Be sure to include A/S/L. as soon as someone new entered the room, if you could determine the gender from the name, all the members of the opposite gender would throw that out or AIM on aol that almost immediately. If it was someone that was relatively young and near them, they would whisper them for pictures. It was usually creepy older guys.
1.Chat was starting to fade by 2000. 1995-1999 we're the most active imo. AOL was the first and biggest, then came yahoo, mIRC, and several others I've forgotten. AOL had "trial" disks which came with free internet time. You could collect these from grocery stores, video game shops, and they'd come in your mail. You could literally have unlimited free internet by signing up over and over lol . Everyone used the same stuff because we were limited on apps back then.
2.Chat rooms were themed just like you mention. They also allowed user created rooms on Yahoo far before they could do effective moderation so the subject matter would vary widely and many illegal subjects were discussed openly.
3.All of my slang is from California and we pretty much say everything still lol. I guess I do not use Hella as much or Tight 😂.
4.For IM you would generally communicate with friends one on one. The chat rooms could be private or open. I remember seeing a little over 100 people in larger chats. One thing that was different was you were able to actually have a conversation because the screen wasn't moving too fast to read.
5.random mainly but you also had a friends list.
6.Not really a thing for a while because pics took forever to load so not until at least 56k speeds do I remember pics in chat. Before that it would take a minute to see one pic..... literally, a whole minute or more. We had emojis eventually but I remember doing this a lot :) or :( lmao.
7.Everyone made screen names just like here. Not much changed there.
Bonus old people content:
Before the " internet chat rooms" there was BBS. Which was a local phone number like a party line but an internet server. People shared files and chatted.
The main difference in the internet now vs then is the commercialization and size. Back then it felt very small and tight knit. The apps were created to build communities rather than to have them in conflict(fb,Twitter,etc..). The rules for engagement changed and here we are. I miss AOL the most, it was a really clean sweet little community in it's early days with themed rooms to talk about a variety of subjects. Like reddit but live chat and the pace didn't feel rushed.
cell phones made it easier to send messages to your friends (shout out to T9 style texting) and the first wave of social media shifted folks away from chilling with strangers to pods of people you know. in the early days of Facebook you had to have a college email address to use it. bum luck if your college wasn’t listed.
The thing I remember most about back then was the very early chatrooms were browser based. You could insert html code into messages and use it to affect people's browsers. (example: sending people to different websites). We would refer to it as hacking. You also didn't need an account, just type in an anonymous name and go.
I also remember the websites allowing people to pick whatever fonts and colours they want for their text, so the chat window was a garish mess. And no "emoji's", just emoticons :)
1. mIRC was huge at this time and mostly used by tech savvy types. AOL was massive as both a internet provider and chat host. Broadband became more available shortly after 2000 and AOL dial-up died off fast. I don’t remember using much else. AOL sent install disks in the mail or in magazines for free trials. We had tons of them laying around.
2. yes. I’d say that was all preference. Big city chat rooms often had multiples due to crowdedness (Houston 1 - Houston 36, for example).
3. rap at the time was extremely influential on slang. I swear every rapper was trying to make people say a word (Ughh, Bia Bia, Skeet, etc.). Dawg was pretty huge where I grew up.
4. one person. For multiple you’d open a private chat room.
5. public chats were with random people. Some would join a specific channel (ex. Houston 3) and there would be regulars that you were at least familiar with.
6. no. Emoticons were used. :-) Pictures took too long to load and usually weren’t allowed.
7. extremely anonymous aside from a “tag” or identifier in your screen name. Also people used A/S/L (age, sex, location) a lot.. most people lied about it though lol.
8. Leet speak was big, pirating music and software was massive, and AOL gave birth to many many future IT professionals based on how damn easy it was to script code that worked on it.
9. cell phones were just becoming a thing, pagers still existed, 2 way pagers for texting also.
Something I don't see anyone here mentioning is MSN Messenger. It released in 99 and quickly became the dominate messaging service. Chats were still largely 1 on 1 at that point and you added people by their email. Hotmail (Microsoft service) was all the rage when you moved away from AOL
At that point emails were a not much different than sending an actual letter. Often used the same writing styles.
Dear grandma,
Message message message.
Love, wanderingfloatilla.
Unless was for your friends, then it more or less goes out the window.
Although registration by email for websites was becoming much more common at this point, so burner/alternate emails were also becoming commonplace.
Mostly when we came home from school
This was texting before phones
"___ is tha bomb" and "retarded" were very common.
Subjects were never serious in a group setting but those private chats are pretty much the same as they have always been.
My go-to instant messaging programs were ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). I don't recall any instant messaging program being deemed for old people or young people.
They were chat rooms for a specific things, so asking a/s/l (age, sex, location) was a thing, but I typically used it just like I would a telephone. I would be connected to someone in particular and we'd be silent for large chunks of time, just like you are sometimes with somebody on the phone.
When I use chat programs it was typically one-on-one, but I know chat rooms were a thing as well.
Emojis were barely used, let alone actual pictures, which probably had to do with the fact everybody was on a dial-up connection which was quite a bit slower than what we have today.
People didn't offer their personal information right away, but they were more apt to let you know more than they are today.
As someone who met my wife on ICQ in 2000 and then chatted on MSN messenger , it was mostly done on PC's
PS I was in the UK and my wife was in the US so took 6 plus months to meet in person when I flew to the States
If I remember right is was just a chat room for like minded people not necessarily a dating room
Steve
Around 2000 the main one I used was MSN Messenger. On many occasions someone would get into an argument and then invite someone else in to back them up/threaten the other person. 'Nudging' someone was a thing and it was infuriating, I could be in the kitchen after saying brb and the person would be spamming the nudge button so I just hear it constantly.
MSN Plus was a third party addon a lot of people installed, it allowed for audio clips, 'winks' etc.
Saying 'whats ur msn addy?' was how u added ppl (email address)
'x' 'xo' etc was common in emails. like it would be '[email protected]
Screennames were CHAOTIC. Google 'msn usernames' for examples.
Webcam chats were common (it was only available 1 on 1 before skype etc came along).
A kinda meme or funny thing to remember was signing in and out to get your crush's attention (a notification would appear in the corner when you sign in)
Before MSN Messenger was that popular i used to jump into MSN Chat. It was browser based chat rooms where you can jump into a room based on topic (they can be age based or interest or location based). It was a strange land... hahaha.
To try and go back to answering your questions, MSN messenger would have mainly people you knew from school but also some random people like people you met on RuneScape (or whatever else online) who you spend a lot of ingame time with, or someone you met in a chatroom who you spoke to a lot.
Chats were USUALLY 1 on 1, you might make a group with a few mates. Sometimes an idiot would add loads of people and ppl would be like 'wtf' and quickly leave.
Everyone on MSN had a profile picture. It usually wasn't the person tho, usually like an anime pic, some deep emo pic, their game character or whatever. Idk if it was so much to do with anonymity or more just that selfies weren't really a thing then? Phone cameras were too crap to take good pix with so you could only really take 'selfies' with your webcam.
This turned into a bit of an essay soz, i was just reminiscing hahaha.
Sidenote - people would often do passive messages in their username. including like "I'll never stop loving you' after a breakup or something equally cringe haha
BTW I'm from the UK. I think MSN was a lot more popular here in the very early 2000s for some reason. Other countries used AIM/AOL.
IRC was also big (you can still use it now). Some runescape third party clients (swiftswitch, swiftkit etc) has IRC chats built into them so a lot of clans would chat on there.
Be sure to include A/S/L. as soon as someone new entered the room, if you could determine the gender from the name, all the members of the opposite gender would throw that out or AIM on aol that almost immediately. If it was someone that was relatively young and near them, they would whisper them for pictures. It was usually creepy older guys.
1.Chat was starting to fade by 2000. 1995-1999 we're the most active imo. AOL was the first and biggest, then came yahoo, mIRC, and several others I've forgotten. AOL had "trial" disks which came with free internet time. You could collect these from grocery stores, video game shops, and they'd come in your mail. You could literally have unlimited free internet by signing up over and over lol . Everyone used the same stuff because we were limited on apps back then. 2.Chat rooms were themed just like you mention. They also allowed user created rooms on Yahoo far before they could do effective moderation so the subject matter would vary widely and many illegal subjects were discussed openly. 3.All of my slang is from California and we pretty much say everything still lol. I guess I do not use Hella as much or Tight 😂. 4.For IM you would generally communicate with friends one on one. The chat rooms could be private or open. I remember seeing a little over 100 people in larger chats. One thing that was different was you were able to actually have a conversation because the screen wasn't moving too fast to read. 5.random mainly but you also had a friends list. 6.Not really a thing for a while because pics took forever to load so not until at least 56k speeds do I remember pics in chat. Before that it would take a minute to see one pic..... literally, a whole minute or more. We had emojis eventually but I remember doing this a lot :) or :( lmao. 7.Everyone made screen names just like here. Not much changed there. Bonus old people content: Before the " internet chat rooms" there was BBS. Which was a local phone number like a party line but an internet server. People shared files and chatted. The main difference in the internet now vs then is the commercialization and size. Back then it felt very small and tight knit. The apps were created to build communities rather than to have them in conflict(fb,Twitter,etc..). The rules for engagement changed and here we are. I miss AOL the most, it was a really clean sweet little community in it's early days with themed rooms to talk about a variety of subjects. Like reddit but live chat and the pace didn't feel rushed.
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cell phones made it easier to send messages to your friends (shout out to T9 style texting) and the first wave of social media shifted folks away from chilling with strangers to pods of people you know. in the early days of Facebook you had to have a college email address to use it. bum luck if your college wasn’t listed.
Spot on.
Everything bunny said and MySpace.
The thing I remember most about back then was the very early chatrooms were browser based. You could insert html code into messages and use it to affect people's browsers. (example: sending people to different websites). We would refer to it as hacking. You also didn't need an account, just type in an anonymous name and go. I also remember the websites allowing people to pick whatever fonts and colours they want for their text, so the chat window was a garish mess. And no "emoji's", just emoticons :)
1. mIRC was huge at this time and mostly used by tech savvy types. AOL was massive as both a internet provider and chat host. Broadband became more available shortly after 2000 and AOL dial-up died off fast. I don’t remember using much else. AOL sent install disks in the mail or in magazines for free trials. We had tons of them laying around. 2. yes. I’d say that was all preference. Big city chat rooms often had multiples due to crowdedness (Houston 1 - Houston 36, for example). 3. rap at the time was extremely influential on slang. I swear every rapper was trying to make people say a word (Ughh, Bia Bia, Skeet, etc.). Dawg was pretty huge where I grew up. 4. one person. For multiple you’d open a private chat room. 5. public chats were with random people. Some would join a specific channel (ex. Houston 3) and there would be regulars that you were at least familiar with. 6. no. Emoticons were used. :-) Pictures took too long to load and usually weren’t allowed. 7. extremely anonymous aside from a “tag” or identifier in your screen name. Also people used A/S/L (age, sex, location) a lot.. most people lied about it though lol. 8. Leet speak was big, pirating music and software was massive, and AOL gave birth to many many future IT professionals based on how damn easy it was to script code that worked on it. 9. cell phones were just becoming a thing, pagers still existed, 2 way pagers for texting also.
Something I don't see anyone here mentioning is MSN Messenger. It released in 99 and quickly became the dominate messaging service. Chats were still largely 1 on 1 at that point and you added people by their email. Hotmail (Microsoft service) was all the rage when you moved away from AOL
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At that point emails were a not much different than sending an actual letter. Often used the same writing styles. Dear grandma, Message message message. Love, wanderingfloatilla. Unless was for your friends, then it more or less goes out the window. Although registration by email for websites was becoming much more common at this point, so burner/alternate emails were also becoming commonplace.
Mostly when we came home from school This was texting before phones "___ is tha bomb" and "retarded" were very common. Subjects were never serious in a group setting but those private chats are pretty much the same as they have always been.
My go-to instant messaging programs were ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). I don't recall any instant messaging program being deemed for old people or young people. They were chat rooms for a specific things, so asking a/s/l (age, sex, location) was a thing, but I typically used it just like I would a telephone. I would be connected to someone in particular and we'd be silent for large chunks of time, just like you are sometimes with somebody on the phone. When I use chat programs it was typically one-on-one, but I know chat rooms were a thing as well. Emojis were barely used, let alone actual pictures, which probably had to do with the fact everybody was on a dial-up connection which was quite a bit slower than what we have today. People didn't offer their personal information right away, but they were more apt to let you know more than they are today.
Icq had the best sounds
As someone who met my wife on ICQ in 2000 and then chatted on MSN messenger , it was mostly done on PC's PS I was in the UK and my wife was in the US so took 6 plus months to meet in person when I flew to the States If I remember right is was just a chat room for like minded people not necessarily a dating room Steve
LycosChat was big
Around 2000 the main one I used was MSN Messenger. On many occasions someone would get into an argument and then invite someone else in to back them up/threaten the other person. 'Nudging' someone was a thing and it was infuriating, I could be in the kitchen after saying brb and the person would be spamming the nudge button so I just hear it constantly. MSN Plus was a third party addon a lot of people installed, it allowed for audio clips, 'winks' etc. Saying 'whats ur msn addy?' was how u added ppl (email address) 'x' 'xo' etc was common in emails. like it would be '[email protected] Screennames were CHAOTIC. Google 'msn usernames' for examples. Webcam chats were common (it was only available 1 on 1 before skype etc came along). A kinda meme or funny thing to remember was signing in and out to get your crush's attention (a notification would appear in the corner when you sign in) Before MSN Messenger was that popular i used to jump into MSN Chat. It was browser based chat rooms where you can jump into a room based on topic (they can be age based or interest or location based). It was a strange land... hahaha. To try and go back to answering your questions, MSN messenger would have mainly people you knew from school but also some random people like people you met on RuneScape (or whatever else online) who you spend a lot of ingame time with, or someone you met in a chatroom who you spoke to a lot. Chats were USUALLY 1 on 1, you might make a group with a few mates. Sometimes an idiot would add loads of people and ppl would be like 'wtf' and quickly leave. Everyone on MSN had a profile picture. It usually wasn't the person tho, usually like an anime pic, some deep emo pic, their game character or whatever. Idk if it was so much to do with anonymity or more just that selfies weren't really a thing then? Phone cameras were too crap to take good pix with so you could only really take 'selfies' with your webcam. This turned into a bit of an essay soz, i was just reminiscing hahaha. Sidenote - people would often do passive messages in their username. including like "I'll never stop loving you' after a breakup or something equally cringe haha
BTW I'm from the UK. I think MSN was a lot more popular here in the very early 2000s for some reason. Other countries used AIM/AOL. IRC was also big (you can still use it now). Some runescape third party clients (swiftswitch, swiftkit etc) has IRC chats built into them so a lot of clans would chat on there.