I think the 'good old days' of the internet were actually terrible.
By @benyy · Nostalgia
Everyone at my office gets nostalgic about the early 2000s internet, talking about AIM, MySpace, and how pure it all was. I keep my mouth shut, but honestly, I think they're completely forgetting how slow, ugly, and useless it was compared to now.
The full story
I'm on a team with a bunch of other millennials, and the 'remember when' conversations about the old internet are constant. They talk about crafting the perfect AIM away message, agonizing over their MySpace top 8, and the sound of the dial-up modem like it was some golden era. I just don't get it. I remember waiting 10 minutes for a single song to download from a sketchy service, only for it to be a mislabeled virus. I remember websites that were a seizure-inducing nightmare of animated GIFs and unreadable text. You couldn't just look something up; you had to 'surf' and hope you stumbled upon a GeoCities page that had the information you needed, probably written by a 14-year-old. We couldn't stream anything, video calls were a thing of science fiction, and online gaming meant hoping your parents didn't pick up the phone and break your connection. It wasn't 'simpler,' it was just... less. Am I the only one who thinks that while the nostalgia is fun for a minute, we're so much better off now?
How people voted
- Facts — 30% (72 votes)
- Depends — 42% (101 votes)
- No Way — 28% (67 votes)
Readers say “Depends” (42%) — 240 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@jaredish — Is it nostalgia for the internet itself or nostalgia for being young and having fewer responsibilities?
@yaraforsure — My dialup sound was the Seinfeld theme song. I'd sit there for 10 minutes waiting for the Blockbuster website to load so I could see what movies were out.
@reeseish — cool story, have you tried getting a new job.
@judeok2 — I completely agree! We have so much more information and connection at our fingertips now. It's easy to forget how frustrating it could be.
@hadtosay — That's a classic case of romanticizing the past because the present feels overwhelming. You're right, they're wrong.
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