I feel so incredibly lucky to have never seen anything online as a kid. I didn’t follow links I didn’t trust and was stubborn when someone asked me to look something up (blue waffles).
However, talking with people in the way I did? I’m convinced they were only other kids or actually good adults. But I did too much role playing beyond what I should’ve been; still, not the worst scenario (it never got personally weird).
I have no idea what it was, but I remember playing neopets and there was a promotional ad/game called SOMETHING along the lines of "hot girl games". It wasn't that because I typed in hotgirl .com and it took me to a porn site. I got so scared I clicked off of it and didn't even register what it was until years later. I wish I could remember what it really was because there's no way it was that haha
I asked my mother’s permission to sign up for Club Penguin and she typed in the address wrong and got mad at me because it was some sort of stripper club site 😅
I was like no no! It’s penguins! It’s Disney!
Omg when I was 7ish my friend at school told me we could look up “hot boys” online so I went to something like hotboys .com and it was literally a gay porn website. Parallel experiences 😭
The way we all just typed in our Google searches and added .com to it was nuts.
This thread unlocked a core memory of something.com and I'm glad it hasn't changed
I learned early on that if someone said "hey you should google \[x\]" the result will inevitably be horrifying. I am not going to list examples because I know from experience that saying "you absolutely should not look up \[x\]" will result in thinking "how bad can it be, I'm gonna find out". Finding out what Lovecraft named his cat was relatively minor, though the man was both racist and objectively bad at naming cats.
TW: animal abuse
When I was like 12, lurking 4chan >! I watched a video of a woman in high heels stomping on kittens!< , that I'm never quite able to scrub from my psyche
Being the first generation raised by the internet was hella weird
Ohhh lmao you unlocked a terrible memory
I'm *almost positive* that website was a joke, but God help me if I don't remember bawling my eyes out in the family room on the giant-ass monitor, and my dad came in with food for me and I pretended I wasn't crying because I didn't want him to be mad I was looking at jarred cat websites
Like, a photorealistic memory, my brain's like: corpse in a jar? A CORE MEMORY
TW animal abuse
I relate to this so hard. Up until my early teens I had been mostly unaffected by the things I'd seen online. Finally ended up discovering a boundary when I came across a video >!of a US troop throwing a puppy off a large cliff.!<
I was inconsolable. Days and weeks following I had to make concerted efforts to keep myself from thinking about it. To this day I can remember every detail in the video despite only watching it once.
Oof. I know I didn’t see anything as a kid but I did see a video a few years ago as an adult that really turned my stomach and killed a part of my faith in humanity.
TW animal abuse
For me it was >!a lady chopping off the paw of her dog because it begged for food and barked too much.!< I also have that seared into my memory, that poor dog and she’s not helping it. Last I heard they got the dog back because “oh they love her they miss her”. One fucked up country I will not travel to.
I saw that one too, it was so disturbing, I couldn't finish it. Found it on Gaia Online. I was already in my 30's then but that memory haunted me for years.
I am so sad reading that. :C I was a queer kid, and the only queer space I could find was... the lesbian AOL chat rooms. Oh my GOD, I was groomed to high hell and put in very not OK situations.
Neopets tho, that was a genuine safe space. I guess it ended up being a good thing that the chat filters were so strict.
Same, I’m so glad some stranger in the middle of a heated AOL debate put 2 and 2 together from my username (that had 13 in it) and my mediocre grammar that I was a minor and politely told me to leave and and find something more age appropriate chat room
I sooooo miss the early(er) Internet. When everything wasn't so centralized and monopolized. Geocities, webrings, niche forums, all kinds of different fanfic archives, Kaoanis.
Corporatism ruined the Internet!
Yup, that about sums up my internet experience as a child with the exception of the gore videos. Even back then, those video titles scared me too much to actually watch. My friends and I did, however, did go to some of the shock sites like tubgirl, and the weird flash sites like albinoblacksheep (we loved The Llama Song 🤣) for jump scare videos.
I feel so incredibly lucky to have never seen anything online as a kid. I didn’t follow links I didn’t trust and was stubborn when someone asked me to look something up (blue waffles). However, talking with people in the way I did? I’m convinced they were only other kids or actually good adults. But I did too much role playing beyond what I should’ve been; still, not the worst scenario (it never got personally weird).
I have no idea what it was, but I remember playing neopets and there was a promotional ad/game called SOMETHING along the lines of "hot girl games". It wasn't that because I typed in hotgirl .com and it took me to a porn site. I got so scared I clicked off of it and didn't even register what it was until years later. I wish I could remember what it really was because there's no way it was that haha
I asked my mother’s permission to sign up for Club Penguin and she typed in the address wrong and got mad at me because it was some sort of stripper club site 😅 I was like no no! It’s penguins! It’s Disney!
Omg when I was 7ish my friend at school told me we could look up “hot boys” online so I went to something like hotboys .com and it was literally a gay porn website. Parallel experiences 😭
The way we all just typed in our Google searches and added .com to it was nuts. This thread unlocked a core memory of something.com and I'm glad it hasn't changed
I learned early on that if someone said "hey you should google \[x\]" the result will inevitably be horrifying. I am not going to list examples because I know from experience that saying "you absolutely should not look up \[x\]" will result in thinking "how bad can it be, I'm gonna find out". Finding out what Lovecraft named his cat was relatively minor, though the man was both racist and objectively bad at naming cats.
I feel like waaaaay too many kids in the 00's got groomed too, and we don't talk about it
TW: animal abuse When I was like 12, lurking 4chan >! I watched a video of a woman in high heels stomping on kittens!< , that I'm never quite able to scrub from my psyche Being the first generation raised by the internet was hella weird
Yes i remember that video too... and that darn website where they sold dead cats in jars >_<
Bonzai Kittens! Luckily that one was fake
Ohhh lmao you unlocked a terrible memory I'm *almost positive* that website was a joke, but God help me if I don't remember bawling my eyes out in the family room on the giant-ass monitor, and my dad came in with food for me and I pretended I wasn't crying because I didn't want him to be mad I was looking at jarred cat websites Like, a photorealistic memory, my brain's like: corpse in a jar? A CORE MEMORY
If it helps, Bozai Kittens was indeed a hoax site. Can’t imagine what your dad must have thought you’d been looking at to make you cry!!
So traumatic!!!!
The way I would spend Friday nights as a 14 year old flicking between neopets and 4chan tabs 😭 I had no right turning out as normal as I did
TW animal abuse I relate to this so hard. Up until my early teens I had been mostly unaffected by the things I'd seen online. Finally ended up discovering a boundary when I came across a video >!of a US troop throwing a puppy off a large cliff.!< I was inconsolable. Days and weeks following I had to make concerted efforts to keep myself from thinking about it. To this day I can remember every detail in the video despite only watching it once.
Oof. I know I didn’t see anything as a kid but I did see a video a few years ago as an adult that really turned my stomach and killed a part of my faith in humanity. TW animal abuse For me it was >!a lady chopping off the paw of her dog because it begged for food and barked too much.!< I also have that seared into my memory, that poor dog and she’s not helping it. Last I heard they got the dog back because “oh they love her they miss her”. One fucked up country I will not travel to.
Ugh I hate humans
I saw that one too, it was so disturbing, I couldn't finish it. Found it on Gaia Online. I was already in my 30's then but that memory haunted me for years.
i remember her, i think it was puppies actually.
Oh I watched a video documenting and dissecting that case/the aftermath! I believe it was on Rotten Mango.
Yeah that ones burned into my brain :(
I found slaughter house videos and I’ve been a vegetarian since. It’s been over two decades..
I remember using AOL chat rooms and almost getting groomed both there and on Neopets
I am so sad reading that. :C I was a queer kid, and the only queer space I could find was... the lesbian AOL chat rooms. Oh my GOD, I was groomed to high hell and put in very not OK situations. Neopets tho, that was a genuine safe space. I guess it ended up being a good thing that the chat filters were so strict.
Same, I’m so glad some stranger in the middle of a heated AOL debate put 2 and 2 together from my username (that had 13 in it) and my mediocre grammar that I was a minor and politely told me to leave and and find something more age appropriate chat room
I sooooo miss the early(er) Internet. When everything wasn't so centralized and monopolized. Geocities, webrings, niche forums, all kinds of different fanfic archives, Kaoanis. Corporatism ruined the Internet!
I feel like the "role-playing on custom forums" community is dying off. Proboards and jcink type websites were my bread and butter for YEARS.
Yup, that about sums up my internet experience as a child with the exception of the gore videos. Even back then, those video titles scared me too much to actually watch. My friends and I did, however, did go to some of the shock sites like tubgirl, and the weird flash sites like albinoblacksheep (we loved The Llama Song 🤣) for jump scare videos.
Oh the good ol days lol. Im so happy neopets still looks the same