As so many "millennials" can attest to: I feel like the internet and I have grown up together. When there was no one else I could turn to - there was the internet. Sure, it may have started out with dial up and no Wikipedia (sorry to all those who were in school before this amazing site was created) but nonetheless, I can't help but feel a sense of pride (and disgust) in seeing how far we've both come together. Here's to you World Wide Web, and how you slowly but surely, have taken over my life.
GUIDE TO THE WEB
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There were books. About the Internet. And apparently we were all supposed to fly on keyboards around the globe with the power of the Internet. Scholastic you have let me down. I guess we could all just ride on hover boards and use our phones to go online (maybe Scholastic wasn't so far off.) On a serious note though, this book would only be memes and viral videos if it was rewritten today.
NEOPETS
Throughout 2nd - 6th grade, I lived on this site. I can't even express how big this was back in the early 2000's. I would read the Neopets Magazines and dream about getting one of the voice activated electronic toys. They were literally next level to me in elementary school.
The amount of hours I spent on this site is sadly not as much time as I spend online nowadays, but it was a lot back in 2002. I could only use my Mom's computer for a couple hours a day max back then. I'm pretty sure all my Neopets are dead by now. I'm sorry I've let you all down.
On a side note, how is it possible that the Neopets site looks EXACTLY the same since 1999??
Disney, Nick, & Cartoon Network
If I wasn't on Neopets you could bet I was on either disneychannel.com, nickelodeon.com, or cartoonnetwork.com. The amount of hours I spent playing mini-games makes no damn sense. I remember playing these games online at school when we were in the computer lab. (It was literally this or playing with paint.) I was the pro at Sandwich Stacker and no one can tell me otherwise.
WEBKINZ
Unlike Neopets, Webkinz was the beginning of me spending actual money, to play online. If you've never played Webkinz, you basically buy stuffed animals and can then play as them online. You decorate their rooms and play mini games to earn more money. I only played Webkinz for about a year or two because of two major reasons
1. They were too damn expensive back in 2006.
2. They got rid of being able to type what you wanted.
Essentially at first you were allowed to type pretty much anything, but knowing how the Internet works, they had to censor what you could say. They did this by adding a drop down menu of words and phrases you could say. I remember thinking this was way too much work and no one was gonna' take my free speech. Fight the Power 6th grade me.
HABBO HOTEL
I'm gonna' be real with y'all. It's hard for me to even write about this site because I was so obsessed with it that it's sickening. I was on Habbo from 6th grade until around 11th grade. It's so sad when I see it typed out like that. I spent so much real money on Habbo Cards to get Habbo Coins to be a part of Habbo Club. I honestly don't even know what to say. I would get online daily after school and had this group of friends I met on the site and we would just decorate our rooms and go to other rooms and talk to people. We even had our own MSN messenger group where we'd type when we didn't want others to see what we were saying. If you were on Habbo, then you understand why this is a dark part of my past. If you're still on it, then God be with you.
I have a few friends that I met on Habbo that I still talk to though, so if y'all are reading this, why did we do this to ourselves?
YOUTUBE
Last but not least, the site that has had me in it's clutches since 2007 - YouTube. The first time I heard of YouTube was in late 2005, but I had no clue what it was and I didn't understand it. In 2006 I remember watching a video of some girls lip syncing "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield. At first I thought it was the actual music video for the song (so young, so naïve) but then I realized it was fan made. So logically I was like, "Ohh this is a place for you to make music videos." By 2007 I was already addicted and had realized it was a place for any videos, not just lip syncing ones. Back in the day you really had to search to find things worth watching (God, I feel so old) but this site is without a doubt the biggest reason I'm addicted to the Internet.
If you remember any of these sites, or were an active user such as myself, then just know you're not alone.
Also, I have literally no clue what the Internet will be like in 10 years. I have no clue what I'll be doing in 10 years either though, so I pray we will both be thriving together, and that Musical.ly dies. Thank the Lord that app did not exist when I was little, because I totally would have used it.
