a thing i have found younger researchers of the late 90s internet don't really appreciate is the number of ephemeral websites made by literal children.
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a thing i have found younger researchers of the late 90s internet don't really appreciate is the number of ephemeral websites made by literal children. i was 12/13/14 making websites on freehosts for fun and i knew easily a dozen other people my age doing the same. the person who hosted the forum i was part of in high school started it at 15 on a server under his bed. there was no concept of age verification. if you had an internet connection and lax parental supervision you were good to go.
(this post is not about the utterly inane age verification laws nor is it about porn. it is about the very often ignored contributions of young people to culture.)
@rose_alibi I was making thousands at 15 making basic websites for local companies and hosting them on potatoes connected to ISDN.
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@fcbsd yeah but you didn't need a credit card to do anything unless you were purchasing something. free hosting on angelfire and geocities didn't require a card
@rose_alibi @fcbsd getting an affiliate account on cd baby didn’t require a credit card either. I know that one.
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a thing i have found younger researchers of the late 90s internet don't really appreciate is the number of ephemeral websites made by literal children. i was 12/13/14 making websites on freehosts for fun and i knew easily a dozen other people my age doing the same. the person who hosted the forum i was part of in high school started it at 15 on a server under his bed. there was no concept of age verification. if you had an internet connection and lax parental supervision you were good to go.
(this post is not about the utterly inane age verification laws nor is it about porn. it is about the very often ignored contributions of young people to culture.)
@rose_alibi so much this! The first two ISPs I had both provided ftp and an exposed /~ home directory to host in.
I had a personal page, “official” websites for small local
bands I liked (geocities ftw), and even a crappy underground newspaper covering teen drama at our highschool.My first money-earning job was independently designing and implementing a web site for a small motorcycle apparel company in my hometown. They paid me $250 up front, and it was more money than I had seen in my entire life.
I was 14.
I miss that janky self-made Internet so much.
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a thing i have found younger researchers of the late 90s internet don't really appreciate is the number of ephemeral websites made by literal children. i was 12/13/14 making websites on freehosts for fun and i knew easily a dozen other people my age doing the same. the person who hosted the forum i was part of in high school started it at 15 on a server under his bed. there was no concept of age verification. if you had an internet connection and lax parental supervision you were good to go.
(this post is not about the utterly inane age verification laws nor is it about porn. it is about the very often ignored contributions of young people to culture.)
@rose_alibi Adding to the fanfare, this is one of the reasons I'm so upset about the state of things now.
I don't even remember the earliest of mine, I think it involved RPG maker 95/2000 stuff? But it was out there for a time. I was 14.
Even better, you know the ancient flash video Hyakugokukyuuichi? The one made by Neil Cicierga, like the nerd celebrity? That was around the same time.
He's *my age*. I only learned that relatively recently.
This shit's important.
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a thing i have found younger researchers of the late 90s internet don't really appreciate is the number of ephemeral websites made by literal children. i was 12/13/14 making websites on freehosts for fun and i knew easily a dozen other people my age doing the same. the person who hosted the forum i was part of in high school started it at 15 on a server under his bed. there was no concept of age verification. if you had an internet connection and lax parental supervision you were good to go.
(this post is not about the utterly inane age verification laws nor is it about porn. it is about the very often ignored contributions of young people to culture.)
@rose_alibi I lied to Geocities about my age because I was a few weeks too young for them to let me create an account. I later expanded to multiple free hosting sites because I ran out of room. I built hobby sites for myself, for friends, school clubs…and I don’t think my parents even knew about it, at least at first unless I mentioned it. My friends did the same thing, we were nerds
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@rose_alibi I lied to Geocities about my age because I was a few weeks too young for them to let me create an account. I later expanded to multiple free hosting sites because I ran out of room. I built hobby sites for myself, for friends, school clubs…and I don’t think my parents even knew about it, at least at first unless I mentioned it. My friends did the same thing, we were nerds
@rose_alibi I did enjoy the game chatrooms (MUDs I guess) that AOL had, but my dad didn’t want to pay for AOL so I got the free hours to try it and that was it. Online games like Ultima were also out of the question. But building stuff was free and didn’t require parental consent!
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