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So much has changed....

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  • So much has changed....

    This forum, by my calculations, is 12 years old (DD joined on July 20th, 2002). Wow. That seems to me like a long time for a forum online. Especially considering I joined 7 years ago on May 24th, 2007, and the forum was nearly 5 years old at that time. So many people have come and gone even in the time I've been here.

    During time of the forum's inception --
    - AWAl was released. Almost half the series has been released since.
    - Everybody had tube TVs and antennas were the norm. DVDs? Too expensive. Still using VHS.
    - The 2nd-gen iPod had just been released
    - Laser printers were just beginning to show dominance over inkjets in business environments (at least, in my school where I have access to recycling records )
    - You had Windows XP if you were lucky. Most people probably still ran Windows 9x or the dreaded ME. Computer RAM was measured in MB. A floppy drive was standard. You had 2 USB ports if you were lucky. You used a CRT monitor and had dial-up Internet.
    - People wore glasses with massive lenses
    - Having a CD player in the car was considered a luxury

    - I was 9 years old (now 21), beginning 3rd grade
    - My dad may or may not have still been running his music shop, or it was the beginning of the end
    - I had just learned to write cursive
    - My sister had just graduated high school
    - My weird cat, Timmy, was still a kitten, having been born the previous September. He's still alive at 13 years old, which is legendary for this rural area of predators (he got attacked by a fisher cat and almost died, and he's been very paranoid since but has calmed down a bit in the last couple years).


    Anything else you can think of?
    Last edited by EricG1793; September 1, 2014, 12:37:42 PM.
    "...Some of growing up is the knitting together of our cognitive webs, and some things take time and experience to make sense...." - Taran

  • #2
    I think we got a DVD player the year before. It was relatively huge and clunky. Also had a CD player in the Suburban, but yeah, the rest pretty much fits. Heck, I didn't even know what an iPod was! (I was 12 at the time). We had a Dell running Windows 98, and I don't think it had USB ports (could be mistaken, it's been a while).

    Gas was probably still a dollar or so a gallon at that point. You could still buy Dreamcast games in the store.

    People still had hope that Attack of the Clones might be good.

    Pretty much everyone still had dialup, there was no Facebook, no YouTube, there were probably still BBS's running, and Mac OS 9 was considered to be a fairly-current operating system that you could still order with a Mac. (I may be off a few months on that, I know 2002 is when Jobs pulled the plug there). Internet Explorer 6 was the hottest thing around.

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    • #3
      2002?

      2002 - I had just graduated from college the previous summer. I think it was around then that I used one of these: Kyocera 6035 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. I still have it, gathering dust in a drawer, keeping company with old cassette tapes and cameras that use film and stuff...

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      • #4
        I joined the forums on February 23rd, 2008, and I'm just now coming back after a five-year hiatus do to finishing high school, starting college, general life, etc. Also, hi, Eric! I remember you from when I was active before - I know just browsing over the past hour or so it looks like a lot of the other people who were active then are no longer. (To be fair, that would have included me until just a bit ago.)

        In July 2002, I was also 9 years old (now also 21) and about to start fourth grade (now about to get my bachelor's...). I had been reading Harry Potter for a couple years (I started reading around the time GoF came out in the US) and I loved it, but I had no idea the fandom - or any fandom - existed at all. Harry Potter was really the start of online fandom for me, and it was a few years after I found the HP online fan community in 2005 (I think) that I thought, "Hmm, I don't know anyone who's read the Young Wizards series, but surely there are some people online!" Aaaand there were.

        Also in 2002:
        • My Mom and I had a computer with Windows Millenium, the software update that time forgot, installed.
        • I still had access to Scholastic book fairs. (Man, I miss those. They should do those at colleges.)
        • We had two cats, Peanut and Tabby - Peanut is still alive and stubborn as ever. Later to come along was our wonderful adopted stray, Yeller, as well as two guinea pigs and two dogs. (Not all at once, thank goodness.)
        • I was ferociously reading my way through the American Girl series of historical fiction books. Meanwhile, thirteen years later, I just finished doing a literary analysis of Cloud Atlas for fun. So...yep.

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        • #5
          I joined in September 2005. I was a high school senior. I graduated from college in 2010, and am actually working in one of those "job" things. In particular, I'm working in education, and most of my students were being born around the time the forums first started in 2002.

          So, one thing that has changed; my students.

          I think PM needs an honorary mention in here. PM meant so much to these forums.

          There's been SpaceX, and Spirit and Curiosity (who is still running today!).

          We've gone from laptops being a luxury, to it being expected to carry a computer in your pocket to make phone calls on (except more frequently people don't actually make the phone calls).
          We will remember you PM. And your little GingerBear.

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          • #6
            So, so much has changed. Yet many things haven't- many of the very good friends I met on these forums are still very close friends.

            I remember having trouble staying connected to the old (pre-chime) chats because my dial-up was terrible. I was so happy to be babysitting during the first one with DD because they had AOL and I could actually participate. I miss having hours of leisure to spend meeting everybody in the cat, and as Tuttle mentioned (Hi Tuttle!), the effect PM had on me and everybody else is not to be discounted.

            What I find most interest is it's much harder to be a stranger on the internet now. I hid my participation in these forums from my parents, claiming friends from here as people from nerd camp, because they were so deeply concerned about internet predators. Nowadays you add people so many places and video chat is so ubiquitous that I don't even recognize my old interactions with people online. Then again, I was maybe 14 when I joined these forums more than a decade ago, so that may just be an effect of time.
            PM: Dai everyone, Caitlin is right
            Follow the bouncing poot

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            • #7
              Aaah, yes, the chatbox... hanging out with the usual suspects, shooting the breeze, and watching how just one person being online led to two or five or more people. And the scheduled DD chats -- even chats with special guests! Good memories. Several regrets, too... To anyone I rubbed the wrong way back in the day: I am sorry!

              I also remember all the hype around the time that AWoM came out. But I'm sure that will pick right up again with GWP in the foreseeable future!
              "...Some of growing up is the knitting together of our cognitive webs, and some things take time and experience to make sense...." - Taran

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              • #8
                Ahhhh I'm so excited about GWP! *flails* And I miss the scheduled DD chats, too...I don't think I was ever actually available during one of them, but I remember them happening...

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                • #9
                  Aww man, the nostalgia! I joined in November 2004, which means I missed my 10 year anniversary by about half a year I was 10 when I joined, and always figured I was waaaay younger than everyone else on here, hence why I didn't talk much (I think I went to maybe one of DD's chats, and made a couple dozen posts in my entire time here). I'm only finding out now that there were so many others around my age on here!

                  I was around for most of the hype preceding AWoM, and I'm really hoping something similar happens for GWP! I've been way more active in-fandom on tumblr for the past few years, and that's great and all, but there's something about being on the forums where it all (kinda) began, with all their history, that you just can't compare to any other platform.

                  Anyway, it's good to see so many familiar avatars and handles coming out of dormancy! I hope more people start showing up as we get closer to February.

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