Close your eyes and think back to 2006. You just got home from a long day of school, yearbook club, and softball practice. Instead of pulling out your pre-algebra homework, you log on to the family computer and immediately sign in to AIM and Club Penguin, before — of course — watching "Shoes" for the hundredth time on YouTube. It's safe to say almost every millennial out there remembers life on the internet prior to Instagram and Twitter. So, if you'd like to travel back to the good old days, check out these tweets about going online before social media.
Before I started spending most of my spare time on Twitter and Instagram, I spent every second of my "computer time" ranking my BFFs on my AIM profile (by initial, obviously), aggressively playing games on Neopets to feed my beloved furry friends, and streaming the "Aicha" and "Salad Fingers" videos on repeat via Albino Black Sheep (what a throwback, right?).
The possibilities of the world wide web (prior to the social media boom) seemed truly endless. And it looks like I'm not the only one who thought so. On Friday, June 14, tech entrepreneur @cvrlne posted the below tweet, to see what us ~elderly~ internet users used to do online, asking:
For those of you that have been using the internet since at least AIM, where did you spend your time online before the rise of social media (pre 2008)?
As you would probably imagine, this tweet sparked major nostalgia across the world of Twitter. In fact, it inspired the Twitterverse to pause and shamelessly share absolutely everything everything they used to do on the web, which included anything from reading fan fiction on Quizilla, to meeting their BFFs on Friendster, and — of course — pouring out their hearts on LiveJournal. So, make sure to check out all of the highly nostalgic responses, below. You definitely won't regret doing so.
Oh. My. God. Each and every one of these pre-social media activities are seriously speaking to my inner '90s kid right now. The Barbie website? What a classic. Everythinggirl and 'NSYNC fan sites? Wow. This is a total walk down memory lane.
Like every other kid out there, I also updated my AIM Away Message like nobody's business, and mine almost always consisted of popular song lyrics. So, if you want to feel really, really old, make sure to check out these AIM Away Messages that you probably used at some point or another. Between Bright Eyes, Simple Plan, and obviously Death Cab For Cutie, there were so many A+ options that will speak to your formerly angsty soul. They're giving me all of the feels right about now.
While you can do just about anything on the internet nowadays, any millennial can confidently say the world wide web used to be a freakin' goldmine for fun activities (which usually came in as a solid distraction from homework). Honestly, it's probably for the best that the Bratz website and MySpace aren't still kickin'... both of those would — without a doubt — be seriously detrimental to my productivity, if I'm being completely honest.
