Hello again my beautiful readers! Today we revisit the series of tubes to explore more of internet history. Today we are exploring the internet age of the late 90s and early 2000s! If you haven’t already read part 1 of A series of tubes you can read that here.

Let’s Chat!

Before there were notification serotonin machines in our pockets, purses, or wrists there was the instant messaging client. A client that hosted several rooms of varying topics and also had the ability to add people as friends and continue into private 1 on 1 chats. I’d consider the early days of chat rooms to be complete chaos. AOL, the people who brought us keyword internet browsing, release the AOL Instant Messenger and I’m not sure even they knew what they would be setting in motion.

Much the keywords, AOL had setup chat rooms that fell into categories. Fan of Movies? Check out the Movie Chat! Do you like games? Well hey there’s a Gamer Chat right over there! Celebrities your thing? Well there’s the Movie Chat- hey wait. The system wasn’t perfect but no first draft ever is. What the ability to instantly message people gave us was the ability to meet people we would have never had the chance to meet.

I’m still in awe of the fact that I’ve spoken with people across the globe. Without services like AOL’s AIM I don’t know where chat clients would be today.

Some of you may be yelling “BUT WHAT ABOUT IRC” and yes IRC was also very important to the development of chat clients/communication systems today. I think it was easier to go over AIM for me because that was the majority of my experience. Honestly if we were to ever go back I’d choose IRC over anything else.

Flashy Videos

Memes are a large part of today’s internet culture but back in the day there were flash animations made to entertain us. Of course you know of Newgrounds being a host for so many of these flash animations but there was also smaller sites that popped up around the net. From celebrity jokes with Britney Spears singing “Oops I farted again” to pop culture references like the “Star Wars Rap” flash animations were a way for people who had never tried animation to make things they never could before.
I used to spend hours watching Homestar Runner and then quote it with my friends whenever I’d get to hang out because of course everyone knew about one of the funniest sites you could visit. Aside from all the Flash sites internet humor of the time consisted of websites like ytmnd that used a background, text, and song format or just pages full of funny gifs.

Due to it’s accessibility Flash took over the web. It was still a shock to me that Adobe decided to do away with Flash when so much of the late 90s early 2000s web had relied on Flash. A majority of websites back in the day were held up by flash menus to give their site that extra pop.

If you ever feel like going back in time just watch a bit of the stick fighting animation and it’ll feel like you’re surfing the old web.

The Game Zone

Now the game industry took a little bit of warming up before it would join the internet. Computer games were already enjoying online Deathmatches and There were a few iterations of consoles like the SNES’s Satellaview that could connect to a Satellite in order to download patches to games like Link to the Past’s not as well known 2nd game “The Legend of Zelda: The Ancient Tablets” that were episodic and could be obtained through Nintendo’s services.

It wasn’t until game console competitors saw what PCs were doing and wanted in on another demographic. Enter the Sega Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was Sega’s last console and after their major successes in the 90s with Sonic and Genesis it came to a surprise to us all. Beyond the end of an era Sega had started a new one with adding online multiplayer to their line up. For the longest time Dreamcast was the only way to play games like Phantasy Star Online over the web. We were headed to Y2K, the future we all had planned for, and Phantasy Star Online gave us a glimpse into what it would be like to work in space. This game also gave to players a virtual space to hang out and chat in. As exciting as gaming was back in the early 2000s we also would slow down and talk. It wasn’t always about world first this or record that but just a chance to meet people you would have never met.

It was Community not Content

I know its hard to capture an entire decade into an estimate of ~1k words but from this you can see how we used to interact online. Whether it was just chatting with your friends over AIM, creating flash animations, or gaming online there was a space to create and discuss.
Often when I look back on what we used to have I think about what we could have done differently to keep some of the magic. Sure there are things that emulate the old school vibes of being in a chat room or slaying a polygon dragon but to me the internet feels colder.

My nostalgia of yesteryear’s internet comes from a desire to go back to a less corporate owned web and more a network built by and maintained by the people who use it.

Thanks for reading! I’ll probably make a part 3 to close out internet history of 2010s and 2020s era. Hope you’ve enjoyed this small journey as much as I have. Remember we connect to the internet and that means we can connect with each other.

Here’s to hoping you’ve got mail!