Yourself on the internet, eight or so years ago.

[Minish]

Eight years ago, I was 12! I was not on the Internet then, ohoho.

(I attribute basically everything to #tcod. Seriously.)

This is something I think about a lot! My life first few internetting years consisted mostly of wolf roleplaying and Neopets sooo I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but without the internet, I wonder how I would have ended up! I'm not sure whether to attribute more to the person who got randomly allotted next to me in an early high school class - who also wrote fanfiction online, was geeky, cared about things, and turned out to be non-binary - or this place.

I feel bad, but just looking at my parents who don't care about social justice, don't read, don't do ... much ... ... I'm pretty thankful I was an online kid. \o/

 

[Negrek]

I've left my Neopets account as basically a window back into my ~13-year-old internet self. It's not really a pretty picture.

For extra laughs at my expense, there are my old Neopian times submissions (I don't even remember *writing* that first one; no clue what it's about) or my my pet spotlight, featuring what is actually the most terrible fanart on the internet.

I was such an unpleasant person back then. I'm reminded of that "what would you do if you could travel back in time to meet your former self" thread, and how baffled I was that no one else's answer was "punch past-me really hard in the face." Ah, well.

 

[The Omskivar]

I've seen worse fanart, Neg, believe me.

My first internets was ALL the Neopets, and also Pokemoncrater. Crater was the greatest thing for me I think, I'm actually still upset it's not around.

I didn't socialize on the internet at that point. I was a good little boy who avoided strangers on the internet and just played flash games all the time. Probably for the best, I was the weirdest little f**k.

 

[Storm Earth and Fire]

I played Neopets more than eight years ago. However, I only played, never was on the forums or anything, probably because I didn't know what internet forums were anyway.

I think I am at most only slightly upset that Crater isn't around anymore. The game itself was okay. The community was great, but if the forum had never died, I never would've come to tCoD in search of somewhere else to roleplay.

 

[Cerberus87]

Did you all do stuff like horrible fanart and roleplaying? Most I ever did when I was around your age was browsing the Gengar and Haunter's Pokémon Dungeon forums (I just lurked), and I already played Pokémon competitively. I also giggled whenever Nurse Joy appeared on the anime. :D

 

[Minish]

Ooh, old Neopets accounts! Most of mine have been purged/updated since I was a kid, but I found one recently which is moderately amusing. If I knew what semi-colons were you'd think I could use them a few more times.........

Hm. Welcome to my lookup. I am 12 years old and I live in England, which is in the United Kingdom. I come on Neopets usually every day, unless because of an inconvenience, or problem. However, on Saturday the 30th July, I shall be travelling to Germany to visit my father. During that time I may be able to use his computer a couple of times, but I shall not be back here in England for two weeks. If you wish to send me neomail, neofriend requests or such you may, but be warned that I might not be able to reply to them for a while. Please do not send me spammy neomail, and if you do, I am likely to ignore it and/or block you. Thankyou. And please stop asking if this is my first account; it is.

Did anyone else ~apparently~ get neomail about whether they're a newbie or not? I remember caring so much about this.

 

[ultraviolet]

Did anyone else ~apparently~ get neomail about whether they're a newbie or not? I remember caring so much about this.

oh oh oh I remember making a petpage FAQ which consisted of me making witty replies to nasty questions I didn't actually get (but it's not like anyone ever neomailed me anyway). I was so cool. B|

 

[Frostagin]

Eight years ago I was tiny and therefore did not know the wonders of the internet.

 

[Mai]

I don't even want to speak about two years ago.

 

[Keltena]

I don't even want to speak about two years ago.

I've got to agree with this. In fact, I'm fairly certain that any incarnation of past me will always cause horrible embarrassment, no matter how old I live to be.

That being said... eight years ago I don't think I did much on the internet, but make that seven or six and I was on Neopets roleplaying pokemorphs and warrior cats. Oh, I wrote a couple things for the Neopian Times too, actually; a few got in, which means my bad writing is there for anyone browsing the archives to see! Joy. I also remember a wolf roleplaying forum (what is with everyone and roleplaying wolves as a kid?) where I had many happy times, mostly with a RL friend of mine. ...That was my own OMGRANDOM! phase, too; it was a really closeknit forum where everyone knew each other, but I still got the admin and mod annoyed at me for being too crazy. Oops.

I did join the Neopian Times Writers Forum after getting stories in, though, and I definitely had some good times there even if looking back on how I acted would probably make me cringe. And then there was my whole roleplaying on Gaia phase... Those sure were some elitists!

Stopping now before I ramble on. I'm pretty amused by how so many people seem to have gone through ~random~ phases and wolf roleplaying, though! I should ask some friends and see what other patterns I can find...

 

[H-land]

I don't remember me eight years ago very well. Don't think I care much for me eight years ago, either, though; probably just as well. All I'm sure of... well, let's see. This would have been around 2003 or 2004. I would have been in the last years of elementary school or in middle school. Think 2003 was the year I went to Lancaster PA over spring break, got my GBA and Sapphire version.

So I guess I was doing a lot of YIM, overindulging in silly "randomness" and the like. Think that's when I was playing Runescape, too, more than Neopets. Think I was mostly acting self-important and pretensions, trying to brown-nose and make connections all about. Definitely some *brick'd* and -shot- going on. Nobody knew what /me was at all. Oh, and I was paranoid as all-get-out.

Not to say that I don't still get paranoid, pretensions, and/or self-important today. It just happens less. Just wish I'd spent more time with HTML-- or something more marketable, like even Java-- and less time on the monkey cheese YIM convos and forum posts. Though they were fun, at least at the time. And it's nice to still have the folks from back in the day that I still hang around with now.

 

[Tailsy]

I never did wolf roleplaying, but I did a *lot* of Warriors RPing. I actually co-ran a pretty popular site for a while, where I had like twelve characters and somehow managed to juggle them all because you can do that when you're like, fourteen.

 

[Worst Username Ever]

Oh, and it turns out there was MORE bad stories. While having to use our oldy-old computer of old to print something, I looked at my saved crap and found this... "fanfic" thingy?

Some bits of it:

Bidoof: Let’s go inside here!
Lickitung: Hmmmm… where did they go? ...OH A GIANT PUMPKIN!
Minun: Oh no! He’s trying to eat our pumpkin!
Lickitung: WHOOOOAAA! *falls down cliff*
----------------------------
Lickitung: Where’s the pumpkin… THERE IT IS! *licks*
Pumpkin: I don’t think so… *turns around*
Lickitung: Whoa… I’m so hungry I’m hallucinating!
Pumpkin: Well, stop licking me!
Lickitung: Why should I listen to a giant pumpkin? *licks*
Pumpkin: *attacks* STOP LICKING ME.
Lickitung: Okay, okay! I’ll stop!
Pumpkin: Promise?
Lickitung: Yes, just stop!
Pumpkin: Really?
Lickitung: Yeah, I’ll stop!
Pumpkin: How do I know you’ll keep your promise?
Lickitung: Uh… MOOOOOOOOMMYYYYYYYY! *runs away*

It was all in the same script-format... thinking back, I called it something with "episode" so I might have thought of making videos of that back then? glad that never happened!

also, old pictures... mostly crappy paint and oekaki pics. all the paints were saved in bmp because i had NO IDEA about proper format saving. also for a long time i didn't know you could select other colors than the standard ones (unless selecting from another picture)

 

[Dannichu]

I feel bad, but just looking at my parents who don't care about social justice, don't read, don't do ... much ... ... I'm pretty thankful I was an online kid. \o/

My parents raised me to be a massive communist, so I think the internet was just the icing on my very socially liberal cake.

And I might be taking much more credit than is due, but while I myself have been influenced by delightful online places like this, I've done my fair share of corrupting children many miles away into thinking value-destroying things like homosexuality is okay, or free healthcare is great. Which feels pretty fantastic :)

 

[Cerberus87]

My parents raised me to be a massive communist, so I think the internet was just the icing on my very socially liberal cake.

And I might be taking much more credit than is due, but while I myself have been influenced by delightful online places like this, I've done my fair share of corrupting children many miles away into thinking value-destroying things like homosexuality is okay, or free healthcare is great. Which feels pretty fantastic :)

There was no internet for me until I was 12 years old. School turned me into a liberal person.

 

[Jolty]

the term "social justice" makes me laugh

yeah the internet opened my mind a lot too really
my parents are both pretty tolerant about most things though, or at least my dad is. they still come out with a fair amount of problematic things but my dad has has been improving on that for ages

h o w e v e r
in the last 2 years or so, i have been quite a lot less tolerant for some things because of the internet. well i dunno if "tolerant" is the word, more like less patient.
i only have two moron-free spaces and it gets frustrating

 

[Tarvos]

I was raised non-religiously too, and fairly liberally. Often I have found that I came to the conclusion that for <insert topic> I would develop < x opinion> and then it would turn out my parents think approximately the same thing (might be a different nuance). Most of the time I discover that independently even, without them explicitly telling me they think that way.

 

[Autumn]

And I might be taking much more credit than is due, but while I myself have been influenced by delightful online places like this, I've done my fair share of corrupting children many miles away into thinking value-destroying things like homosexuality is okay

speakin the truth right here y'all
(okay well i was a homophobe for a bit after realizing danni was lesbian but not for very long :D)

My parents are atheistic and moderate-liberal and cool with a lot of things. It was a very safe childhood at home. I would imagine it's formatively useful to have an affirming place to go at the end of the day.

this is so true.

 

[Dragiiin123]

club penguin and adventure battlequest all day everyday

 

[Dannichu]

the term "social justice" makes me laugh

I find it a bit disappointing, because whenever anybody talks about SJA (Social Justice Activism/Activists), my first thought is of the Sarah Jane Adventures.