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Remembering Cyberia, the first ever cyber cafe
- Arubis 2y ago> A man poses with a mop on his head at Cyberia, the world’s first cyber cafe. This was very indicative of the humor of the times. Oh. We're having to explain 90's humor as though on a museum placard. I feel ancient.
- technol0gic 2y agodon't fret, it wasn't funny then either. theyre just trying to exacerbate the delta T.
- ben_w 2y agoOne day we shall have to explain that no, wearing an onion on one's belt was never the fashion at the time. But the 90s had many strange things, and I think I may never understand "wazzzzzzzzaaaaaaaaap" phone calls… or was that the early 00s? And, having recently described the period as "around the turn of the century", I agree entirely with the sentiment.
- IncreasePosts 2y agoWazzzzzappp is easy. It was just a super bowl commercial that was popular
- ben_w 2y agoThat origin doesn't tell me why it was popular. Also, the ads were common in the UK where I was growing up, and the Superbowl was not as I recall broadcast on normal TV (we didn't have sky or cable, though that existed, so possibly that?), to the extent that I had to google the event to find out which sport the superbowl even was — I'd incorrectly guessed the other famous US sport of baseball, which is also not a big thing in the UK. I don't think I've ever even noticed American Football being on UK TV at any point.
- IncreasePosts 2y agoIt was popular because it was funny. I think you will have a hard time ever finding a final "why" for social phenomena
- nonameiguess 2y agoIt was a Bud Light ad campaign that originally ran for three years everywhere that Anheuser Busch ran ads. Wikipedia claims it started on Monday Night Football, not the Super Bowl: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whassup%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whassup%3F. But in any case, that is hardly the only time it ever ran. Asking why it became popular may as well be asked of any pop cultural phenomenon that ever becomes popular. 20 people will give 40 opinions. Nobody really knows.
- n4r9 2y agoYep, in the UK we knew it from the Budweiser adverts. Before that there was the frogs Bud, Weis, Er. Apparently they were originally a Superbowl ad, but again they were just shown on normal TV here.
- aeonik 2y agoScary Movie did the best parody of this. https://youtu.be/A3oL7v7PLac?si=4rk01Dn91kYurtfN https://youtu.be/A3oL7v7PLac?si=4rk01Dn91kYurtfN
- Uhhrrr 2y agoThe wazzap was mocking a trend of dudes greeting each other with "whassup" by elongating it ridiculously. Some of the appeal came from the execution and some from hitting just the right point in the zeitgeist.
- pavel_lishin 2y ago> One day we shall have to explain that no, wearing an onion on one's belt was never the fashion at the time. I, on the other hand, will be photos hopping onions into old pictures if the grandkids ask.
- Aeolun 2y agoIsn’t a mop on your head still funny? That mostly left me confused…
- a96 2y agoIf you ever find yourself on a lifeboat in the middle of the sea, it might save your life.
- volkk 2y agogreat hit of nostalgia. i'm reminded of going to the library in NYC in the early 2000s to get on a computer to play rollerboy with about a dozen other kids doing the same thing
- 0points 2y agoAmazing! My dad dragged me to the Cyberia cafe at a trip to London in 1995. It wasn't amazing compared to the LAN parties in Sweden I had experience from but in hindsight I realize it was something. A year or 2 later we had internet cafes in Stockholm too.
- _fat_santa 2y agoI was born in 1993 but part of me wishes I was born earlier so I could experience the 90's as a young adult. Every time I read a story about the internet and general tech culture of the 90's, I see it as very new and chaotic but I also get super jealous that I was only 3-5 when all this went down.
- empressplay 2y agoHonestly the BBS / chat system scene of the late 80's / early 90s was way better, it was kind of sad that the Internet ultimately murdered it.
- StableAlkyne 2y agoEven forums were good in the 2000s, before the masses centralized onto Reddit. I miss the chronological discussion, instead of the echochamber Reddit's voting system encourages/enforces.
- tokinonagare 2y agoThe thing I miss the most from forum is someone starting a discussion with a post of their own. Then other people replying, and those replies having the same hierarchical level. Sure, it was annoying to read people doing quote to quote but it felt more like people was discussing together instead of side by side. Nowadays all we have (even here...) is the Slashdot discussion style that almost obligatory starts with a link to an external source, and hierarchical comments that segregates the discussion.
- anthk 2y agoI think that's not the issue, the issue it's the mandatory karma based sorting. In Usenet you had threads as in Slashdot/Reddit, but on scoring you were on your own tastes.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- empressplay 2y ago> Diabolically slow dial-up modems only emerged around 1992 Wait, what? I must have imagined having a modem in 1987? And using it to download games from the University of Michigan? Over the, well, Internet?
- mixmastamyk 2y agoWargames, 1983. With the acoustic coupler. :D
- tecleandor 2y agoWrong wording. I think they refer to "commercial dial-up Internet connections". The first ones appeared in 1992. Non-commercial, educational/academic, research... connections were available earlier. :)
- ssl-3 2y agoSomeone had better go back to 1989 and tell that to world.std.com.
- 0points 2y agoIn 1989 The World was a BBS service. You can read the history in their own words here: https://theworld.com/world/about/history/our_version https://theworld.com/world/about/history/our_version > If someone wanted a file from the real internet one of us would dial into an account somewhere, download the file, and put it somewhere on The World they could access it. Yes, manually!
- ssl-3 2y agoFrom your link: > in October 1989 The World became the first service on the planet offering internet access to the general public for a modest fee, around $20/month.
- tecleandor 2y ago
- biztos 2y agoObviously one can argue about what counts as a "Cyber Café" but I was going online with my coffee at Muddy Waters in San Francisco before this. Anarcho-futurism FTW! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Net https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Net
- tecleandor 2y agoHah! It wasn't "Internet" but it was "Cyber" indeed :D That looked great.
- Gollapalli 2y ago>And then there was the Amish community in Pennsylvania. Eva had to fly out there to negotiate for the “Cyberia.com” domain name they had bought. “It was a proper barn with horse carts and a wall of modems as they were running a bulletin board and an early ecommerce company. Apparently, there was always one family nominated to be the tech support,” she remembers. That is one of the most profoundly interesting little tidbits of internet history I’ve ever seen
- IncreasePosts 2y agoBut....why did some Amish folks buy cyberia.com in 1994?
- whtsthmttrmn 2y ago> "as they were running a bulletin board and an early ecommerce company."
- IncreasePosts 2y agoRight...but I didn't realize they were allowed to do that.
- jagged-chisel 2y ago“Allowed” is determined by The Elders of the community. Also, this does not go against the Amish ethos - they were not dependent on this for living. The day-to-day would have still been off-grid. Someone noticed they could make some extra money off The English and it was acceptable.
- whtsthmttrmn 2y agoAh, gotcha. Yea, it depends on the sect/group/'denomination'. Some are ultra-strict about electricity/tech, others have certain guidelines (i.e. keeping something like a landline in an entire different structure). It can vary even within the same county.
- nickt 2y agoThe Retro Hour podcast episode 387 has a great interview with Eva Pascoe a little while ago. https://theretrohour.com/cyberia-cyber-cafe-eva-pascoe-ep387/ https://theretrohour.com/cyberia-cyber-cafe-eva-pascoe-ep387... I was working in London in 1994 and remember visiting for the cultural experience but work provided a Sparc machine and ISDN at home as I was on call and it felt like slumming it to go to a cafe with a shared internet connection and PCs!
- seltzered_ 2y agoRelated - @ cafe in new york city (1995-1996): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12579969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12579969 > https://www.vox.com/2016/8/24/12593214/internet-cafe-history https://www.vox.com/2016/8/24/12593214/internet-cafe-history (2016)
- vallismortis 2y agoFor what it's worth, there was an earlier "Cyber Cafe" just off the campus of Michigan State University in the early to mid-90s called Emerald City Cafe. They had 128k ISDN connections to MichNet/Merit by 1994 (when I started going there), and by late 1995 had 3MBit TCI Cable Modem connections. It wasn't a nightclub-style cafe like the one in the article, but it was really cozy, open until 11:30pm weeknights (1am weekends), and had excellent coffee. Plus the next room over was an arcade / laundry. It's a bummer I can't find an article about it. Just good memories. https://www.cablevision.co.cr/review/1995/12.html https://www.cablevision.co.cr/review/1995/12.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_Network
- cmiles74 2y agoI helped setup the computers at JavaNet here in Northampton, MA; I believe that was in 1995. At that time they were also a local dial-up provider, their cafe definitely a coffee shop and was also quite cozy. https://web.archive.org/web/19970613071702/http://www.javanet.com/about/tech.htm https://web.archive.org/web/19970613071702/http://www.javane...
- bee_rider 2y agoNorthampton, MA has to be one of the coziest places in the world, in general.
- garciansmith 2y agoLooks like the Emerald City Cafe opened in May of 1995.[1] It is possible it was open at another location though, before moving to the Trowbridge address, since the business was incorporated back in May of 1992.[2] But I could only find the cafe connected to 1050 Trowbridge, so I'm not sure. Would probably have to go through more local newspapers to confirm. Edit: But it doesn't look like Emerald City provided internet access when it first opened. An article from September of 1995 talks about how it's something the owner was working on.[3] Maybe your memory of going there in 1994 is off by a year? [1] "In the Works," Lansing State Journal, April 8, 1995, 5B, https://imgur.com/a/emerald-city-cafe-JEE1zVx https://imgur.com/a/emerald-city-cafe-JEE1zVx [2] https://cofs.lara.state.mi.us/CorpWeb/CorpSearch/CorpSummary.aspx?token=nBxILn58HwVtv4JMRDwTm1cWblopjmzIgq3FCQzRMH7Z0mRAdeXC1GtCx43hmtasUq9rGs9vdRgmkN50emn/3hCzJtYr6Q0mZ7kmu3lCiM+Eg/DTh1ERZmMHihajFwsxWWMu0bPzbNNLLOBL/9dpUgqKuFz6EzxPR0pEt6bo8Zdtjh5oQVbfeZKCxlwlp7BwfWYJKCwaNq+q8R7VAd1Je63ClKXrPHfS7+rLOkabpxsFouILS84CYuo0QSFtcOfSMHv66nezaeOg3I0XuQvNuXSMUHgjIv3qoEMu9H5RFNd6jqmRn13N2bI58affhVTj0GDP9j+uf6MmSCctRHhb0Q36YUVNUgIx https://cofs.lara.state.mi.us/CorpWeb/CorpSearch/CorpSummary... [3] "A Web with Your Coffee?" Lansing State Journal, September 1, 1995, 5B, https://imgur.com/a/web-with-coffee-VaQvQuA https://imgur.com/a/web-with-coffee-VaQvQuA
- pliuchkin 2y agoGlad to know about this since I had never had the opportunity to go into a cyber cafe. I recall the first time I saw one, it was in the ending scene of the film The Beach (2000), and it looks very, very similar to the green one in Rotterdam.
- yazzku 2y agoThe guy at 2:45 in the video got it right.
- philipov 2y agoWelcome to the J.J's Cyberia world! If you like to have some fun - just get on the dancefloor and screeeeam like this! Nnnnnnnnyaaaah!
- Lammy 2y agoThis also turns up in Serial Experiments Lain as the name of the café/nightclub https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUO2jAiQb0g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUO2jAiQb0g
- larme 2y agoYe, SE Lain has lots of tech reference. This website lists many of them: https://www.cjas.org/~leng/lain.htm https://www.cjas.org/~leng/lain.htm
- Der_Einzige 2y agoThat was the most prophetic and in my opinion, best anime to date about technology. They predicted SO much about today back in one of the most excellent short anime's of all time. "Present day, heh, Present time, AHAHAHA" Even the fansites are AWESOME: https://fauux.neocities.org/ https://fauux.neocities.org/ (click "go visible", and keep clicking on lain)
- jcarrano 2y agoThough they were indeed pioneers, a simple Wikipedia search rebukes the claim of "world's first cybercafe": > In March 1988, the 'Electronic Café' was opened near Hongik University in Seoul. > In July 1991, the SFnet Coffeehouse Network was opened in San Francisco. > The concept of a café with full Internet access (and the name Cybercafé) was invented in early 1994 by Ivan Pope. [...] Over the weekend of March 12–13 in the theatre at the ICA, Pope ran a Cybercafé > In June 1994, The Binary Café, Canada's first Internet café, opened in Toronto, > Internet café called Cyberia opened on September 1, 1994, in London, England.
- pgl 2y agoI worked at Cyberia's second location in Kingston in 1995, before getting hired by Easynet to do tech support on the top floor of the building where Cyberia London was located. It was an interesting time! This article captured the energy pretty well - but there was a whole lot going on at Easynet as well at the time, too. FWIW, I think the claim was always that Cyberia was The UK's first internet cafe. At least, that's what I've always said.
- n4r9 2y agoVery cool! I'm acquainted with Kingston but had no idea about that aspect of its history. This NYT article from 2004 states that it's the world's first: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/business/worldbusiness/the-worlds-first-caf-cyberia-in-london-takes-a-bow-a.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/business/worldbusiness/th... There's also a stock image website with photos from the Kingston branch in 2001: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-internet-at-cyberia-cafe-kingston-surrey-14015878.html https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-internet-at-cyberia-cafe-k...
- pgl 2y agoHah, amazing! That brings back memories. The PC where the guy with the red t-shirt is sitting is where one regular used to come in and send out his erotic fanfic. He'd bring in a floppy disk that he'd set up at home and always seemed to have problems getting it to read - so we'd have to go over and help him out all the time.
- n4r9 2y agoI couldn't quite put my finger on the building you can see through the window. I managed to find an address for the cafe (48 High Street) and it clicked after I opened up streetview. It's the corner office block next to the mini roundabout on the High Street: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4075868,-0.3077591,3a,75y,96.96h,95.77t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s_MQOIMV5_JKc3FRsUEb_Iw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-5.765595651430999%26panoid%3D_MQOIMV5_JKc3FRsUEb_Iw%26yaw%3D96.95794535379025!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTEyNC4xIKXMDSoJLDEwMjExMjMzSAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4075868,-0.3077591,3a,75y,96... If you spin around in Streetview you can see the building that must have house Cyberia itself to the left of what is now Fillies Kingston. You can also cycle back in time to the earliest Streetview shots in 2008, at which time the cafe must already have closed down, and is next to a place called Bar Elvissa. In case you're interested, my Googling also resulted in this brief conversation on Mastodon between other apparent previous frequenters of Cyberia Kingston: https://mastodon.social/@ade/109405408248074169 https://mastodon.social/@ade/109405408248074169
- tokioyoyo 2y agoI came to a realization that such communities could only exist because one had to try to be a part of it, look for it, and actively participate to create a unique atmosphere. When things are too easy (look up and online event, buy a ticket, and just go), it doesn't signal commitment to the group you're a part of and culture doesn't stick around. Obviously there are billions of exceptions, but it might be hard to revive an environment like that nowadays. It's the whole sense of nostalgic feelings that I've never lived through that bothers me while reading through the article, as I genuinely wish I could experience that in person...
- roughly 2y agoThere was an article in the Atlantic a bit ago arguing that a primary problem for the modern church - the reason why people were leaving - wasn’t because the church asked too much of them, but because it asked too little - that there was no cost to being a member, and therefore no sacrifice, and sacrifice is how we bind ourselves to a group or an idea. Caveats for organized religion and its merit all around, but the idea struck me as basically true and accords with what you’re saying: if you can assume or drop an identity as whims dictate, is it really an identity? Can you really belong to a group without making some kind of genuinely meaningful commitment? And, to your point, what are the ramifications for the modern internet world if not?
- Yeul 2y agoThe Christ church expects people to give up their Sunday. This was a small sacrifice until people got disposable income to take their family to the beach or a theme park. Sunday mornings didn't mean much in the year 1224 (what else were people going to do?) but they do in 2024.
- robotburrito 2y agoI had an account on the cyberia BBS. I think it was my first BBS ever.
- dddw 2y agoCyberia Rotterdam? Can't find any good info on that... Anyone here knows more about it?
- thenthenthen 2y agoWaybackmachine search on the cyberia website does not yield any results for me sadly. Edit: there are some moving images in the city archive (offline): https://stadsarchief.rotterdam.nl/zoek-en-ontdek/beeld-en-geluid/zoekresultaat-beeldgeluid/?mivast=184&mizig=299&miadt=184&miview=ldt&milang=nl&misort=last_mod%7C%7Casc&mif1=34&mif4=true&mif5=Nee&mif6=Collecties+Bewegend+Beeld+THA&mizk_alle=cyberia https://stadsarchief.rotterdam.nl/zoek-en-ontdek/beeld-en-ge...
- subjectsigma 2y agoSeems like the whole thing had very little to do with computers and a lot to do with partying and doing drugs. They keep giving the example of “checking email” over and over again as if that’s the only thing you can do with a computer
- nickdothutton 2y agoIt's hard to put into words the excitement of those days.
- johnea 2y agoWasn't this the name of the club in the anime "Serial Experiments Lain"?
- ETH_start 2y agoI feel the tinge of nostalgia reading that but I can't stand the cynicism about the present-day: >“Society’s become so straight-laced and it’s not good for people. The early internet recognised that humans are 360-degree people with dark and wonderful things. Now we’re kicked into a corner online based on the moral values of three people in Nebraska,” Eva laments. Every time I turn on the computer I enter a world of AI-generated lucid dreams, decentralized crypto economies and videos of incredible technical feats like the vertical landings by the Starship space vehicle.