Does anyone remember 'Backchat' on teletext?

[wanderings]

Ah, good old teletext, in a way it was a forerunner to the Internet. Checking out Backchat in the late 90's used to be the highlight of the day; teenagers could write in, or they could "ask permission to use the phone", or send a fax (I wonder how many teenagers did this?), or the most up-to-date could email their comments, which had to be "short and snappy". Yours would only be screened if you were lucky. I got quite a few up there for all to see! The merits or otherwise of "Teletubbies" was a favourite debate, as well as the slogan "what do other Backchatters think?".

A lot of the frothing that goes on in AIBU now has echoes of "Backchat"; indeed, I expect some of us who were "Backchatters" back in the day are parents on MN now.

One comment I particularly remember (not one of mine) said something like: "I love Backchat, because of all the silly things you talk about, and the arguments you have. Keep up the good work, it's so funny!" This almost sums up most internet forums.

All the angst on Backchat when Geri left the Spice Girls. Someone pointed out how in the official Spice Girls calendar, she had the page for May 1998 all to herself ("how ironic!").

There was a problem page for teenagers called "angst", and at the weekends it was for boys, replied to by Nick Fisher who also used to reply in the J17 magazine. "I miss the summer" was one thing someone wrote in with.

Me and my sister used to pretend we had the internet when we went on teletext or cefax

I remember looking up the cinema times.

The only problem was after selecting the correct region the page would refresh in a cycle so you had to sit tight for your page and then have the presence of mind to hit the freeze page button so you could write down what was on and when.

If you missed it you would have to sit and wait for it to do a full cycle again.

MegaZine, oh yes. The alternative kids versus the scene kids was a constant source of hilarity.
The annoyance though of not getting to the end of a page before it flipped to the next one.

Don't remember Backchat but Bamboozle was always the first thing my brother and I did when we got home from school.

Used to keep the cricket scores up on it for hours too. 141 I believe!

I didn't actually know what "goth" meant when reading 'Zine! The grainy pictures on Teletext weren't informative enough.

I once wrote in to check one of the lines in the song Barbie Girl. WLW replied with "I hope none of my 'Ziners have listened to that dreadful sludge!"

Ahhh I utterly loved teletext and the WLW! I once had a request on the music one requesting cds from a particular singer and I had lots of post offering particular ones, I think I probably sent a cheque back and then they sent me the CD! A very early form of ebay! I remember once watching some kind of show a bit like TFI and they had people phoning in with comments that would then appear like subtitles along the bottom of the screen, it was basically like watching TV with Twitter or mumsnet now!

oh this brings back so many memories!

i loved backchat and fun and games! also remember furiously trying to change my answer on bamboozle 😂

I loved backchat and bamboozle.

I work within prisons sometimes and the prisoners all love reading the news and weather on teletext. It's the closest thing they can get to the internet!!