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

/.
Reddit
Lemmy

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.

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

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

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

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

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)

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

IRC, that’s all. Pseudonymous forums like 4chan or reddit are not social IMHO.

Neopets
GameFAQs
Various forums
IRC
Digg
Reddit
Twitch
Fediverse (fgc.network, kbin.social, fedia.io)

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.

Facebook to reddit to lemmy

If it interests you to see an in depth what a zoomer’s experience of social media might be:

Other things I’ve dabbled in: pixelfed, twitch.

Never used: Telegram, Snapchat, BeReal, TikTok, PornHub or similar.

Usenet (and still there), mailing lists (hooray for any that use schleuder), a bit of IRC (though I was never one for quick fire & forget statements, today I’m good with Signal/Molly/Gurk and XMPP; Matrix never appealed to me), lot’s of Forums (mostly related to my favourite games at the times), some twitter (though I was never really comfortable with the hustle to gain more visibility through large follower numbers), switched over to identi.ca (and eventually many different ActivityPub servers, currently one Akkoma and one Lemmy; not interested in PixelFed, though it helps I dislike the dev’s attitude; PeerTube could be interesting as a consumer, but the UX still feels atrocious; I tend to leave my name/handle behind when switching, I’ll inform some people important to me, but I am quite happy not having to maintain friendships and a reputation, gotta do that in meatspace, and I find it taxing even there). Lurked 4chan a couple years, but was never comfortable engaging, too much “fake” being a horrible person. Was relatively active on reddit, but ever since the redesign I felt it was too cumbersome to use (yes, old., I know, but who wants to rely on a legacy version being available?), plus their corporate decisions were pissing me off more and more (Yeah, I’m a pretty stout software freedom person, down to using libreboot & canoeboot, though I no longer wish to associate myself with the FSF, given their tone-deaf handling of the whole RMS situation), so, yeah, eventually lemmy. I’m more quiet than I used to be, getting older, I suppose, but I was also never that into anything “social” in the first place (I’m an Aspie, who’d have thunk?), so I mostly lurk and only post when I feel I can actually contribute something meaningful.