definitely about to show my age here, but whatever. i really miss AOL instant messenger. i miss the nonsense font choices people made. i miss having a buddy list. i miss the away messages. i miss desperately searching for meaning in the lyrics people posted in their away messages!
i know, i know, facebook messenger, discord, telegram, snapchat, imessage, bla bla bla… it’s not the same thing. these try to do too many things all at once. they’re too connected to a million other features, platforms, distractions, etc.
when i think about it, i really miss a lot about the early days of the internet in general. it seemed a lot more ‘special’ back then. everything that existed really showed how much, or how little effort an actual, real person put into it. everything was so much more intentional. everything was so much more personal.
i remember when i built my first web server way back when. i had just moved out of my parents house and took over the spare room in j&k’s apartment @5309. i didn’t have a computer, nor did i have very much money, so i scoured the local newspaper’s classifieds section to find something for sale and i ended up finding a used 486DX4 system in a giant metal tower for a price i could manage.
the only operating system install media i had were a million different versions of macintosh system (6, 7, 8 and maybe 9 too? i’m not sure that was out yet.) and a handful of freeBSD disquettes. so, freeBSD it was, because macintosh system was 68k only and this was x86. i had no clue what i was doing, no clue how to make it work, no documentation, no nothing. yet somehow i got x working, and then somehow i got it online too.
i think i probably ended up getting debian install media too at some point and switched to that, but, honestly, i don’t remember all that much from back then any more. heck even what i do remember is probably wrong too haha
i must have been using a dyndns domain back then, because i only registered my current domain back in the summer of 2002. no, not this one, my actual one… not that this one isn’t real… ahh forget it. you know what i mean.
having to figure everything out, learn how the operating systems worked, learn how apache works, learn how bind works, learn how sendmail works, all of it so that then you could learn how html works and then learn how to make something that was even a little bit functional and all that work, just so you could post some nonsense online that was important to you… like, that’s a lot of fucking work. back then you had to really want it. you had to really care.
compared to today where this very site took me all of about 17 seconds to set up from beginning to end. it’s not the same. honestly, it feels disposable. like if i just deleted this whole thing tomorrow, would it even really phase me? i could start again somewhere else in no time flat.
don’t worry, i have no intention of deleting this place any time soon. i just really miss the old days.
now get of my damn lawn you kids!