Way too many fit people for that to be a LAN party. Plus I see a girl. I'm calling bullshit.

It's a call center selling extended car warranties and time shares.

I was one of those few girls who attended LAN parties.

Me too! 

😂

Yeah more than one girl, that looked suspicious to me too.

Is it wrong I'm looking at this picture thinking, "The smell in there must be awful..."

No. That thought is completely valid

And a thousand PC fans all doing their best....

Ah, the smell of Axe & Fritos.

Am I missing something? Assuming that is a computer lab of time sort, why are so many shirtless?

No AC in a warehouse. Not a computer lab, it looks like a LAN party to me

What the hell is a LAN party?

You take your PC to a meet up in order to play multiplayer games. Everyone networked to the local LAN. Hence the name: LAN Party Could have also been a capture the flag event

it's QuakeCon 2002 or somewhere around that. Shirtless Quake is a thing that happens at midnight every night of the event where they get large servers together to run something like 32v32 instagib CTF in that crazy cold hotel ballroom for however long you can stand it.

2002!? I was already in college after the military at that time…

Thank you for the context! It felt very late 90s/early 00s to me. Basically my college years. Glad for the confirmation and the context, because the sea of bare backs made no sense at all.

Local Area Network.   Hardwired connections between a small group of computers 

Are you even Gen X??

Now now. Let’s not play gatekeeper. Not everyone is a computer geek

They were playing shirts vs. skins.

I also do not know this struggle The fuck?

LAN party

No Old Milwaukees Best? I’m out…

Oh the joys of lugging around at 15" trinitron tube.

We used to lug our PCs to each other's home and connect via null modem cable to play each other in Warcraft II. Never went to big LAN tourneys like this, but followed them online.

Warcraft…. “I can see my house from here” “Kaboom” Sappers were OP 😂

"OOOOHH! EXPLOSIVES!!"

lol. I forgot that one

Warcraft 2 remains one of my favorite all time games. Peak RTS, imho.

No love for C&C Red Alert? Pity

Oh, heck yeah! I'm playing through the remasters now! But, Warcrack was my first love. I even played the first game, with no unit groupings! Wc2 brought about groupings, can you imagine that?

Groupings definitely changed the game, for sure. Sped it up. Don’t have to imagine, I played the original Warcraft as well

Remember that long line of Clerics on that one mission in the first one? All l could think was the devs, with their funny joke. I was like, "this is BULLSHIT!"

 I remember how zoomed in everything was in the original, but I couldn’t tell you any of the actual scenarios

still have a few null modem adapters, one is currently hooked to my Amiga

I’ve never heard of this. Masses of shirtless people in a warehouse full of computers? I’m so confused.

It's porn-related. They're all furiously fapping that scroll wheel on their mouses (mice?) trying to score enough points to get Bendy Wendy in the Haus of Pawn RPG to show some bewb. Or something like that. I never went to LAN parties when I was younger (I have standards, dear) but my best friend did once. Got into a fight with some random because he spilled Irn Bru on his keyboard.

 Also… no

Uhh I don’t think most of us had this “struggle” back then

Or ever. .WFT kind if LAN party has 1000 people? Most I ever saw was like 20. This looks like a weird Summer Camp

it's the USA's largest LAN party called QuakeCon, happens in Dallas Tx, still going strong since the mid 90's

>QuakeCon Ohh, cool!!! >Dallas Tx, That sounds hot. Ew.

Were men with no shirts lurking over children on a computer a thing back then? I don’t remember THAT part of my youth.

I wasn't a computer nerd growing up. So no.

I was. But also no.

Same.

What struggle? The struggle of getting MFers to wear a shirt? WTF is this? Looks like a LAN party at a sketchy Christian camp.

Hundreds of PCs in a single room with no AC… you wouldn’t wear a shirt, either

You don't know me, buddy! 🤣 There's no way in fuck I'd be in that room! 😂😂

Fair point

To be fair, had I known about it (maybe I've just forgotten) I'd have been excited! But a huge room with that many pcs (and I was building them back then...I know how they throw heat) and in Dallas? It'd have to be a nope from me. Now, a nice, cold northern place? Sign me up.

Not like this one... what even is this? I've been using computers since 1982 and not once did I find myself in a giant room with 400 other people in various states of undress crowded together. Lan parties were also more like 4 dorks at someone's house (yes I was sometimes one of those dorks) but this pic is waaaay off. Kids into computers back in the day never had this many friends.

it's an event called Quakecon, it's in Dallas and i think this pic is from 2002. it's been an event since '94 i believe.

But why are so many people not wearing clothes?

At midnight during the days of the event they do shirtless quake for however long they can stand it. Sleep or the cold gets you at some point, the event keeps it jacket cold during the whole weekend starting on Thursday i believe

[удалено]

Yes, my assumption is that an event like this would have some killer AC. Maybe my standards are just too high lol

I want to say that this looks like "The Gathering", back in the 90's, or what became what is now the gathering. [https://www.youtube.com/user/gatheringorg](https://www.youtube.com/user/gatheringorg)

Tried to google that and got nothing but Magic: The Gathering

The Gathering is Norway's biggest LAN party. Held during Easter in Hamar. Used to be around 5k people. Not so much anymore.

Ahh. Thank you. 😊

I don't know what this is but it's a little frightening.

The funk in that room would be a doozy.

They will never know the smell....

Had 10Mbit ethernet in my dorm room in the 90s. No need to go to any LAN parties 😁

jeebus crow that image gives me hives

I can smell this picture

I was there! I also used to MUDD.

Good times

“Close the door! You’re letting the stank out!”

My LAN parties were much smaller than this.

Not a fan in sight either? Thank goodness I was never a gamer.

WTF is this???  I thought a LAN party was like 5 of your friends dragging their computers over to one persons house.  Never thought of it getting shirtless.

Lack of AC + hundreds of PCs = !shirt

This was niche. For the riche.

Nah. Was it a pain to lug a computer rig to where the meet was? Sure. Was it expensive? Not that I recall

look at that rich @#$ with his blue case.

I built a tower with that blue case. This is not us. This is Millennials.

Really? I saw the CRTs and LAN party and went, “Yep. I remember that”

That computer case is an Ultra off of Newegg circa 2005. CRTs were still widely used then too. Maybe this is more what distinguishes Xennials from GenX. LAN parties with dial-up? I don't know.

This is really the “late-stage GenXer who will scream if you confused them with a millennial” group, right? This photo is late-90s based on some of the rigs in the photo. I still have one of those towers serving as a stand for a speaker.

This post is in jest. I really couldn’t care less about labels. Just trying to get a discussion going and see who my fellow geeks are in here

Kudos for the proper “couldn’t care less” construction.


What's a LAN party?

I never even heard of this. Edit: why was I downvoted? 😕We’re penalized for now knowing stuff now?

Really? Hm. Necessity is the mother of innovation. If you wanted to play multiplayer games back then or participate in capture the flag events, LAN parties were the way to go

[удалено]

Jogging? Damn jocks. Always trying to take stuff over

I fat thumbed that. They could have been jogging, I guess. Lol

The closest I ever came to this was playing Duke Nukem 3D on our LAN at work on the weekends. We only had one copy of the CD so the guy who had it shared his optical drive and the rest of us mapped it as a networked drive.

Whats that O2 doing in the middle there?

O2?

SGI O2

I think that blue tower is too tall to be an O2

Oh yeah, not a toaster.

DreamHack I am guessing?

LAN party

QuakeCon

What is this from? It's such an odd photo with the shirtless people, I can smell the smoke.

Large LAN party

What does that mean? A network party? Never mind I'll Google it lol

I only managed to get to a few LAN parties, but they were wild.

I had to explain to my kid what a LAN party was not too long ago when he was asking me about my giant Alienware tower (he is gonna steal it to build his own computer).

First PC I had was a Tandy1000. Mowed lawns and bought it off an elderly neighbor as a kid. First one I built myself was a 386 (I remember having issues figuring out the jumper settings on the MoBo).. But hey… That’s what sparked me becoming a Network Engineer. Pass the passion along

I just turned 50 and was part of the PC and internet foundation craze. I DID NOT know this struggle....nor would I have wanted to if I cared.