 hours ago, Xaser said:

This thread needs more Arfenhouse.

 

(cw: 2000's internet humor slurs -- pretty mild, but present).

 

 

 

[Jello]

6 hours ago, Denim Destroyer said:

If you want to come across old-net sites I recommend checking out this search-engine. Most of the indexed sites are from the old days of the Internet. I also recommend using the "surprise me" button for some randomized nostalgia, not everything is child appropriate so keep that in mind.

https://wiby.me

Okay, so the first thing that came up when I clicked "Surprise Me" was straight black on white text regarding "Ethical Hacking". Which that's fine. The second time I clicked "Surprise Me", I got this:

 

https://madmartian.com/food_jello.htm

 

Which is just... really weird.

[MrFroz]

I miss when this video's link was just enough to drive people nuts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

 

 

[Panzermann11]

There's this channel I recently found that documents websites from the early 2000's. I found it interesting, since despite being born in 2004, I never had the chance to experience how internet back then looked like because I only started discovering the internet back in 2011.

 

Granted, I did experience the late 2000's internet stuff, such as Angry German Kid and the Sparta remix.

Edited January 5, 2023 by Panzermann11

[mrthejoshmon]

Early YouTube always held a place in my heart, uploading 240p videos to comments like "was this recorded on a potato?" or "Bigfoot footage" or "You use your calculator to capture this?". You could find so much stuff that shouldn't be on there like full films, shows, literal porn...

 

Comments sections were actual battlegrounds, men died on those fields. The OG channel layout was so satisfying and you know for a fact the video had annotations asking for 5 stars.

 

It was a shithole but it was my shithole.

 

Oh and Machinimas made in Halo and GTA 4 were the shit, shame literally all of that shit got buried under terrible let's plays (let's play Kirby part 397 and other garbage) and then were subsequently lost when the plug got pulled, absolute tragedy.

[taufan99]

I only initially got into internet sometime in 2008-2009, either while my first sibling wasn't doing anything on her laptop or when I was at my extended family's house with my cousin's laptop. Don't have a lot of memory with early YouTube, as third-world internet connection meant that buffering a five-minute video was itself a hassle. Instead, I spent most of my time in a local internet forum popular at the time (yang tahu tahu aja wkwkwkwk). phpBB was basically the powerhouse of virtually all online forums at the time.

 

When I moved into a new town in early-mid 2009, I got myself a new friend who introduced me to GBA emulation. The rabbit hole only went deeper for me, as I found myself downloading many emulators and ROMs later on (which is also how I found DOOM). As well, I stumbled upon other sites, such as Hardcore Gaming 101 (I miss the dark background) and i-Mockery. From my siblings, I got to know some K-Pop (I need to confess that I had to mute my ZDoom or Project64 emulator while playing Quake just so they could listen to the latest songs at the time) and even memes via 9GAG.

 

I wanted to continue this writing and describe my early-2010's internet experience, but that's already far-fetched from the initial aim of 2000's era internet.

[DannyMan]

Flash comes to mind when I think of 2000s-era Internet.

[TasAcri]

It was great when computers were still a bit harder to use and there were no smartphones. Not being completely user friendly filters out a huge amount of dumb people.

 

And then the tools became user friendly, the internet became fast enough even for low attention span standards and social media that allowed every narcissist to promote themselves became the norm. So now the Internet is even worse than the outside world.

[Somniac]

I'll just leave this here:

 

https://threesecondsmores.ytmnd.com/

 

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

3 hours ago, TasAcri said:

It was great when computers were still a bit harder to use and there were no smartphones. Not being completely user friendly filters out a huge amount of dumb people.

Everybody always gets offended when I say this, but I absolutely agree. The solution is to make future smartphones run on DOS.

[thiccyosh]

I still have very faint memories of me and my older sister playing flash games on our family computer, aswell as playing PS2 games.

 

 

39 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

The solution is to make future smartphones run on DOS.

 

That's a weird way to spell Android. With the UI stripped out of course.

[Biz!]

I have more 2010's oriented nostalgia because I was born late 2000's, haha.

 

Just dropping this in here:

 

[ReeseJamPiece]

8 hours ago, TasAcri said:

It was great when computers were still a bit harder to use and there were no smartphones. Not being completely user friendly filters out a huge amount of dumb people.

 

And then the tools became user friendly, the internet became fast enough even for low attention span standards and social media that allowed every narcissist to promote themselves became the norm. So now the Internet is even worse than the outside world.

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this. Having to surf through endless dribble on YouTube to find decent content beyond "SIDEMEN PLAY AMONG US PART #478" or some bloke named Deano from Wolverhampton opening up packs on FIFA bought via microtransactions. Even the educational content is edutainment garbage like Kurzgesagt. I don't mean for this thread to be me complaining but bloody hell is it annoying. 

[Dreemurr Deceevurr]

10 hours ago, TasAcri said:

It was great when computers were still a bit harder to use and there were no smartphones. Not being completely user friendly filters out a huge amount of dumb people.

 

And then the tools became user friendly, the internet became fast enough even for low attention span standards and social media that allowed every narcissist to promote themselves became the norm. So now the Internet is even worse than the outside world.

 

Yep, people being idiots on the Internet is a recent phenomenon. It never happened before the foundation of MySpace and Facebook and is solely the fault of social media. The Internet was better before normies used it and there were no major cases of assholery and stupidity.

[Boaby Kenobi]

4 hours ago, ReeseJamPiece said:

Having to surf through endless dribble on YouTube to find decent content beyond "SIDEMEN PLAY AMONG US PART #478" or some bloke named Deano from Wolverhampton opening up packs on FIFA bought via microtransactions

 

All you have to do to not see content you don't want to see on YT is to click on the "Not interested" or the "Don't recommend channel" options. You must be watching Sidemen content if it's being recommended to you.

[Doomkid]

All of you people commenting on how much harder the internet should be to use would be the exact users blocked out by your own request. So I firmly agree with you.

 

I'm just joking calm down JEEZ

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

15 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

All of you people commenting on how much harder the internet should be to use would be the exact users blocked out by your own request. So I firmly agree with you.

lol found the twelve year old go back to playingb fortnite and talking to ppl you dont even have ever met on facebook by the way the invisibility i gave your post means dislike so dont start feeling all proud of urself please get an education

[prfunky]

 

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

3 hours ago, Dreemurr Deceevurr said:

Yep, people being idiots on the Internet is a recent phenomenon. It never happened before the foundation of MySpace and Facebook and is solely the fault of social media. The Internet was better before normies used it and there were no major cases of assholery and stupidity.

You're correct, but it comes down to personal preference. Do you perfer the assholery of 2002 or the assholery of 2022? The assholery and stupidity has always existed, but it has changed over the years, not necessarily due to "normies" because I don't consider neckbeards, incels, extremists, and all those good folks to be "normies". Those people all existed in 2002, but they weren't shoved down your throat on every other click you made. It's more down to the fact that there's more people in general on the internet, and therefore the internet itself has changed drastically, not necessarily due to your everyday Joe on Twitter, but because of the businesses and websites that can now make much more money by exploiting those everyday Joes by trying to appeal to their personal and political beliefs, and encouraging them to throw turds at the opposition. A good majority of popular websites today, especially social media, thrive by creating unrest and chaos, and therefore a good portion of the internet now encourages people to act like assholes. Besides that, with smartphones becoming a thing that everyone has in their hand 24/7, you have a lot more people who are still relatively new to the internet and don't have the ability to tell fact from fiction, which leads to misinformed everyday Joes acting like assholes for the Glorious Nation of Twitter. I preferred the days when people were assholes by their own volition on secluded forums that made little money from their assholery. More people=more ads=more money=more assholery.

[TasAcri]

5 hours ago, Dreemurr Deceevurr said:

 

Yep, people being idiots on the Internet is a recent phenomenon. It never happened before the foundation of MySpace and Facebook and is solely the fault of social media. The Internet was better before normies used it and there were no major cases of assholery and stupidity.

 

Obviously you could find assholes in 2000 as well. But the ratio was not as bad as it is now.

 

Also, "normies" were pretty rare back then. How many soccermoms, karens, grandmothers, 6 year olds, etc browse the internet in 1999/2000? I feel like this demographic has lowered the bar as well, so it's not just about assholes who are well versed in technology.

[ZethXM]

In the sense that I miss when the Internet was this big open frontier of weird bullshit nobody could fit in the palm of their hand and squeeze until the wealth comes out, sure. 

 

But that could just as easily be me missing being in the age bracket where I was too old for the world's generic child reality slurry but still young and dependent enough that it hadn't read my brain and started processing reality slurry meant just for me yet.

[nolongeramnion]

On 12/31/2022 at 4:48 AM, ReeseJamPiece said:

I remember 4chan prior to it being an absolute cesspit. I didn't use it but there's no denying it had a major impact on the modern Internet. All the 'oldfags' have left, and now it's just wojack reaction images. Given all the controversy in recent years I am somewhat glad it's dead(ish). It's an odd relic.

[s4s] is still pretty good but most boards are chud stuff another website called 28chan is pretty good but it's down right now because ownership is changing

[nolongeramnion]

this is a pretty good website imitating myspace

https://spacehey.com/home

[Mr. Freeze]

I much prefer the internet of today because today there are various places where I can discuss whatever I feel like without constantly having to defend my positions. 

[dybbuk81]

Pretty much most of my website is 2000's projects and design ;P

 

http://www.lehr.me

 

there's like flash games a shockwave game, old music, mario hacks, etc. Nothing web beyond HTML4 or very little.

[Geniraul]

It's true that the Internet was some sort of a roulette back in 00s, cause you could be finding one map, as well as mod, after the other just by surfing on. Furthermore, it was actual for all the Doom and Quake games. Nowadays, many domains are shut down mainly and probably not so much because you should regularly pay for it by cash (even if indeed it played its role, too) as because the games have aged well.

 

You might think that the most popular things will likely stay on the Internet forever or something, but then you look back and realize that certain stuff has actually disappeared long time ago. That's why it's always a good idea to download stuff when possible and then transmit it on a DVD or something, cause that's how you can keep the situation under control.