#Internet History

[marcielleblack13]

[bisexualbaker]

You know what, let's do this.

I know there's a decent percentage of Fandom Old Guard who are over here these days, but it can't be all of us. I want to know how useful a comparison it would be.

Like to numbers, reblog to sample size.

[veggietale]

server towers at the internet archive, each blue light signifies an article being accessed or edited (in real time!)

[shortterm-emory]

So I was made to feel old today...

[catboypalug]

The original 'virgin vs chad' meme

I feel like everyone is sick of those stupid soyjack vs Chad "my opinion is good and based and correct, your opinion bad and wrong and stinky" memes by this point, as they're some of the lowest forms of current internet 'humor.' But precisely because those memes are so bad and also everywhere, I feel it's worth giving some credit to the fact that the original "The Virgin Walk / The Chad Stride" was actually a brilliant meme.

"The Virgin Walk" image showed up first, and it was standard 4chan stuff - which is to say, highly negative. Just a whole bunch of random small traits that people can have, bundled together in an accusatory way to try and make people insecure about them having "virgin" posture, by the kind of people who genuinely worries about being an "alpha male" (Or possibly pointing out their own flaws as a form of self-hatred, flip a coin when it comes to 4chan)

And then, on another thread, someone made the Chad Stride edit to go along with it.

It's a great piece of satire by how simple it is. Just by taking the traits listed in the original image, then inverting and exaggerating them, the result is an absurd caricature of a man who does not (and should not) exist. Through exaggeration, it demonstrates how the people who constantly worry about seeming 'Chad-like' are chasing after behaviour that is utterly unhinged and disconnected from reality.

I think this gif demonstrates it perfectly by putting it in motion:

Virgin is a normal, if insecure dude. Chad is an absolute fucking maniac. (Not to mention all the references to violence in the image)

So, while it did degrade into those awful soyjak memes we all know and hate because that is the nature of the internet, I feel like it's worth remembering that in the original image that spawned this entire trend, you're supposed to laugh at Chad. You shouldn't want to be Chad, because he's the menace to society [ credit to the gif's creator: https://x.com/art_miguelito/status/1107313740033212417 ; thanks to @softwaring for linking it ]

[silvermoon424]

This is your daily reminder to archive your favorite fandom stuff!!!

I've been a voracious archivist/data hoarder ever since I first got access to a computer, and it's paid off more times than I can count. Just the other day I came across a PDF copy of an analysis post for one of my fandoms. The post was made on an old forum and is the most detailed and interesting analysis of a particular story element I've ever seen. Back in like 2012 I saved the post as a PDF, because even then I saved everything I liked.

Anyway, flash forward to 2025 and I decided to see if the URL included in the document was still live. I wasn't very surprised to see that the forum is long dead. However, even the Wayback Machine had no record of this thread. If I hadn't saved a copy of it way back when, I would have never, ever been able to read this analysis again!

The Internet Archive is sadly not infallible, especially when it comes to things like forum threads. You can do your part by manually saving things to the Wayback Machine, but I also recommend keeping your own archives. Aside from just saving pages as PDFs, I highly recommend a browser extension called SingleFile that lets you archive pages as HTML files.

[prokopetz]

The thing that always throws me about Internet history is that YouTube was bought out by Google only eighteen months after it launched, and Google began implementing ads and content filtering less than a year after the acquisition. The initial free-for-all phase of YouTube's existence always feels like it was a lot longer than that – and, like, I was 22 when YouTube first came online, so I don't even have the excuse of the distorted chronology of childhood to account for it!

[unbfacts]

[thunder-pierogi]

Historian 1: We need to ask you a few questions

Historian 2: We’re from the future, you see. We’re trying to piece together lost media and culture from archived internet data. We were wondering if you could help

Me: Oh, shit. Ok. Wow. Yeah, sure.

Historian 1: Ok then. Let’s start with this film - Goncharov. Our research states that it’s from the mid-1980s, and was directed by Martin Scorsese-

Historian 2: But all we can find of it is various discussion and analysis of it. All copies of the film seem to have been lost over the years. Could you possibly direct us to where we could find one?

Me: Yeah, no, that’s not actually a real film. It’s a meme. It was made up as a commentary of the internet’s- erm- commentary.

Historian 1: Wait, what. Really? So we’ve been on a goose chase this whole time?

Historian 2: Oh, so it’s like that Lock Picking Lawyer.

Me: Oh no he’s a real guy.

Both: WHAT?!

[Hours later]

and there we go folks, now let me do that one more time to show that it wasn’t a fluke

Historian 2: (in awe) Who the hell is this man

Historian 1: (eyes wide) It- it wasn’t a fluke. None of them are flukes.

[mckitterick]

A(n un-) moderated internet

source: Bluesky

[mechaslilsniffer]

He’s judging your actions guys!!!

[arconinternet]

The Internet for Beginners (Video, 1998)

You can watch it in your browser here.

[krissiefox]

Somewhat long, so list is below the divider!

https://ms-dos5.tumblr.com/ Computer photos, old 3d renders, old PC games.

https://chunkycomputers.tumblr.com/ Pictures of nice chunky computers.

https://wwwtxt.org/about An archive of online writings from the early days of the internet

https://arconinternet.tumblr.com/ Internet archive fun!

https://opendirectories.tumblr.com/ Image directories from around the web.

https://www.tumblr.com/oldguydoesstuff Old arcade machines and computers.

https://webcoreparadise.tumblr.com/ Old internet gifs, pixel arts, photos of old tech, etc

https://gaywebcorenostalgia.tumblr.com/ Old LGBTQ web sites.

https://geocitiesdig.tumblr.com/ Old website art and cool 90s CGI stuff.

https://56k-modem.online/ Photos and screenshots of old computers/operating systems/software.

https://oldwindowsicons.tumblr.com/ Collection of old Windows UI graphics.

https://oldwebsurfing.tumblr.com/ Art and gifs from old web sites.

https://obscuritory.tumblr.com/ Obscure old pc games.

https://www.tumblr.com/oneterabyteofkilobyteage Old Geocities Web Sites.

https://never-obsolete.tumblr.com/ Old tech ads, Operating systems, computer gifs.

https://wirlds.tumblr.com/tagged/worlds.com Worlds.com is an old online game form the 90s that, from the look of it, let people make their own little rooms. Quite nice looking!

https://whatdiditlooklike.mementoweb.org/ See the looks of web sites throughout the years.

https://www.tumblr.com/compactdiscinteractive Screenshots from old cd-rom and multimedia games.

[lovedtogekiss]

quotev is an archival nightmare rn and its users are scrambling to document as much of it as they can before pretty much the entire private and social media half of the site goes down btw 💗

[touchoffleece]

Why Ao3 is the way works and runs is so important to fandom

We got ourselves a new fanfiction purge in fanfiction website going on. Wattpad (which unlike Ao3) makes it's money via selling fanfiction via Ads and thus have to work (and to an extent were already working under before this) under Capitalism ideals of what is "profitable" and "unproblematic" introduced an AI flagging system and has flagged, shadow banned, and deleted some works over there the last few days. In other words increased moderation tools has caused a purge on fanfictions over on Wattpad due to being labeled "problematic". Masterpost on the summary of things from the r/Wattpad subreddit

If there's anything people take away from this is 1.) This is why and Ao3 was made. To preserve fanfictions no matter if they are labeled "problematic". 2.) Ao3 Donation Drives aren't the evil certain people make them out to be and help sites run free from a worry of money and censorship letting writers and readers focus on the art of writing. 3.) AI tools as they are now are too unrefined to use en masse, and come off more as lazy and cutting corners for corporations, business owners, and individuals who want to save money.