I thought that this would be kind of a subject to talk about, especially since it is a light subject. I think it’s really interesting how things including how internet fads and trends change through the years. I’ve been on the internet since March 22, 2000 the day my twin and I turned 13 years old. It’s so odd how everything changed so much.

Now, these are in no particular order, nor are they all the ones that were super popular, these are just the ones that I miss.

Blogging and Personal Sites

These are still around but they are so different from the what we have seen in the 2000s, not only was blogging more of a personal diary, it was where you didn’t have to worry about your family and friends finding your site and you worrying about what you wrote about them. With personal sites, there was just more of them and they didn’t have a business aspect. They weren’t any better back then just different and like all things they grow and evolve. This might just be a nostalgic thing but I just miss how it used to be, I miss the nichless time I guess.

Livejournal

Livejournal is a blogging platform that is still around, but back in the early to mid-2000s it was known for the grown fandom community and fandom identity on there. There was big fandom names or big named fans aka BFNs on there like Cassie Clare who has her own history in the Harry Potter Fandom.. It was a big time for fandom on there. Then LJ was sold to the Russian, and the fandom spaces on there had a lot of big hits because a lot of journals and communities were deleted for an obscene subject when it was deleted for it being LGBT+ and fandom. After that, a lot of fandoms communities left and I don’t know many who even maintain their accounts over there, I have one for ONTD but if not for that I would probably abandon it by now.

Forums

These were so big in the in the early to mid-2000s but now most of them are non-existent or the activity on them are slowing down. Maybe expect for RPG forums, but I am not into those. Then there was a lot of forums lost over the years because the admins abandoned them, closed them, or when tapatalk (the worst forum service ever) bought them and deleted the forums. Social Media has really changed that aspect that most communities are active on there and not on sites or forums.

Geocities

Back in the day almost everyone had a geocities website, there were fansites, fanfiction archives, etc on there, and while it was a lot of cringy glitter art or crazy graphics, but I loved it because it had personality and it was such an individual space that everyone’s looked different. Also, unlike a lot of free web hosts during that time and even the commercial ones now you could do html and some css.

Offline

I remember every IM service or site had something that you could set yourself offline even if you were online. I just miss that because it seems like every feature on facebook tries to set you as online and tells people when you were last on the app or their site.

Social Media wasn’t a thing/big

I don’t think I heard of myspace until 2006. That was pretty much when I joined, but even with myspace there was a clear cut line between you and the internet, and it was not engraved on every place of the internet like facebook, twitter, and instagram is.

Instant Messenger

I mean like old school messenger like AIM, Yahoo Messenger, and ICQ. One of the things like I liked about it is I didn’t have 500ish friends on there more like ten to twenty at the most so I might have one message me a day, so it wasn’t crazy, and wasn’t as instant as the name sounded. Plus you could turn it offline, but on facebook when you have a lot of friends if you don’t have the setting for chat turned off (RL friends/family) like to chat when you are about to go to sleep. Then sometimes it just seems like a crazy aspect while the old school IMs felt a lot smaller and tamer.

Chatrooms

This wasn’t something that I was really big into but it was fun to go into chatrooms and talk to people with similar interest, and I liked that if you were bored or whatever you could just easily leave and no one would care too much. Now, we have discord but that is a fairly new thing.

P2P Programs

I miss these in a way of nostalgia like they aren’t necessary anymore but it was oddly fun to get misnamed song.

Anonymity

This is probably the biggest thing, because now of days it is so hard to have in life or the internet these days, and it was really nice to have that large thick line to separate your on and offline lives.