18 Things On The Internet That Used To Be Super Popular, But That Nobody Really Thinks About Anymore
Recently, Reddit user u/EzucraAaAa asked this question: "Redditors, what's something the internet was crazy about but is now forgotten?"
Sony Music
Of course, people had LOTS of replies to the question, and the thread quickly went viral with over 18k responses. Here are some of the top-voted and best comments:
1."Downloading custom cursors for your computer. I gave my family computer so many viruses back in the '00s trying to click things with a lightsaber."
Pierre-Julien Fieux/ giphy.com
2."Search engines before Google existed, like AltaVista, Lycos, Web Crawler..."
3."AOL Chat rooms."
"I’ll be honest, those times the late '90s were some of the best ever. The internet was this new magical thing that could connect you with anyone in the world. We knew it was going to be a bigger part of our lives, but it hadn’t gotten there yet. You dialed up in the afternoon or at night to chat, surf the web, or do whatever, but then you logged off and went to live your life. The era from the rise of AOL but before Facebook was honestly the golden age, IMO."
4."FarmVille"
"I was misbehaving once, and my dad threatened to delete my Facebook, and I'll always remember screaming, 'NO! NOT MY FARMVILLE!'
"Anyone else remember grapes being the most lucrative thing to farm? LOL."
"This was my dad. His obsession with FarmVille back in the day was actually super embarrassing. He had my mom, brother, and I give him our Facebook passwords so he could keep four farms going."
5."Website view counters, during the early days of the web, when most websites weren't plastered with advertising."
6."Flash games"
"Miniclip, Addicting Games, Crazy Monkey Games. From 2003-2008, those were the places to go."
7."Poking on Facebook."
"God, nothing quite matched the uncertain thrill as an adolescent of being randomly 'poked' by an attractive girl you were interested in. And then the poke war would ensue, the two of you poking back and forth without a single word spoken for what could be weeks at a time, until suddenly...she never pokes you again. She lost interest, as she probably would have in real life."
"Omg, poking wars were so brutal."
8."StumbleUpon.com"
"I used to waste so much time with StumbleUpon."
"Oh man, I dedicated some serious hours at university to StumbleUpon. Hours I should have been dedicating to getting my degree probably."
"Damn, those were the days. ... Then they shut down the site with no notice, and I lost all my fav bookmarks. :("
9."Spinning 'under construction' GIFs on your website."
"And everyone’s website was always under construction."
10."Forums. There used to be so many incredibly active and dedicated forums."
"A lot of the forums I visited were ruined by Photobucket when they decided they wanted to be paid a lot of money from their users. So many threads and tutorials ruined."
11."Neopets."
"Probably once a year, I remember Neopets exists and get obsessed with it for about a week. Thank you for your comment, for it is now that time of year."
12."Club Penguin. Younger than my generation, but all the early '10s teens/preteens were obsessed."
"Club Penguin and Planet Cazmo were my entire life from 2007 to, like, 2012, bruh."
13."Napster."
"Ah...the day that changed my life was when I downloaded a song off Napster and burned it onto a CD with Nero 5, then hearing it play on my stereo.
"Now I don’t have Napster, a CD drive, or a stereo anymore."
"So much mislabeled music. You'd think everything was Led Zeppelin."
14."One has to be Cheezburger; it was big in the early days of memes."
"Did that poor walrus ever get his bucket back?"
"I just checked. They still be stealin’ its bucket."
15."The Hamster Dance Song"
"When we got Disney+, I turned on Robin Hood for my daughter to watch, and as the intro played, I slowly realized that I was listening to the 'Hamster Dance.'"
"Nostalgic, and I remember when I was a kid, I thought my hamster would actually dance if I played it (around third grade).
"I played it, and he didn’t dance, and I was a little disappointed, but could still imagine him doing it."
16."The dancing baby GIF. One of the earliest memes I ever saw."
"It was so popular that the baby became a recurring 'character' on Ally McBeal, which was a hugely popular show. I think that was the first time I witnessed something from the internet go mainstream. My grandma knew about the dancing baby, and she'd never used a computer."
17."Strong Bad from Homestar Runner."
"I remember I emailed Strong Bad if he'd be my boyfriend (I was like 12), and he responded in a video! Except I didn't have my own email address, so my mom found the email I sent and freaked out thinking I was talking to men online."
"Oh my god, Homestar fucking Runner. I ate all of that shit up. It's too bad it was all based on Adobe Flash."
And lastly...
18."Myspace"
"Myspace was a great place for local bands to show off their music. There really hasn't been a comparable platform since in my opinion."
"Tom really took his money and is now living his best life. Good for him."
You can read the full thread of responses on Reddit.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
