Inspired by a comment in another thread, what was the path you took over your life, through the various online social media we’ve had?

By way of example, I started in Yahoo chatrooms, to a little bit of Myspace and private forums, to ICQ and IRC, to no online socials for awhile, to facebook, to 4chan, to reddit, ending up here on lemmy.

I’ve never used twitter, insta, tiktok, etc for any length of time.

If you’d like, your native language and a rough estimate of your age can be included for additional context.

  • LoafedBurrito@lemmy.world
    2·
    7 days ago

    I’m very smiliar. AIM, MySpace, facebook, reddit, bluesky, lemmy. I never used Tik Tok, Instagram, SnapChat, or Twitter.

    AIM was a simple time. ASL?

  • Pommes_für_dein_Balg@feddit.org
    7·
    8 days ago

    ICQ †
    StudiVZ †
    Facebook †
    4chan †
    WhatsApp †
    Reddit †
    Feddit
    I did make a video for Instagram once that got several million views, but that was on my employer’s account.
    I’m an elder millennial German

  • dkppunk@piefed.socialEnglish
    4·
    8 days ago

    Not all of these are social media sites, but this list is my social internet path

    Bolt dot com & SciFi channel chatrooms

    AIM & Yahoo chatrooms

    ICQ & IRC

    Soulseek (I count it because I used to hang in the chatrooms quite a bit)

    Eyeball chat, then followed friends to Camfrog chat, before both were enshittified

    MySpace

    Facebook and dabbling in Instagram

    Reddit, left after Apollo went offline

    Mastadon and dabbled in Snapchat

    Threads

    BlueSky, still here

    Lemmy then Piefed, still here

  • binarytobis@lemmy.world
    4·
    8 days ago

    When I was in school back in the early days, I tried typing a random “wherearemypants.com” and it led to this forum run by some random guy in Texas for him and his friends. I made an account and just insinuated myself into this group of adults, and honestly, it was the golden age of social media for me. Absolutely nothing was monetized, just people sharing links and chatting about stuff.

    Eventually he shut it down and I ended up on myspace>facebook>reddit>lemmy.

  • brap@lemmy.world
    3·
    8 days ago

    Does talking to randoms on Kazaa count? Otherwise various forums, uboot, Facebook (shudder), Reddit, Lemmy.

    • Carrolade@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      8 days ago

      What counts and what doesn’t is pretty fuzzy. I’m just including everything that could reasonably fit, just to keep it simple.

  • 「黃家駒 Wong Ka Kui」 | (aka: 鳳凰院 凶真 Hououin Kyouma)@sh.itjust.works
    3·
    8 days ago

    I first got internet access in 2010. Phones didn’t exist in 2010s… well I didn’t have one at least.

    So I just… made a facebook to talk with school friends when I’m at home… I only ever had like single digits of people to add… like I didn’t speak much English and hard to connect with anyone that didn’t speak Cantonese (or Mandarin). (still typed English on the chat tho.

    Eventually I left nyc and I just deleted my facebook because I think I just didn’t feel close with them anymore.

    I don’t think I even ever “posted” much if at all… I just used it for facebook games, which I eventualy grew out off.

    Then I re-made an account to connect with someone back in nyc, then later I just feel like its too awkward to continue chatting since we havent talked for months/years (forgot how long) and I deleted it again after just exchanging a few “oh school in Philly is crazy lots of fights”.

    Then I spent some time on some game forums.

    Then I found reddit. I just scrolled through the top platforms and a pseudo-anonymous platform is exactly what I wanted… being an introvert.

    I mostly scrolled, never posted much. Didn’t have an account most of the time, only occasionally made throwaways to comment then nuke it in a month or so… don’t even remember any of the usernames I used.

    Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked on June 12, 2023

  • Crackhappy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    8 days ago

    BBS with FidoNet. Then Usenet and gopher before the web was invented. After that it was IRC, then forums.

  • Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    2·
    8 days ago

    MSN messenger
    Independent forums (like Invisonfree)
    Bebo
    Facebook
    Reddit
    Discord
    Matrix
    Lemmy
    Instagram (originally just for a friend to sell me stuff but I now have some more friends and communities on this)
    Tiktok (only used for a friend to send me things she likes)

  • dwemthy@lemmy.world
    2·
    8 days ago

    AIM IRC MSN chat rooms TOTSE Livejournal MySpace (barely) Facebook (barely) 4chan Reddit Twitter Mastodon Lemmy

  • palordrolap@fedia.io
    2·
    8 days ago

    Usenet then Slashdot and a forum on a website that no longer exists.

    Once I got Internet at home, there were a few online chatrooms that were web based, but were basically IRC. It looks like one of those sites still exists, but if it’s the same one I used (and Yahoo used as a proxy) it’s not at the URL I used it at. Also either I’ve forgotten my details or I’ve been deleted (or it’s a knock-off).

    Then Digg, Reddit, Twitter and now the Fediverse.

    Oh and throw Discord in there too somewhere towards the latter end.

    Dishonourable mentions: MyYearbook and Tagged.com. The former was a bit like old-school MySpace, but it became a soulless dating site called MeetMe with none of the fun Flash games and chat. Tagged was basically a (surprisingly smut-free) user avatar trading site. Attractive people’s pictures (usually women) could end up worth ridiculous sums of fake money. Like vigintillions of dollars kinds of ridiculous.

    Now it seems that both are part of the same company, at least based on how the websites for MeetMe and Tagged look. Very glad I’m out of there.