honestly im upset i wasnt arnd to experience this era of the internet this shit looks like it was such a fun vibe

@ellie it really was fun. I wish we could go back.

@ellie it was pretty fun. That alert sound was so exciting. I courted my first wife via aim, lol.

@ellie It was. :)

@seachanger @ellie In 1997? They definitely had.

@ellie mumble and xmpp support thist kinda stuff and its one of the primary reasons i like em so much

@coolbean @ellie mumble would be so good if you could upload images without it being downscaled and compressed

@coolbean @ellie shit can become unreadable

@coolbean @ellie and also like clicking on an image should open it in your image viewer that would be nice

@rat @ellie that is really annoying yea

@ellie it was definitely a better internet, I remember sitting for hours and the only thing I was doing was talking to people on that thing

@ellie Yeah I used BRB all the time on aim

@ellie trillian was what all my friends and I used. Let me use AIM, IRC, ICQ, Y!... And MSN in one badass skinnable application. Good memories.

@ellie oh man it really was. A couple specific design decisions that made it better:

- no timelines. Social media had profiles and messaging, so you had to engage rather than doom scroll.
- customizable profiles. Most socials gave you some ability to customize with html/css which have you a cool layer of expression. It was like picking your online outfit. (Lots of developers my age got started learning by customizing their Myspace pages in middle/high school.)

@ellie I think these choices could be brought back, and probably will be in some capacity. People have a knack for finding fun in tech.

I was reading about the PLATO computer system and one thing that struck me was how similar the patterns of social computing were, even on a "primitive" network in the 70s. People find a way of connecting and expressing and being goofy with whatever tools they have available.

@ellie part of the fun of early consumer internet was stuff like logging into ICQ late at night (when the connection was free) and hitting the "random person" button and just like chilling with some randomly picked person from somewhere in the world.

In some ways IRC has a similar vibe these days of weird people show up from all over.

One of the best/most intense nostalgia fuelling experiences I've seen for this time is Secret Little Haven (https://ristar.itch.io/secret-little-haven) which is a lot, but fun.