For me I was maybe… Nine and I was lucky to go to a comp primary school where there was a focus on computers. This was maybe, 1994? Then in year five my form teacher said to my parents ‘you need to get her a computer’ and they did. I started out mainly playing games and then started streaming music in about 1997? Multiple magazines with free AOL cds were purchased and I started making shit sites on expages. Then I joined the weezer boards in 2002.
I used to lurk on a bunch of forums of varying quality, and occasionally posted on the muse.mu (I think) ones. I like people talking about things, it’s why I like my job and why I like posting here. It fits in my head like Mass Observation, just people having conversations. But now I get to be part of them too, which is really nice, and as I’ve engaged more I’ve found forumming to be good for me in terms of shaping ideas, learning about other viewpoints, and for support (and hopefully occasionally supporting others or being in some way part of a similar network for other people, idk). Just a community that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I’m quite social but also quite restricted in a lot of ways, so this is good for me.
Tl;dr I like people, people talking, talking to them
i got utterly bodied in a thread where you had to do an alternate tracklisiting for Origin of Symmetry, and I renamed a track with a wierd spelling, not realising that Filip wasn’t a l33t way of spelling Phillip.
Used to post very occasionally on the Q magazine music forum. Can’t remember if it shut down or was just crushingly shite. Stumbled across this place. Mainly lurked on the old forum. Got a lot of ‘don’t know who you are, pal’ on the old forum.
Since the move to the new forums I’ve got a bit more involved. Even displaying my unconventional face at times.
I remember getting banned from the Gamezville forum. I think I initially liked the idea of messing around and trolling strangers on the internet.
Then it was just a nice way for a shy teenager to talk about niche point and click adventure games and then other nonsense. Forums have been pretty vital for me in terms of learning about creativity and making stuff too, they’re really good for developing online communities and such forth even though the relationships hit a weird place between parasocial and actual social, I suppose
PC Gamer/Edge Forums on Delphi in about 1999, I think.
That then opened the door to linked forums, on music, cinema, comics, philosophy, politics etc populated by general nerds and video game journalists, music journalists, comics writers and artists that I’m still friends with today.
Also got several email addresses banned bc of my love of spamming Yahoo Answers
The only question I remember was one that started off as a simple social faux pas and then ended with me asking how my job prospects would be affected by my having accidentally killed my boss and served the remains at his own funeral
I used to lurk on usenet back in the 90s (alt.music.smash-pumpkins, alt.music.pearl-jam, and rec.roller-coaster in particular) but never participated because my self-loathing extends to the internet.
I’d lurked here for awhile and wanted to participate but couldn’t bring myself to. Eventually the combination of the switch to new DiS, my deep hatred of my job, the 2016 election, a reaction to Wellbutrin, and an inherent need to say that The Smashing Pumpkins are great created the perfect storm for turning me in to a forums person.
Edit: I’ve also been lurking on SomethingAwful for like 20 years. The ongoing NBA thread is probably the best non-Corgan thread on the internet.
I remember when other kids at school started making Myspace/Bebo/Piczo accounts. Found it really weird that this grubby little thing I did in secret had suddenly become a mainstream pursuit. The square community is on the internet! What the fuck next?
A friend of mine used to annoy everyone on the student room and we’d sit and watch. Loads of nonsense threads everyone hated him it was so good. He recently starred in We Will Rock You the film.