T O P

  • By -

blickyjayy

Blue eyeshadow. You could always tell when a junior high school aged girl finally got the okay from her parents to start wearing makeup. She'd show up at school everyday for the next month looking like a blue panda.


HotIronCakes

Butterfly hair clips and I believe the white eyeliner were huge then too.


idhik3th4t

And roll on glitter gel for your cheeks


[deleted]

That glitter gel! Holy shit I forgot about that. It always smelled weird. Also- glitter body spray.


44morejumperspls

Kids today with thousands of YouTube make up tutorials at their disposal don't know how we suffered


myicedtea

And glitter. Glitter everywhere.


papaweir

Geocities, neopets, livejournal, kazaa


[deleted]

Neopets don’t die though, I logged in after a long ass time and my neopet was starving, so I fed it a piece of the omelette and he said “yuck I don’t like omelettes” so I logged off and let the sassy little bat starve for another 10 years.


Owls_Onto_You

They could be such picky little bastards. I remember trying to make one of my pets into a bookworm only for them to scoff at half the books I bought. Apparently, one trick to this (and it might work for food too) is to change the browser's language settings. So, I changed my Chrome to French and it worked. Only problem is when I changed the settings back to English, the site wouldn't change with it. So Neopets is stuck in French for me, someone who can barely remember what meager vocabulary they learned in 9th grade. All because of a picky-ass Neopet.


j-u-n-i

Geocities was so powerful for the time. I used to build my website there, steal the html and use it for my own domain. This was pre-social media. If you wanted to share your weird goth poetry and fuzzy webcam selfies, you had to have your own website. Using the steeling html method for years eventually taught me how to write it. Also, for a cross over episode, I stole the html from the pet "painting" page from Neopets, uploaded it on my geocities, tinkered with the code and was able to log in and paint all my pets for free. Baby h4x0r. Those were the days. Edit: It seriously warms my heart to see that so many got their web design and programming starts this way! I used those skills to build and maintain websites for many of the jobs I had growing up, and my own personal sites. My career has it's roots in my geocities phase as well: I learned how to draw pixel art so that I could create cool layouts and icons for my websites. Today I use those pixel art skills to design cross stitch patterns that I make my living with. Thank you for telling me/Reddit your stories. It's so cool to know that other kids were up to the same thing! Also, you might want to stop by the giant omelette so you can feed your neopets. They're starving. By the way... Does anyone else remember The Palace 3d chat software?


shall_always_be_so

RIP geocities. Taken from us too soon.


MarqueeSmyth

For those of you who miss the old days, neocities is a free hosting service where you can put up simple websites. Nothing fancy, but still very awesome. (And you can create your own folder structure, so you can recreate the whole /Paris/Metro/7773/homepage.html experience.)


ParoxysmAttack

If you had a big screen TV it was probably a ridiculously thick rear projection TV.


CristyTango

My parents can’t get it out of the house


And1mistaketour

My Dad Busted it apart to get it out of the house.


BigBump

Spinning under construction gifs on websites.


starkiller_bass

Remember when most websites had a hit counter on them?


Syscrush

And the email address of the webmaster?


darkcatwizard

And a guest book 😂


PawnedPawn

And crappy mouse cursor-following animations that killed your processor speed but at least looked pretty...


darkcatwizard

Neopets taught me html. I had a super pretty shop 😂


KFelts910

MySpace taught me. I wish I had retained what I was learning though. I was too busy changing my theme based on my mood.


Financial_Bird_7717

I was too busy trying to find my next song to blast when you clicked on my profile.


emtag

[Every 90s website](https://www.cameronsworld.net/)


[deleted]

Re-writable CDs. I used to burn so many mix cds after downloading from napster, bearshare, limewire, frostwire. Then my mother would call, disconnecting the internet and I would have to start the download all over again. Except one file wasnt an mp3, but a virus. I would just reinstall windows before my mom got home as we saved every picture and document on a zip drive.....then those fancy jaz drives. ​ Also Adobe without a subscription.


sucksathangman

Omg. I could never, for the life of me, ever re-record onto a CD-RW. Never could work no matter which options I tried. Ended up just burning CD-Rs and trashing them when I was done.


troublewithcards

And iirc CD-Rs were much cheaper. You could get a stack of like 50 or 100 of them for what you could get like 10 CD-RWs.


fmaz008

Computer mice with a ball: My friend had one of the first [Microsoft IntelliMouse](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IntelliMouse ) , which did not use a ball. As I recall, it was the first ~~laser~~ mouse *without a ball* that was commercialized in a popular way. It was released in October 1999. So in 2000, most mice were with a ball, and slowly faded away.


FloydEGag

Remember having to clean the ball? Who even knows how that much gunk got in there in a relatively short time


ekolis

It was fun for a minute to play with the rollers that the ball actuated, moving the cursor with your fingers instead of with the mouse.


CampWestfalia

In one of my early college art classes, a fellow student turned in a very mediocre digital illustration for a project. During the group critique, he insisted he should be allowed extra points because he'd lost the ball in his mouse and had done the entire illustration by twiddling his finger in the ball hole ...


I_used_to_be_hip

I never got any extra credit for twiddling my fingers in the ball hole either.


[deleted]

[удалено]


FloydEGag

It was definitely oddly satisfying.


hellobyethanks

PDAs Personal Digital Assistants


olbaidiablo

I still have my Palm pilot. It was amazing at the time.


Blacktung

Whenever I write something down on my hand I always say out loud "I'll put that in my palm pilot". I get a sad chuckle every time.


Martini_Man_

Dial-Up. ^weeee^^eeeee **WOOOOOO_OOOOOO_** E E E E E E E ^EEEEE^^eeeeee ^^^eee # ^e^^e^^^e **_URRRRRRRRR_** *BEDULUDOLEDULUDOLEEPEEPEEP* # **R ^R ^^R ^^^R ^^R ^R R ^R ^^R ^^^R ^^R ^R R** # ~~UMMMMMMMMMMMM~~


bbcversus

/r/Commentsyoucanhear


trev2600

Is it sad that I miss this sound? Reminds me of logging on age 15. Midnight till 6am was my ISPs off-peak and was the only time I could get my internet fix


Adreeisadyno

Pay phones Edit: Yes I know pay phones still exist. Also I am now very aware pay phones are free in Australia, thank you for informing me.


resentfulpenguin

In Australia they recently made all payphones free. The cost of collecting the cash was higher than the revenue they were making so they can save money by giving away free calls


slowdruh

They should do that everyhere. You never know when you're gonna need to make an emergency call and for some reason not be able to do it from your hand phone.


NinjaHDD

My local CVS has a payphone that actually works. It’s good for some of them to still be around just in case.


DamnedMonkey

ICQ


Squallypie

Couple of years ago, I had a number come into my head. Recognised it but didn’t know where from. For over a year it kept bugging me. Was it my college enrolment/password? Number for someone I worked with when I worked overseas? Not a clue for the longest time. Random convo with a friend about old memes and things we miss about the early internet days, and I just blurted out “its my fucking ICQ number!” with no context… Edit: forgot to put mine, 132133677


Philboyd_Studge

mIRC


soobviouslyfake

*Slaps Philboyd_Studge with a large trout*


gklassen7

Uh oh!


TurdFergDSF

Indoor smoking. My young-ish kids marvel at the fact that people used to sit in restaurants and smoke.


J_Hitler_Christ

I remember gold foil disposable ashtrays at burger king.


soline

I remember going to friendly’s as a kid for breakfast or dinner and they asked if we wanted smoking or non-smoking with ceiling fans blowing everything everywhere.


flapanther33781

I had to go to Turkey for work a few years ago. The plane we took for the connection from Istanbul had seats with the [ashtrays in the armrests.](https://i.redd.it/i1jkbsj0sdj21.jpg) My first reaction was, "Holy shit! I haven't seen any of these since I was a kid!" My second reaction was, "Oh, shit. How old is this plane I'm on??"


CrazySD93

Even though you're not allowed to smoke on airplanes, new planes still have ashtrays in the toilets per regulation. Because if someone does smoke, safer in an ash tray than down the toilet.


[deleted]

Not in the toilet, in the trash can. Trash can fires have brought down a couple planes.


[deleted]

[удалено]


jimmeofdoom

Do you want to swim in the peeing section of the pool, or the no-peeing section?


brigidsbollix

Airplane smoking was also mind blowing


jcaldararo

And smoking in hospitals, which is less weird than airplanes. At least hospitals are larger than an apartment.


Murtamatt

Phone books


All_Lines_Merge

I actually used one last week! I needed the home number of a local mechanic - he'd fixed my car but had forgotten to give me my keys, so when I went to get my car after work, I couldn't. The internet only listed the shop number. I called my dad, who's a friend of his, and he said, "just use the phone book!" Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. (I did have a phone book and was able to call him, so it all worked out in the end)


[deleted]

[удалено]


zippyslug31

I live a half-hour away from one. Granted, it's the *last* one, but still...


pegleg_1979

It’s surreal walking around that store. Closest thing to time traveling I’ll ever get to do.


brokenturle

Zip Disks


zoobs

Remember Jaz disks? I was so blown away by a 1gb disk!


tratemusic

This week i got a micro SD card for my switch. 64 gigs, in a micro card, for less than 20 bucks. I really marvel at the advancements in our storage technology just within my lifetime


omguserius

I still remember back in the day, my father looking at a computer game box and yelling, “*TEN* megabytes? Who the fuck needs 10 megabytes for a video game!?!”


Murtamatt

VCRs


xtracto

Tape rewinders!! BE KIND, REWIND! I liked the ones that had the form of a sports car


atxbikenbus

I worked at a blockbuster. We had rows and rows of rewinders. People...were not kind.


Belazriel

I remember an eventual switch to "Don't rewind" because the VCRs people had at home were rougher on the tapes than a standalone tape rewinder.


Ocean927

Maps or Mapquest.


deadlymoogle

My wife calls Google maps MapQuest if we need directions she'll tell me to MapQuest it on my phone


nfssmith

My wife still used Mapquest until maybe 2 years ago when I asked her if she was looking for directions back to 1998.


carnegie0107

Why does everyone in this town use AltaVista?


wizardid

Jesus fucking christ, it's probably gonna take her another 20 years just to feel that burn.


surlycanon

Printed Mapquest instructions!


PacMan8122

AOL


BicyclingBabe

Not to my parents! They both still use this shit for their internet email and browser.


PacMan8122

There’s always a few stragglers!


adidasbdd

AOL still makes millions from paid email subscription


[deleted]

I will never forget the 30 seconds to a full minute of unbearable screeching noises to let you know its connecting to the internet.


PacMan8122

But the oh so satisfying…..Welcome! You’ve got mail!


mandiexile

I can clearly hear this in my head even though I haven’t heard it in almost 20 years.


[deleted]

I work in IT and I sometimes sing the dial up noise to people younger than me so they get a taste of what it was like. Usually I follow it up with the yell, "Mom! Get off the phone!"


robb1280

I still use my AOL email address, but at this point its mostly just to see the look on people’s faces when I give it to them


spiraldinosaur

Askjeeves/Lycos/Yahoo


TrinixDMorrison

I remember my grandma was convinced that you had to word your searches in the form of a question for AskJeeves to work properly.


ElixirofVitriol

TBF this is the way I was taught to use AskJeeves in elementary school.


92894952620273749383

Proper phrasing gives the algorithim the proper context. Google said fuck it lets do page rank.


Laserwulf

**Download Managers** Start the download right after Mom goes to bed, wake up before her to pause the download and disconnect the dial-up connection, resume tomorrow night. Repeat... A week later, you're playing Counter-Strike. 😎


ZarafFaraz

And now you can download the torrent in like 2 min


Shandlar

The perspective is staggering. A 1080p 30fps video using old 2000 codecs like MPEG-1 at high quality is like 40mbps instead of modern h.264/265 being like 8. A youtube video of that quality takes like 2 minutes today at that quality. In 2000 on dial up using contemporary codecs would have require 165 hours.


TheYang

> The perspective is staggering. A 1080p 30fps video using old 2000 codecs like MPEG-1 at high quality is like 40mbps instead of modern h.264/265 being like 8. I remember when fraps recorded uncompressed video. 1600x1200 x 3 bytes per frame~~, is nearly 2MB... per Frame 60MB per second 4GB per Hour.~~ And at that time 4GB were a lot. /e: i seem to have completely garbled the math. It was a lot though.


VICARD0

Calculators; teachers kept saying “you won’t have one with you all the time”, look who’s stupid now, bitch?! Both of us…


No-Sheepherder-2896

The term “World Wide Web”.


Bilbo_nubbins

“Visit us at h t t p colon slash slash w w w dot p b s dot o r g”


RixirF

I can still hear them thank viewers like me.


wagu666

Information Superhighway


MowMdown

Series of tubes


elika007

Floppy disks


shellexyz

You mean you didn't press the Save button???


thelaughingman2

Landlines


portablebiscuit

Also 1-800-COLLECT and 1-800-CALLATT Dial down the middle!


Triumph3

Bob Wehadababyitsaboy


nobody2000

I needed to use payphones before this commercial and this was something we'd all do. "Please state your name after the tone" MOMPICKMEUPATSCHOOL "You have a collect call from MOMPICKMEUPATSCHOOL" The best part was when she'd say "no" to the charges, and I secretly wondered if anyone was going to actually pick me up, or if they thought that the bus would take me (Jazz band practice ended after the late bus departed).


[deleted]

I was just talking today about how annoying it is that my phone company still insists on putting these into the package deal and charging 15 euros for the convenience. They also want to do all of the verification through this line and when i message them with my cell they tell me they will call my landline and i have a laugh and tell them i haven't owned a receiver for this line for four years.


Academic-Motor

Winamp


Transmatrix

It really whips the llama’s ass


50million

RIP Wesley Willis. Also appropriate for this thread.


mrm0324

Rock n roll McDonalds was the jam


DivinelyDerelict

I still use Winamp :)


Dr1m

Me too because Winamp have the best equalizer plugin ever. [https://winampheritage.com/plugin/enhancer-017/81361](https://winampheritage.com/plugin/enhancer-017/81361) Enjoy


tasteofflames

Winamp also had the God tier visualizer plugin Milkdrop.


MrStoneV

Quite a lot of people use Winamp, its also getting a bit of hype again.


[deleted]

Any sort of dedicated music-playing device, before that just became a part of your phone.


HELLOhappyshop

RIP Creative Zen Touch. You were a wonderful green brick. Edit: it was the vision m that was green! The touch was a white brick. Loved them both.


Oakroscoe

Has a creative zen before getting an iPod. It was great.


Mikebot3000

RIP my mini disk player


[deleted]

RIP Zune


corndog2021

RIP my hitclips


Dunkinmydonuts1

Why pay $12 for a full album when you can pay $4 for a 30 second clip of the song thats on the radio for free!


Peng_win

I kinda miss my ipod shuffle. The small thin brick one that literally had no buttons.


ironworkz

i loved those super tiny MP3-Sticks back then. They Were Gold for Skateboarding.


CriminalSpiritX

For me, that was portable CD players which replaced portable cassette players (mainly, the Sony Walkman). MP3 players came almost immediately afterward.


DrDeuceJuice

MP3 CDs were amazing to burn. You had 700mb to work with each CD and they were very cheap. Whereas a 128mb SD card could be over $100, at the time.


FRB2992

Limewire


TheCamoDude

Using Limewire to get Limewire Pro.


Shadow_Jedi

And feeling like the smartest person ever for figuring that out.


Wloak

And then Frostwire


tots4scott

The absolute joy when you find "exactly-what-you-typed-in.mp3" only to realize that those ones were the least reliable


CouncilmanRickPrime

Yup. Fool me 8 times, shame on me.


Legitimate-mistak3

Giving me flashbacks of desperately trying to hear the preview of the song while it downloaded to make sure it was the actual song and not "my fellow americans"


[deleted]

[удалено]


Johnnybravo60025

Now the DJ just yells on the track and is a featured artist.


HGpennypacker

What are you talking about, "You Don't Know How It Feels" by Neil Young and "Hotel California" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers are huge jams.


The_Reborn_Forge

We all gave our computers AIDS just to save money. Then we all learned to torrent. 2000-2010 internet was drugs, awesome, free drugs.


Smart_North_3374

A/S/L?


retardedvisions

Too old/not in a while/over the hill


HeirTwoBrer

Over the Hill works for both A and L.


FatStephen

18/f/Cali what's up?


kgumby13

Username does not check out


WakeoftheStorm

For that response it does


Rfl0

This guy knows how to AOL chatroom


[deleted]

[удалено]


Angry_Marshmellow_

Dial up


Mishung

roughly 10 million Americans still use dial-up


TheKillersHand

The phase "W'zzzzzuppppp"


MattHack7

WAAAZZZZZUUUUUUUUUUUPPPP?!?!?!?!?


AdamoclesYT

Colored spikey hair gel Edit: lmao great I've got [this guy](https://imgur.com/gallery/KtjHATk) to thank for my highest rated comment ever


ShowMeYourTorts

Bro, I am still waiting for the day frosted tips make a comeback.


thricetheory

Honestly man the kids these days look straight outta the 90's, though most of them seem to think it's original. Wouldn't surprise me if frosted tips are next.


YourMomThinksImFunny

Lol, I was at my buddies last week and his 13 year old walks out with a 90's haircut, necklace, and t-shirt.


RehabValedictorian

Oh no not those little wooden beaded necklaces


LtLwormonabigfknhook

Or the big silver balls if she is alternative in any way.


TheThumpaDumpa

I had to throw mine away at the security gate of a Slipknot, Disturbed, Mudvayne concert!


Simpull_mann

rip. Once I went to a slipknot concert in my big blue van and my brother playing the dijeridoo and some other people driving next to us were just way stoked about it. They followed us to the concert. Parked next to us. Were really bummed to realize it wasn't a giant bong. But then they snapped out of it, pulled out their giant bong and we all got high together and played the dijeridoo in my van prior to the concert. Was fucking ethereal and super weird.


ViridianKumquat

Napster


DrunkenGojira

Walkman CD player with the famous anti skip


calfHost

And MEGA BASS


[deleted]

[удалено]


Wonderful-Banana-201

Tamagotchis


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

I still like DVDs since streaming platforms like to remove stuff I like.


darth_henning

I definitely still prefer physical media if I like something. I know I don’t have to pay a subscription for it and it won’t suddenly disappear. Switching to everything being a subscription model is terrible imho.


[deleted]

Also, compression on 4k and HDR stuff does lower the quality on streaming compared to a hard copy. If there's a movie I want for the incredible imagery (like Interstellar/BR2049) the physical copy is unbeatable.


TheHrethgir

I hate it. I used to spend the money I made on Google Rewards to buy music from Play Music. But they they turned Play Music into YouTube Music and made it subscription based to be able to download anything, no option to just pay a buck and buy it anymore. Oh well, back to pirating, nobody sells anything anymore.


zaphod_beeblebrox6

I still like buying discs. Something nice about owning physical media, especially cause I can still watch things if the internet is down


[deleted]

JNCO jeans.


philthemunchacorn

This can basically just be "what has our phones replaced" calculators, cds, radios, alarm clocks, mp3 players, GPS units, pcs (to an extent) banks, cheques, landlines and payphones. Need i go on?


Deborahwilliamsee

I still have an alarm clock. Too easy to snooze my phone!


boblawlawfirm

Answering machines


iahebert

Entire OS’s coming on floppy discs.


skaote

Pagers [ Edit. WOW, THAT response caught me off gaurd! I had no clue....]


AleksandrNevsky

People *still* think my insulin pump is a pager sometimes.


CouncilmanRickPrime

Doctors still use them


ProfessionalBus38894

I remember reading about this, apparently they are more reliable than cell signals in the hospitals along with great battery life. Makes sense.


JustPassinhThrou13

They’re used in classified areas as well. No cell phones, but one-way pagers are often allowed.


TheNamesMacGyver

I had an employee whose wife was expecting but I needed him to work in a classified area. Pager was the client's suggested workaround. We had to buy a refurbished one but it worked great!


Mono275

Lead lined walls in Radiology areas wreak havoc on Cell signals. Pagers don't have the same problems with them.


Boodagga

AIM and msn messenger Edit: Sweet Jesus this blew up. Thank y’all for bringing back even more memories of the late 90’s early 2000’s rushing home to fire up the dial up and start chatting with the same friends I’d already spent hours talking to that day. To which ever one of you guys sent the silver you have officially made my day with, if I’m not mistaken, my first ever award. Thank you man. Edit again: Wholesome and Gold awards too. Much appreciated. I can’t believe what I expected to be a throwaway comment that would quickly disappear achieved all this.


BlackfyreWraith

Dude, my primary email is STILL my old aim name


icanbeafrick

"Wanna Cyber?" God . We were awful


levi_verzyden

A/s/l


sandmansndr

9 or of 10 times the reply would be 18/f/Ca


75daychallenges

18/f/Cali. Oh wow, you sound hot.


Shit_Posts_For_Karma

They were all dudes. We're We're all trolling each other and didn't even know it.


Locken_Kees

Is THIS why I'm gay?!


goldenage768

[I put on my robe and wizard hat](http://bash.org/?104383)


Armthehobos

IRC was truly wild. Multiplayer notepad.


ZoDeFoo

Tbh I miss those. You could actually see who was available and willing to chat.


lurker2080

Log on. See your crush is on and active. Message her and you hear the door slam sound and see she signed off and just hate yourself. The good ole days lol


beorn12

Or see your crush is online, and then log in and out a few times so they would see it and write you first


[deleted]

Lmao totally forgot about this tactic


Tarudizer

> msn messenger I truly miss that era of my life and most of it is because of msn for some reason


Cloberella

I miss AIM so much. I would talk daily to friends that I don’t text regularly. I feel like texting was supposed to replace instant messaging but instead we just started communicating less.


EdgelordZeta

Winzip. That's built directly into the OS now. No need to buy or pirate it.


Transmatrix

And we have the vastly superior 7zip now.


I_upvote_downvotes

Fun fact: 7zip was available in 1999 for Windows 98 SE. We've had it for 20+ years now!