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

In the mid 90s, on dial up AOL chat rooms, I met a girl who was my age (16/17) but supposedly married to a much older man (he must have been 30s/40s) in Iowa. I lived in the US at the time. We became pen pals of sorts. Like we wrote each other actual letters in the post and she sent me photos of her and her husband, like actual printed at the photo shop at the mall photos.

The conversation was never creepy. We literally talked about normal teen stuff and she talked about bit about being unsure if she wanted to be married to this old dude she was married to. Eventually we lost touch.

I often think back now at what an odd thing this was. Like (a) was this just some guy catfishing me but with proper photos before the days of photoshop? And if so, why? It’s not like we talked about much other than school and friends and teen marriage. 😳 (b) was this an actual child who had been probably forcibly married to this older guy in a conservative religious community? I didn’t really recognise the seriousness of it all at the time and that maybe she was reaching out for help. Also, why did my mum not do anything? As a parent now, I’d be on that and tracking her down (but I am definitely not my mum who probably didn’t give a shit!).

Such an odd situation though. I can still see her in my head and periodically think of her and hope if she was real that she got out before she had too many kids.

Spent a lot of time on band forums and then way too much time talking to middle aged married men who I genuinely thought were my friends. Hindsight paints it very differently. I was about 15 when two said men tried to meet me, thankfully I was way too socially awkward to go through with it!

I can't really remember how it worked it may have been online or it may have been just on the TV. When I was a student I worked Saturday nights in a bookies in one of the roughest parts of Newcastle. Also free tea and coffee so you can imagine the clientele - we had the guy in the tinsel wig, the guy who used to put on dance shows for us, the guy who was in a band (called S'il Vous Plait) who brought us demo tapes, and a guy called 'Killer' but nobody knew why....

Anyway at one point or another we set them all up with lonely hearts profiles - often including the words 'own teeth and bus pass' - never got any interest though! They were aware by the way, but that actually makes me feel worse now as they were clearly vulnerable. Anyway, no harm done.

Came out on a message board for fans of a band. Met a girl, fell in love, flew to America solo a year later at 19 to meet her. Didn’t work out in the end due to not being able to be live together but we had a good few years. If gay marriage had been a thing at the time I think life could have been very different. But very happy with how life did turn out.

When I was about 11 or 12, there was a number you could call on a telephone which would make it ring. (I guess it was used to test that the ring was working?) We used to go into phone boxes, and ring the number then run away and hide to see if any passer-by was amazed that the phone in the box was ringing. Wot larks, eh Pip!

No internet when I was young and dinosaurs roamed the earth but I vividly remember a girl who I was in the sixth form with making up a boyfriend. I can see her now and remember her name and as a much older person I feel sad for her as she obviously did it to fit in with the other girls. Sadly we were mean to her when we rumbled that he was fictitious. He was never available to meet up after school, to come to parties and none of her stories about how they met added up. I have no idea how her life panned out but I do hope she went on to meet someone who made her happy

Christ I'd completely forgotten about fanfic.

Fanfic and livejournal and MySpace.

Back in the day when websites had their own chat forums. If you were a fan of a musician or standup comedian or actor often their website had a chat space.

Now everything is on one of a handful of sites and that's your lot. The internet is so small now.

We used to do this with the Omegle penises too! So much screaming with laughter, but it was literally every 4 or 5 people on that chat room. I think our parents would’ve been horrified if they’d known!

Oh there’s another memory unlocked. Those tops with a white arty face on it that where basically a double zipper so you could have it all undone bar the tiny zip in the middle in a low lit rom as the profile pic. Acting adult belly button piercing on show, boobs on show a bit side eyeing the camera. Cool 😎 🤣

Cannot believe no one’s admitted to fanfic yet. Or is that just mainstream now?

I was in Harry Potter fandom in the early 00s. Absolutely mental. You’d start off with wish fulfilment about how the sexy new female teacher is the only person who understands poor handsome unloved Snape and end up reading some 40yo American bloke’s paedophilic musings about Hagrid bumming Harry.

Internet? My friend and I used to write to the penpals page on Ceefax! Does that count?

Very early 2000s and my friend and I were talking to some bloke on msn. I wasn't getting good vibes off him but she didn't agree. I later found out she had given him my real name and email address. On day one he sent me about 15 emails. I tried blocking him but he'd set another up and carry on spamming me. I had to change my email address in the end.

Me and former friend haven't spoken for years now but this memory still aggravates me.

Various odd friendships in my late teens..

One of which was a lad who lived a good 150 miles South West of me, nice enough and we had some good conversations but real life moved on and we stopped talking after a couple of years.

Fast forward a couple more years and I visit his city with my now DP. We're collecting something bought from eBay, its very early and we're on a really busy road.

I spot a lad with headphones on, marching along and thought 'he looks familiar'.. he did a bit of a double take at me but was the other side of the road and kept walking.

I got home to messages from him 'was that you at X at 9am this morning?!.. ' Yep, yes it was! Never been to his city before or since nor did I know where he lived or his route to work. Small small world.

I never invented anything online, I didn't see the point, but I did have a long running feud with a total twat that went on across several forums specific to a particular subject.

I complained that he had taken to copying posts of mine and had been posting them elsewhere, including on his own website as articles he'd written. (He'd done this to other people, including using text from pretty well known books!).

He got drunk one night and went off on a huge diatribe about how I wasn't who I said I was, he was going to come to my house and 'teach me a lesson I'd never forget' and all sorts of other weird accusations and threats. It was really savage, to the point that I woke up to missed calls and messages from multiple people, very worried about me!

This was pre the days of the police taking online attacks seriously, so whilst I made a complaint, it went nowhere.
However he did get banned from several forums in the end, as I knew enough people in real life for everyone to know I was absolutely who I said I was. It damaged his business and he went very quiet for a good few years. He's back around now though doing similar stuff, passing off other peoples work/copy as his own and talking shite, claiming experience he simply hasn't got. I've no doubt he is still an abusive prick with a nasty temper too, but he pretends he has no clue who I am.

😂😂😂

Fucking hell we did the same sort of shit. God almighty we were a lost generation. Digital equivalent of being flung into the wilderness to fend for ourselves. Parents absolutely clueless.

You had a lucky escape!

Me and a friend would regularly go on those weird chat sites where men sat there with their penises out on webcam. We’d put bra’s on our knees to make it look like we were showing them our boobs and they usually fell for it somehow🤣

Actually met my first long term boyfriend on aol chats. Then biked to his house haha then he introduced me to the man who became my husband.

I'm so glad the internet didn't exist when I was a teen! I remember going to one of the first Internet cafes in Manchester with a bf aged about 19 but being utterly confused/bemused as to what it was all about. Meanwhile (unbeknownst to me) in London aged 28 dh would've been starting up his internet company in primrose hill with two friends!

Omg ivillage! I remember that name!

Yes AOL was crazy. I remember the first time I went on it being amazed I was getting messages from America.

No idea why there are so many posts on this thread saying the same thing

"Internet didn't exist when I was a teenager in 1875, thank goodness I was selling matchsticks on the street corner instead of being on the internet."

Great. Don't answer then.

OP, I got up to all sorts of ungodly mischief having free rein on a machine that my parents didn't understand whatsoever. The internet was the Wild West back then and the shit I got up to was so dangerous it makes me ill to think back on it. Absolutely mental. My parents couldn't possibly imagine what we were up to- they have no idea what was possible on the internet and thought I was just listening to music and chatting to school friends.

All sorts of chat room and habbo hotel shenanigans. 14 year old girls all talking to genuine and obvious perverts and having an absolute laugh riot doing so. Dark freaky little corners of the internet. Some webcam nonsense and some actual real life meet-ups. It was absolutely nuts. The internet has changed so much.

Ooo loved a little habbo hotel.

On the more game site of things also used to play hobo wars and torn city 😅 updating MySpace daily and Bebo.

Anyone else use Habbo Hotel back in the day?

My biggest clanger on there was when I was about 11 and asked my (real life) cousin’s habbo to “Cum 2 da lido deck I’ll meet u there”.

Except Habbo’s moderation system blanked out my misspelled “come” with its censor word “bobba”.

11yo me was confused. So I wrote an email to Habbo Hotel asking why they had censored me and could they please explain what “cum” meant as I didn’t think it was a rude word.

They never replied 🙃

What happened to handbag.com? I remember it being a busy, vibrant website and forum but it seemed to disappear overnight.

@Username73638 A girl I used to go to school with did the same thing when we were teens and would tell us about it the next day. I think she also had a unhappy home life. I hadn't thought about her until I read your OP and cannot remember if she got found out. Do you mind me asking what it was that made them rumble you?

Erm interent didn't exist until i was heading towards 30

We used to terrorise paedophiles in AOL chat rooms. Leading them on and then laughing at them. We were wildly bold as teenagers and very ignorant about internet safety.

We did similar in real life. Bolshy, brash idiots.