Synthgirl

I mostly just remember them posting stuff like saying in the classical forum that their favorite classical composer was Mariah Carey.

Perhaps I unfairly lumped them in with the others, just a weird member that stuck in my mind.

jwb

It was in the dark ages when ***got was still an acceptable casual insult. The good old days as I call them.

Synthgirl

Oh yeah, another member whose posts I always loved was Franco Pepe Kalle. I hope he's doing well.

jwb

**** i remember that guy. I'm honestly curious now... how does anyone have the stamina to lurk for years without ever wanting to post?

Synthgirl

A lot of reasons honestly, early on (2007-2010) I was more just intimidated by some posters here as I was generally quite shy back then.

And after that I mostly just read it to get cool music recs and happened to go through a couple funny and memorable threads every so often. I've been using the internet for over 20 years and it's really only been in the last five or so that I've posted anywhere at all.

Edit: I'm overjoyed that I have managed to derail this thread from talking about that loser Tate, hahaha.

The Batlord

Yeah I'm also curious about that mentality. Not in a judgy way but I just don't understand it. I mean early in the 00s I'd be kind of reticent about posting but I still just wanted to get in there. Now I'm keen to just manspread in any community I have any interest in.

__________________

SGR

The internet was the wild west in the late 90s/early '00s. It's become both better and worse since then.

Synthgirl

I dunno what to tell you, I've always just been a bit of a shy person when communicating over text with strangers. I had very low self esteem when I was younger and strayed away from sharing my opinions. I'm not antisocial, I'm just generally pretty reserved, even IRL.

I also grew up in the "tits or GTFO" era of the internet and that did a pretty large amount of psychic damage.

I'm working on myself, meeting my partner over the past year has helped a lot with my self confidence.

The Batlord

I mean that's even earlier than that time period. Like what you're talking about was AOL instant messenger when you could just harass random people on AIM in a way that people who came to the internet via Facebook couldn't even grasp. Back when my main interaction with the internet was fan sites for whatever anime I was into at the time.

__________________

SGR

In some ways though, you'd think communicating over text anonymously with strangers would allow you to be yourself more, wouldn't you? Besides the whole "tits or GTFO" thing which we'd never countenance around here.

I don't know, I didn't view it as just that, I'm also thinking about how web design as a whole has become much more sanitized and uniform - every successful website copying everyone else - the rise of search algorithms propping up sites based on ad revenue, bla bla bla. I'm sure you remember when the design of different websites seemed to be completely unique - you'd have flashing graphics in weird places, ugly color contrasts, hyperlinks to random crap everywhere. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but the internet back then felt more unique, DIY and genuine.