Does posting on BBS count as 'social media'? Asking for a friend.
this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2026
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IRC.. Does that count?
I still jump on IRC from time to time
What's that ??🤔🤔🤔
Internet Relay Chat. It was developed in the late 1980s or early 1990s, I dont remember which. Its still going. I'm using it daily.
Could you tell me how to register on this ???
You don't need to register... but, this is where things get complicated... First you need a IRC client (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_IRC_clients), doesn't really matter which one, some are more simple, some are not. Some look nice, some dont.
When you have a IRC client, you need to find a IRC network (https://netsplit.de/networks/top100.php), then you have to connect to that network.
Then you have to find a channel in that network to connect to and then you can start chatting. Note that all networks have their own channels. For example if theres a #India channel on Quakenet, that is different from the #India channel in IRCnet etc.
Edit: A lot of IRC networks have a webchat possibility, for example Quakenet has one, https://webchat.quakenet.org/ Put in a username, write a channel you wish to join and click "join chat"
First social media account I signed up up for was msn to talk to a girl I liked. Msn is long gone, but that girl is now my wife
Here is to us that met our wives on the internet before online dating. We will be married 25 years this year.
Congrats! My wife and I hit 21 this year... though we met in person, in a cage filled with vending machines.
Crazy to think she has been a contact on almost all of them, at least the main ones of the time AIM/ICQ/IRC/MSN/YAHOO...
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Does Neopets count? I think I made my first account there in either late 2002 or early 2003.
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Remember we used finger to list the users on another university's server then used talk to chat with them. Then bbs for boards/forums, irc for large chat rooms, mud for game (shadows of the mind - the one I used to play on).
Can I feel old now?
My first social media was facebook :3 which I joined as a kid entirely for the facebook games
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Not a social media user back then, my first account was either in a forum or in roblox [2016 roblox 😔].
Both is lost.
I messaged my friends using Whatsapp, my mom's account
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If IRC or Usenet count, sometime in the '90s for my own account. I had a myspace fairly early and Facebook back when it was .edu only (I forget which was earlier). I'm old
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I guess, Gaia Online? That's the first thing I can think of making an account on.
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Must have been early 2001 when I joined http://www.irc-galleria.net/
I think I was amongst the first few thousand users on the site.
I began my internet journey around that time. There was the internet explorer as the main browser back then.
My first social media....that's a difficult question, i used a lot...tumblr, msn messenger, pidgin, blogspot, google +,facebook...
But i have lot good memories with an online game, the mmo Dofus. I was in a guild (Gaïa) on an international server at 13 years old. It was fun, i talked to a chinese person, she encouraged me to learn english, shared her favorite music. :)
Now I remember msn.
I hope we are not getting old 😅
we are getting old anyway but that's fun to discovers how we used internet. :)
💯💯💯
Facebook. I thought it was an email service back then.
You're right about that. It worked in tandem alongwith yahoo mail and hotmail. My first email accounts were in these websites back then 😄😄😄😄😄😄😄
Slashdot and Segfault.
At the time, all my online friends used it to discuss techie things.
First social network with real people in my local area? Whirlpool.net.au
It started as a site for peer support for one ISP but became a forum for local and regional technological issues.
There were also other niche forums for niche interests, including a Nissan Pulsar forum; we would organise cruises IRL and share technical information.
Most of these communities have been subsumed by Meta, which I believe is a terrible thing. Their platforms are not as conducive for that sort of socialising, without significant amounts of friction.
I think it was livejournal, but there's a chance I had some forum account somewhere even before that.
Deadjournal had a better color scheme but thanks for the reminder.
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