Prior to the internet condensing into just 5 or so websites, what do you remember fondling about being online?
I remember winning a raffle contest on the old Terraria forums and getting to pick my own title (instead of just New Member, Member, Well-Known Member). Of course, since I was like 13, I picked a random collection of letters that only I knew was an acronym of my signature on said forums.
The first time I stumbled into superbad.com and it clicked with me immediately like art sometimes does. Total recognition in an ineffable language. It’s my first memory of a distinctly internet culture.
alt.fan.pratchett and specifically the sprawling, unending hedgehog song that exhausted every rhyme there is to be made about bestiality. (That man really earned his knighthood.)
The Star Wars Cantina. I hadn’t even seen all the Star Wars films, but I somehow fell into this clunky HTML chat room, and managed to role-play along just well enough to feel part of a community.
Finding music. Discovering bands on mp3.com when that was a thing. Typing odd combinations of words into Napster to discover songs and artists I’d never have been exposed to otherwise and still love today. Buying digital albums for the first time and feeling something so personal and special about not having to go to a store and rely on what they have in stock or order from a website to have shipped in several weeks. Reading eMusic editorials and putting my credits to obscure reissues and international releases I couldn’t possibly have found out about any other way. (Now it feels like every service wants me to listen to music that sounds like music I’ve already listened to. Bandcamp’s editorials are my last oasis.)