this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2026
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Microblog Memes
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The early Internet had a few simple rules:
And most people knew these rules. The proliferation of the Internet has brought a lot of people who don't understand these rules in to the fold and it has made the Internet a worse place. "Normies" seemingly think the Internet world works like your normal social interactions - it does not. The anonymity of the Internet brings out the worst in people. We really need to bring back the rules of the early Internet for the safety of everyone.
Feel free to comment more rules if you remember any.
As much as I miss the early Internet though, I genuinely do wish I'd had more protection from the seedier sites. I am not better off for having seen the gore and shock sites.
more importantly, if you do know the real identity of another participant, don't reveal it
The people who came after me didn't know that one and started putting their birth year, hometown, etc. into their usernames.
One time I was chatting with a woman who told me she was single. I'm still not quite sure if she was, but she had a kid with the claimed ex. However, the ex - or whatever he was - found out I was talking to her and left a voicemail threatening me.
I don't remember what he said exactly, but I do remember one detail. She and I had only talked online and over the phone. I never gave any really location specific information to her, just my first and last name and phone number. In his voicemail, he said "I will find you. I will Google your ass!"
Even now, if you Google my first and last name, you get results about some CEO, not me. I've never tried googling my phone number.
Yeah, there are people who search for themselves and want an ego boost. I search for myself and hope to find nothing.
Indeed. I know roughly what's going on because back before I cared about privacy I set up a "Google Alert" for my name. Since my tastes developed, I'm glad he's there to distract from anything notable about me.
Send me your phone number and I'll Google it for you.
Even better - you give me yours and I'll call you so you don't have to type it.
How thoughtful, (202) 456-1414
Ah, I was expecting the rejection hotline. It never occurred to me that the White House has a general contact number, but it makes sense.
"Pics or it didn't happen" doesn't really work anymore.
NGL, I saw the gore and shock as well - stileproject, rotten, marsonline, ogrish, bestgore... and even WPD on Reddit in the early days and it really did give me an appreciation for safety first! in almost everything I have done since.
The biggest rule was proof/cites linking to legitimate sources, (not conspiracy sites or your friend "Sally" on facebook) or it didn't happen.
I learned a few important lessons. Cars, trains, knives, guns, angry people, power lines, and falling are dangerous. Treat them with respect.
+100 for the power lines. Saw some scary things happen to people that were not paying attention.
The eternal September brought new people without end who never acclimated.
Broadband reached rural communities.
That's what Eternal September means.
Translator note: keikaku means plan
Oh absolutely, I also believe that growing up with dialup was great, it meant that being online cost money, giving parents incentive to monitor the time spent online by children, and gradually getting used to being online.
I remember asking and being allowed 30 min online, every few weeks.
It worked well as we hadn't transitioned to an online first society.
Then later in school there were a few shock sites being sent around, goatse was never huge at my time in school, for me the most prolific shock site around school was lemonparty.
Even later in school, I started realizing how much gore and weird crap you could find, and a morbid curiosity took over forna few days, I remember finding a picture of a guy who got beheaded after falling on a spiked fence, you could see the head on one of the spikes, and another time when I saw the aftermath of a guy being sucked into a jet engine, that one was quite mild as the result was too abstract and you only saw a red paste, so it never bothered me.
As it stands now, I think there is a value of mild supervision of kids and teens when online.
I mean mild in a way that full access is allowed but only on a desktop in a shared space.
And at 16 they can move their computer into their own room, and at 18 any admin account on their computer that the parents have should be removed.
I had dialup, but we had 2 phone lines and our phone company was the ISP so a local number with unlimited access. I've been terminally online for way too long.
Nah, I think some things should be left in the past
Just replace it with "on the internet everyone is lying about who they are and the person goading you on is either 15 or a fed"
Add I understand it, the real meaning of that line is not exactly what it sounds like. It meant something like "in this anonymous place, only your thoughts matter, not your identity." If an idea was good, it was good, and it didn't matter who had the idea. Very egalitarian.
Of course, we have since realized that isn't really true. Sometimes it's important to know if a thought is coming from a woman, who has had different experience from a man.
Still an idea that need to be left behind, but not the one you probably think.