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Original poster

To ask what the strangest thing you did online as a teenager was?

314 replies

Username73638 · 20/02/2025 20:31

I’ll go first… when I was about 12 or 13 (mid-00s) I signed up to a UK mum/baby forum - I can’t remember what it was called but it was a bit like Mumsnet but way, way smaller, everyone knew everyone - and created a whole fake life and made a load of ‘friends’ on there who were presumably women in their 20s-40s. This was when the internet was a very different place and everyone had their kids’ names and DOBs on ‘tickers’ I think they were called in their signatures. There was minimal anonymity. I had a fake husband and a couple of fake kids with names and back stories and then ‘got pregnant’ and tracked a whole pregnancy and birth. All of my online ‘friends’ were really excited to hear the birth announcement and helped me pick the baby’s name. I made up a fake birth story. There was actually an in-person meet up with all the kids that I was invited along to but obviously I couldn’t go, I pretended that one of my kids was sick.

I still remember some of the names of the women and their kids and think about how old the kids would be now (in their 20s!)

Anyway after 1-2 years, can’t remember exactly how long, a group of them realised I was fake and ‘confronted’ me online. I didn’t confess but deleted my account and never went back.

I had a difficult home life and I think I wanted to imagine the happy family I might have when I grew up. It was a bit of an obsession though and I spent so many hours on there, basically every afternoon and evening after school. I’ve never done anything similar since, my catfishing days were over after that!

Did anyone else do anything similar online as a teenager, pretending to be anyone else or something?

OP posts:
Goody2ShoesAndTheFilthyBeast · 20/02/2025 22:42

Like many others, there was no Internet then.

We didn't even have a house phone. I remember when a call went up from the old 2p pieces (lm sure they were bigger back then) to 10p. My mum was livid. 🤣

My dad had a cb radio and one day me and my sister snuck on it and talked and got a stern telling off from some random bloke.

Reallyneedsaholiday · 20/02/2025 22:40

Not a teenager, but I used to comment on lots of “tv fan” Facebook pages - such as The Wright Stuff. The same faces appeared over and over again, and we all started talking to each other. We set up fake profiles and a “virtual pub” page, where we would all chat behind the scenes, and en masse troll people on the pages who were being vile. We used to change our fake profile pictures to trolls when we spotted someone. Wasted hours of our lives on this 😂

Teapotters · 20/02/2025 22:38

When I was 13/14 I would join different religious chat rooms and pretend to be that religion. I would also often say I was 21 year old man, and I had several online GFs.

This was all one dial up on the giant family computer in the living room, a lot of my girlfriends were in the US so I'd have to sneak down at different times due to the timezones

NO idea why I did this! But it helped me get an A* in Religious Studies

Spudthespanner · 20/02/2025 22:38

Neverplayleapfrogwithmrpipes · 20/02/2025 22:37

The internet became popular when I started college. Friends had started to be aired in the USA and we were a season behind in the uk. After watching one episode I was hooked and ended up reading all the scripts online!! In the college library.

See this is the old internet I miss. It's not the same now. It's shite.

YesHonestly · 20/02/2025 22:38

Was it BabyExpert?

Neverplayleapfrogwithmrpipes · 20/02/2025 22:37

The internet became popular when I started college. Friends had started to be aired in the USA and we were a season behind in the uk. After watching one episode I was hooked and ended up reading all the scripts online!! In the college library.

LovelyBitOfSquirrrel · 20/02/2025 22:37

When I was around 10 I used to like playing Reversi online against other layers and it had a chat function, me and mum had a deal I could say I was 15 as no one would play with me otherwise (a/s/l days). Once a man asked me if he could “drink from my furry cup” I didn’t know what he meant so called mum over to ask her, she didn’t know either.

ilovepixie · 20/02/2025 22:36

Oh and we used to phone random numbers and say
US, Can I speak to Mr. Wall please?
THEM, sorry there's no Mr. Wall here. Us, is Mrs Wall there please,
THEM, No Mrs wall here either.
US, Are there any walks there?
THEM, no
US, how does your roof stay on then 😂😂

SnipSnipMrBurgess · 20/02/2025 22:35

A lot of inappropriate a/s/ in a PUBLIC Internet cafe. Looking back i bet the people behind the counter knew EXACTLY what I was up to!

I remember being on Heat magazines website which had a chat forum and spinning a tale of my sister dying in a crash with her husband and I laws and I had to take on their 4 children 🙃

I also used to use the mobile chat rooms on my phone from O2, and i don't know if anyone remembers it's my.com? I used to moderate some of their rooms, then it was all shut down one day!

AlpacaYourPicnic · 20/02/2025 22:32

Also reminds me of calling random numbers from the phone box down the road.

'Hello is Mr Wall there?

No

'Is Mrs Wall there?'

Err no: think you have a wrong number

'Are any of the Wall's there?'

NO!

'Well how does your house stand up then?'

It was funnier in the 80s

Ninnier · 20/02/2025 22:32

ilovepixie · 20/02/2025 22:30

No internet when I was growing up. But we used to make crank 999 calls!

We once rang a bakery and sent 4 dozen loaves to someone's house.
Cash on delivery.

Why on earth would we do that?? I don't understand what was going on in our heads. It's awful and I feel so bad thinking about it.

Also got lots of addresses blacklisted from taxis with fake bookings.

Unpaidviewer · 20/02/2025 22:32

I spent far too much time on yahoo chat and gore forums.

InWithThePlums · 20/02/2025 22:32

UndermyShoeJoe · 20/02/2025 22:27

That’s the one. Oh how we just wasted time and talked to strangers all over the world not a care in the world and nobody checking in on us.

Show quote history

The goal was to swear without it getting blocked.

SlashBeef · 20/02/2025 22:31

UndermyShoeJoe · 20/02/2025 20:53

From the sounds of it baby and bump.

Used to sit in chatrooms taking the piss out of the grumpy mod. She would ban me, I’d log out change ip and be back in winding her up something Cronic. We did actually become threads but boy did I kick her ass in those chat rooms.

Oh my god Baby and Bump! Poor Wobbles. Looking back, I was such an asshole on there 😅

ilovepixie · 20/02/2025 22:30

No internet when I was growing up. But we used to make crank 999 calls!

WingingItSince1973 · 20/02/2025 22:29

Hoppinggreen · 20/02/2025 20:34

No such thing when I was a teen BUT I did get up to all sorts on my CB radio and me and my friends used to make up outrageous stories to send into newspaper Agony Aunts (which we used to physically post)

Oh my goodness that's a memory recall. We got in trouble messing around on my friends dad's cb radio. We had our own 'handles' too 😂😂😂 He came in one day and we quickly turned it off. He didn't believe we hadn't been messing on it. He touched the set and felt it was still warm and we got in so much trouble 😂😂😂 My aunty and uncle were a lot more laid back. Had some fun times 😂😂😂

Parrotpirate · 20/02/2025 22:28

At uni we didn't have Internet access in halls but we did have the FREE number that women could call to talk to lonely "sexy" guys.
While these princes among men paid £5 a minute or whatever to listen to us chat.

All these guys ever got was 14 very drunk girls and boys (18+ uni students) back from the pub talking absolute bollocks at them, while they paid for their expensive wank.

We used to just roar down the phone things like what's your fav flavour of crisps? And most of the dirty aul fuckers still stayed on the line for ages.

UndermyShoeJoe · 20/02/2025 22:27

MumCanIHaveASnackPlease · 20/02/2025 22:26

ClubPenguin

Show quote history

That’s the one. Oh how we just wasted time and talked to strangers all over the world not a care in the world and nobody checking in on us.

Carno13 · 20/02/2025 22:27

I remember AOL chat rooms well.. A/S/L.. sure there were chat rooms linked to msn messenger also where you could chat to people from your area.. I remember talking to someone and him working out a family member of mine & threatening that he knew who I was :O

Also does anyone remember faceparty? Just remember looking at peoples pictures on there and talking via audio - I think?

also when I was a bit younger I loved neopets - the games were really good - remember one about collecting eggs. Also always went on girland - there were problem pages on there and girls of 13/14 always writing they were pregnant, looking back I think they were making out! You could get stars I think for giving good advice and remember the main person on there was called Lola something, would love to hear more about girland if anyone else remembers 😂
looking back I was always online haha

MumCanIHaveASnackPlease · 20/02/2025 22:26

UndermyShoeJoe · 20/02/2025 22:25

Oh what was the penguin one called again.

ClubPenguin

UndermyShoeJoe · 20/02/2025 22:25

Oh what was the penguin one called again.

MumCanIHaveASnackPlease · 20/02/2025 22:24

Habbo Hotel.

that is all.

Ninnier · 20/02/2025 22:23

Was it Ivillage?

Was your name Jen?

Yorkshirelass04 · 20/02/2025 22:21

In 1999 aged 16 was in a chatroom and randomly started talking to this guy from Tulsa Oklahoma who was around the same age.

After a while he starts telling me he is actually Taylor Hanson from the band Hanson. I was a mega fan in 1997 when MMMbop came out to the point of obsession so I couldn't believe my luck.

After about an hour they say nahhhh I'm not really taylor... I am his cousin. And started telling me random facts about the family.

I mean I suppose it's not out of the question...

Oceangrey · 20/02/2025 22:20

The internet is so much smaller now, I agree. Even relatively receb I used to read loads of blogs and now they are all just Instagram accounts and less interesting. There are only a few websites I really use, apart from shops.

Anyway, lots of inappropriate a/s/l as a teenager, but I also met my now husband on the internet as a slightly older teenager about 23 years ago! Much more usual now but we never told people that's how we met as it made us sound like losers at the time.