>>3887
I arrived at the internet somewhere around 1999~2000, and for the first few years I remember the web mostly being simple Web 1.0 sites run by lone webmasters, early Web 2.0 sites that were a bit more dynamic and community-oriented, many large and active forums, and the occasional fancypants flash site. Around 2002~2003 is when I first started getting into online multiplayer games and getting more involved with forums, and that's when I first came across that whole "fkn n00b, j00 r teh pwned!!!!11" speak which I thought was the funniest thing ever (although I think it had already been around for a few years by that point). I was also well into Habbo Hotel, I had paid furni and everything.
While the web was generally getting more and more interactive and dynamic by the day, the first big change I saw was the period around 2004-2006 with the advent of things like wikis, early social networking sites, early video streaming sites, and the whole 4chan/memes thing. This is around the time that normalfags who previously weren't the type to use computers at all started to use them purely as msn machines, and the culture had started shifting towards normalfaggotry, though it wasn't that bad yet. Also Kazaa died off and Limewire became the new hotness, and I remember there being some pretty major viruses/worms going around.
After that was 2007-2008, which I've always consider to be the point where the old web died. All the old sites and forums began drying up or significantly changing in order to follow the new trends, the new brand of "lol so random" internet humor was lame and nowhere near as funny as the old stuff (to be honest, it had been mostly shit since 2005), the web was now fully mainstream and constantly featured on telly, radio, news, etc., and all the normalfags who'd previously only used the net for msn were now piling into social networking sites en masse. The whole culture of the net had completely changed, and I remember feeling very detached from what it had turned into and pessimistic towards it.
>Personally for me it would be around 2008/2009 when normal kids in my school started getting involved with social media. In a short space of time everyones opinion shifted from "myspace is some stupid shit for sad losers" to suddenly having a facebook profile.
Didn't go quite like that in my experience; for that period of roughly late 2005 to early 2008, myspace was the hottest thing that nearly everyone between the age of 13 and 45 was into, albeit mostly either to show off their shitty photos of themselves, or to promote their music or whatever (it was by no means just emos and scene kids, as some believe). Around 2006~2007 I made myself a band page and uploaded some of my music to it, but I didn't actually use the site beyond a handful of interactions.
By the end of 2008 however (around the time I started college), myspace was no longer cool and everyone I knew had begun moving or had already moved to facebook. And for some fucktarded reason I will never understand, they brought their parents and grandparents along with them. Not me though, I was too cool for school. Pic related, it's from one of my old msn chatlogs circa July 2008. Can't believe I never got a girlfriend lads.