5 ms·

So many memories. I am one of those who grew with WinXP (though I usd Win95 at school and for a few years Win98 at home), and as someone said in another comment

by 101008 4y ago

So many memories. I am one of those who grew with WinXP (though I usd Win95 at school and for a few years Win98 at home), and as someone said in another comment, what else could a teen geek want besides WinXP with a bandwith connection? I still feel that seeing a XP Desktop screenshot invites to much more experiences (possibly online) than a Win10/Win11 screenshot. It may be with the fact that I associate it to different internet eras as well. With XP I used to browse websits, fansites, blogs, forums, chats, MSN messenger/Yahoo Messenger/etc, whil now everything seems to be the boring social networks where almost everything is generated/shared. Internet used to be much fun back then, and it may be the reason why most of the people have good memories about XP. I think the main reason (and I wanted to write an "essay" about this for a while) it's that we were offline by default in our lives, and we used to "go online" for a few hours durnig the day. Then you had your experience in the real world and went online to talk about them. Now it is the other way around - we live online by default, sharing photos and videos from a concert almost in real time, photos from a museum, etc. I think it took away its novelty.

tijuco2 4y ago
"we were offline by default...you had your experience in the real world and went online to talk about them" that is strong and so true.
saiya-jin 4y ago
You know, nobody actually needs to participate in this rat race for few seconds of attention (of people you don't care about much), there are no real gains at all in it, not long term, not anything in say quality of life lived or happiness. I used to be like that, posting 50+ albums of beautiful curated adventure photos per year (basically every weekend trips to alps, backpacking plus ie some evening climbing outdoors on mountain nearby and rest of life like concerts etc). Literally tens of thousands of photos at this point, sometimes stuff NatGeo would be happy to use. Backpacking around the world in wild places relatively few visit, always having full frame camera (+ diving cam + often gopro) with me. I got told I should start Instagram, get followers, create 'brand' etc but never went that way since that wasn't the reason for doing it. When first kid came, I toned down everything, stopped some things, less time to curate all those photos in lightroom. With second child, I practically stopped using camera and currently use just good phone (Samsung S22 ultra). My public photo stream basically died since I don't feel the need to share my kids/family photos, they feel much more intimate than just myself doing something cool/extreme. Close family still gets quite a few of those, but that's it. And you know what? I am fine, I don't miss this at all, and I definitely don't miss similar feeds coming from other folks (especially if they go to some place / experience something and then for a week there are photos dripping 1 by 1 about the same single thing, I began to hate that). Actually I am more than fine, unplugging quite a bit, reversing this process, having more time for much more important matters in life. Unplugged from quite a few social circles around those activities (but not all). So online life became similar kind of novelty you describe.
andrepd 4y ago
>With XP I used to browse websits, fansites, blogs, forums, chats, MSN messenger/Yahoo Messenger/etc, whil now everything seems to be the boring social networks where almost everything is generated/shared. That 2005-2009 period was absolutely the swan song of the pre-corporate internet. Or maybe it's just nostalgia for a simpler time.
- com2kid 4y ago
  > That 2005-2009 period was absolutely the swan song of the pre-corporate internet. Try pre 2000. Nearly every website was made by an enthusiast of some type. Banner ads just barely existed, and you could reach out and talk to almost anyone who was online. There was also an assumption of politeness and civility.
  - Teever 4y ago
    > There was also an assumption of politeness and civility. lol teenaged me on IRC did not get that memo.
    - Clubber 4y ago
      Even back in the BBS days in the 80s, there was always that one guy who was the asshole and trolled people on forums. Once you talked to him one on one, he was actually pretty normal.
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      Hmm, I dunno. Even if people were rude I think it was by consensus, not because they felt like they could get away with anything.
      - jrumbut 4y ago
        They felt like they could get away with anything because they could! I think one difference was that you could hide a little friendly community fairly easy and because the meanness and abuse was seen as an expression of real world powerlessness rather than an enforcement of real world power structures.
makeitdouble 4y ago
> we were offline by default in our lives […] Now it is the other way around - we live online by default, sharing photos and videos from a concert almost in real time, photos from a museum, etc. I think it took away its novelty. We’re probably the same age, and I definitely see people matching that description. Just to note, there’s also a decent number (most I know?) that went almost the opposite way: “online” was a novelty but also the only place to share their experiences and participate to their community. With a group of friend we pestered the local com. company for broadband and were among the test group when they decided to start, and spend a crazy amount of time on IRC/ICQ/usenet. I recently met again with some of the old friends, and our facebook accounts are stubs to keep our name. We’re still on other anonymous SNS but it’s clear we don’t want to share more than needed, and don’t want to spend too much time on it overall. Basically now that “online” can be used anytime from anywhere, there’s no need actively seek it and novelty is gone so we’re more restricting what we do there.
- rlabrecque 4y ago
  Similarly I was 'online' much more during my teen years than I am today. I think two key things changed: 1. I started enjoying things outside of the internet more and more, partially due to how the internet has changed, partially due to how I've changed. 2. There's less FOMO due to as you mention, being able to be "online" anywhere. This creates an entirely different atmosphere, I won't miss something because I'm not at my computer. This actually leads me to being online much less, I can be out and about doing things and get ping by my friends on Discord. Very different than when I didn't want to go out because I couldn't talk to my friends.
ta988 4y ago
The thing is all of these are still here. There are a ton of artisanal websites, blogs and fansites. Lots of communities on IRC, MUDs... Yes it is a small percentage compared to all of current internet users, but still enough for you to spend several lifetimes reading and long hours participating into.
Aeolun 4y ago
> Internet used to be much fun back then, and it may be the reason why most of the people have good memories about XP. To some extend, but I think most people enjoyed XP mostly because it came after 98/ME, and before Vista, which I think are both much worse for different reasons.
burner556 4y ago
The implication that Microsoft operating systems are anything but pain and misery does not Compute.

by 101008 4y ago

tijuco2 4y ago

"we were offline by default...you had your experience in the real world and went online to talk about them" that is strong and so true.

saiya-jin 4y ago

You know, nobody actually needs to participate in this rat race for few seconds of attention (of people you don't care about much), there are no real gains at all in it, not long term, not anything in say quality of life lived or happiness. I used to be like that, posting 50+ albums of beautiful curated adventure photos per year (basically every weekend trips to alps, backpacking plus ie some evening climbing outdoors on mountain nearby and rest of life like concerts etc). Literally tens of thousands of photos at this point, sometimes stuff NatGeo would be happy to use. Backpacking around the world in wild places relatively few visit, always having full frame camera (+ diving cam + often gopro) with me. I got told I should start Instagram, get followers, create 'brand' etc but never went that way since that wasn't the reason for doing it. When first kid came, I toned down everything, stopped some things, less time to curate all those photos in lightroom. With second child, I practically stopped using camera and currently use just good phone (Samsung S22 ultra). My public photo stream basically died since I don't feel the need to share my kids/family photos, they feel much more intimate than just myself doing something cool/extreme. Close family still gets quite a few of those, but that's it. And you know what? I am fine, I don't miss this at all, and I definitely don't miss similar feeds coming from other folks (especially if they go to some place / experience something and then for a week there are photos dripping 1 by 1 about the same single thing, I began to hate that). Actually I am more than fine, unplugging quite a bit, reversing this process, having more time for much more important matters in life. Unplugged from quite a few social circles around those activities (but not all). So online life became similar kind of novelty you describe.

andrepd 4y ago

>With XP I used to browse websits, fansites, blogs, forums, chats, MSN messenger/Yahoo Messenger/etc, whil now everything seems to be the boring social networks where almost everything is generated/shared. That 2005-2009 period was absolutely the swan song of the pre-corporate internet. Or maybe it's just nostalgia for a simpler time.

com2kid 4y ago
> That 2005-2009 period was absolutely the swan song of the pre-corporate internet. Try pre 2000. Nearly every website was made by an enthusiast of some type. Banner ads just barely existed, and you could reach out and talk to almost anyone who was online. There was also an assumption of politeness and civility.
- Teever 4y ago
  > There was also an assumption of politeness and civility. lol teenaged me on IRC did not get that memo.
  - Clubber 4y ago
    Even back in the BBS days in the 80s, there was always that one guy who was the asshole and trolled people on forums. Once you talked to him one on one, he was actually pretty normal.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Hmm, I dunno. Even if people were rude I think it was by consensus, not because they felt like they could get away with anything.
    - jrumbut 4y ago
      They felt like they could get away with anything because they could! I think one difference was that you could hide a little friendly community fairly easy and because the meanness and abuse was seen as an expression of real world powerlessness rather than an enforcement of real world power structures.

makeitdouble 4y ago

> we were offline by default in our lives […] Now it is the other way around - we live online by default, sharing photos and videos from a concert almost in real time, photos from a museum, etc. I think it took away its novelty. We’re probably the same age, and I definitely see people matching that description. Just to note, there’s also a decent number (most I know?) that went almost the opposite way: “online” was a novelty but also the only place to share their experiences and participate to their community. With a group of friend we pestered the local com. company for broadband and were among the test group when they decided to start, and spend a crazy amount of time on IRC/ICQ/usenet. I recently met again with some of the old friends, and our facebook accounts are stubs to keep our name. We’re still on other anonymous SNS but it’s clear we don’t want to share more than needed, and don’t want to spend too much time on it overall. Basically now that “online” can be used anytime from anywhere, there’s no need actively seek it and novelty is gone so we’re more restricting what we do there.

rlabrecque 4y ago
Similarly I was 'online' much more during my teen years than I am today. I think two key things changed: 1. I started enjoying things outside of the internet more and more, partially due to how the internet has changed, partially due to how I've changed. 2. There's less FOMO due to as you mention, being able to be "online" anywhere. This creates an entirely different atmosphere, I won't miss something because I'm not at my computer. This actually leads me to being online much less, I can be out and about doing things and get ping by my friends on Discord. Very different than when I didn't want to go out because I couldn't talk to my friends.

ta988 4y ago

The thing is all of these are still here. There are a ton of artisanal websites, blogs and fansites. Lots of communities on IRC, MUDs... Yes it is a small percentage compared to all of current internet users, but still enough for you to spend several lifetimes reading and long hours participating into.

Aeolun 4y ago

> Internet used to be much fun back then, and it may be the reason why most of the people have good memories about XP. To some extend, but I think most people enjoyed XP mostly because it came after 98/ME, and before Vista, which I think are both much worse for different reasons.

burner556 4y ago

The implication that Microsoft operating systems are anything but pain and misery does not Compute.