Yeah that’s how it seemed to me - as much as I can remember. I obviously don’t remember 1990, but by 1997 or so it was clear to me that all this web stuff was a

Yeah that’s how it seemed to me - as much as I can remember. I obviously don’t remember 1990, but by 1997 or so it was clear to me that all this web stuff was a new thing to most people. Before that it was just a technical thing that the computers at work used. Almost parallel was remembering what things were like before everyone had cell phones. I remember going around to my friends’ houses and their parents telling me that my parents called and I have to go home now. I used to have so many phone numbers memorized. But I also remember getting a cell phone in high school and calling my friends all the time, and eventually texting - if my parents weren’t complaining about the phone bill from all my texts. > Usenet was really big for me -- I learned a ton of stuff about playing guitar and drums -- but I think the 1989 generation probably never touched Usenet. For that generation maybe ICQ was more formative, etc. ICQ maybe, AIM and MSN Messenger and others were more likely in my experience at the end of the 90s and early 00s. Usenet was what my uncle who’s basement reeked of cigarette smoke that stuck to the server fans used. He was also the one who wired our house’s phone lines and ran Cat-5 to every room when my parents remodeled a new house in 1999.