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Original poster

Chatting with ‘ransoms’ on the internet

83 replies

Easycheesy99 · 19/01/2021 22:48

I realise that it is ironic writing this on what is a forum of strangers but I’m interested as to whether anyone else spoke to random people a lot on the internet as a teenager? Obviously I am speaking to a certain age bracket here!!

I grew up in the age of MSN and AIM for messaging, before there was even Facebook. There was MySpace for the cool people. I used to frequent a forum where there were lots of people my age (allegedly, I suppose you never really know!) and often chatted with them on MSN privately.

I used to go in chat rooms as a 13,14 year old and speak to random people and then add them to my contacts. I remember having a contacts group on MSN called ‘random people’. I used to pour my woes and angst about boys out to these random people.

At some point, I just stopped speaking to any of them. Some of them I wonder if they were even who they say they were. Others I’m sure were but there’s no way I’d be able to find them on social media or anything now and wouldn’t want to really as I feel a bit weird about that part of my life?

Don’t get me wrong, I had a lot of friends at school and would usually be talking on MSN with actual friends at the same time as these ‘fandoms’.

I just cannot imagine doing that anymore?!? Did anyone else have this experience? I feel like it was very ‘of the time’. Obviously nowadays people slide into DMs and chat via Instagram etc but nothing is as anonymous as those days.

Anyone else? I wonder if anyone I spoke to is now on here

OP posts:

bluecheesefan · 19/01/2021 23:37

When I was a teenager nobody had a computer at home. They were great mainframe things that had their own clean room and belonged to organisations like banks and big businesses.

We had to sit on the floor in the hallway, and were lucky if we were allowed to use the phone for more than a couple of minutes. And only then if it was after 6pm.

Life was a lot simpler then

quarentini · 19/01/2021 23:43

I miss someone shouting to get of the computer because someone needs the phone 😀

WildImaginings · 19/01/2021 23:45

Me too! MSN chat rooms for me,

PastaAndPizzaPlease · 19/01/2021 23:45

Absolutely. MSN, Habbo Hotel, ChatRoulette, Omegle, MySpace, VampireFreaks, Bebo, Piczo, the lot!!

Trouba · 19/01/2021 23:48

I used to run a casino and a Takeshi Castle in habbo. 😂 But also used to be on Harry Potter forums a lot and add my friends off there to my msn! The memories!

FenellaVelour · 19/01/2021 23:52

There was no internet when I was a teenager. It was just as well.

I was a bugger for Yahoo chat and AIM in my mid twenties though. Still in touch with one European guy I met in one of the Yahoo chat rooms!

SockQueen · 19/01/2021 23:57

MSN and Freeserve chatrooms for me. There were some proper dodgy characters on there openly looking to meet underage girls. I was 14/15 at the time but thankfully just about savvy enough to realise that this would be a Very Bad Idea.

I then moved onto the BBC message boards, there was a teens one called "So...?" where I was a bit of a Queen Bee for a while. Made a few friends on there who I then had on MSN messenger for years, we would pour out our angsty teenage hearts for hours over our dial-up internet. Even had a bit of an online romance with one but it fizzled out before we actually met. We did actually meet up a few years later when he happened to be attending a course in my town, he was a nice enough guy but there was no chemistry.

Then, after a brief time on some geeky Lord of the Rings fan forums, moved onto The Student Room when I was at uni, and eventually met DH there!

Inpersuitofhappiness · 19/01/2021 23:58

Yes!!
I think it always makes me a bit more knowledgeable when it comes to making DD aware of the dangers of the Internet.
Some lovely, normal people, but also many strange ones.

Thunderpunt · 19/01/2021 23:59

No one mentioned ICQ yet?

Dodithedog · 20/01/2021 00:09

Yes, I did this!! And I befriended randoms on Bebo too.
Anyone remember XuQa? It was a social media platform for school/uni students mainly I think, around 2005 - 2008. I remember awarding my friends a lot of virtual peanuts on there!

morekidsthanhands · 20/01/2021 00:10

God yes this was my life.
Aim, MSN, habbo Hotel, runescape and mugglenet forums.
I actually met up with a guy in London when i was 15 (non romantic, I'm from Manchester) and luckily it was fine - super lucky actually as he has since been in prison I've heard .
Many a day after school trying to find a habbo boyfriend for free furni.

morekidsthanhands · 20/01/2021 00:11

Also I think omegle is the new chat roulette?

Excitedforxmas · 20/01/2021 00:15

I met some fab friends on ICQ . Still in touch via Facebook now.

pistachionuts · 20/01/2021 00:19

@PastaAndPizzaPlease omg I remember VampireFreaks, I never really ‘used it’ properly myself just scrolled through feeling really jealous of the goth/emo girls with crazy hair and amazing makeup, I was about 13

Shaniac · 20/01/2021 00:20

Yeah i used to go on msn and chatrooms with my mates and chat to strangers haha. I remember one night me and my friend were worried about another friend so we sonehow hacked her msn and it was full of strangers who were popping up and being sexual. We were 13 at the time and blocked loads of people. She was fuming the next day when she signed in and found half her contacts deleted but we never let on it was us who deleted them. Lots of funny stories as well but some dark people were met too.

Shaniac · 20/01/2021 00:20

Bebo, myspace, vampire freaks, neopets haha

Shaniac · 20/01/2021 00:21

Was anyone ever catfished?

AmyandPhilipfan · 20/01/2021 00:31

I loved AOL chat! And the quiz chat rooms were great fun! I think my browser was AOL so when it connected anyone could randomly message you. I was always getting ASL messages popping up. And also ‘Pic?’ But I was quite prim and proper and never sent a picture to someone who asked for one straightaway without chatting for a bit first - and even then they were just of my face! I actually think I chatted to my husband on AOL about 3 years before meeting him. I remember being in my hometown and chatting online to someone from his home town and having a nice chat but thinking he was much too far away to bother with. But then I moved near there and we met through another internet site, Face Party? I think? But I’m sure it was him I chatted with years before that.

I was on AOL chat a lot from age 20-22ish. I met a few of the guys I spoke to. Back then (nearly 20 years ago) it was seen as very daring but also not really something you boasted about to meet someone from the internet. I was lucky that the guys I met up with didn’t turn out to be rapists or serial killers. I was away at university at the time so had a bit of freedom to go out and meet who I wanted to. I’ve had 5 fairly serious relationships in my life and 4 of them I met online. It was only my very first boyfriend who I knew in ‘real life’ first. Once I met my husband I knew that was it for me and have never chatted online to strangers again.

MrsDiplo · 20/01/2021 01:15

I met a boy on AOL when I was 13. Moved it to MSN. Continued talking to him until I was 18 and we met up (he drove 5 hours). He picked me up from my house and we went away for the weekend. I then moved to his hometown the following month and we lived together for 3 years. I moved back home and miss his town so so much.

I have never actually told anyone this and, knowing my parents would go mad, said he was an old friend to everyone and we had mutual friends.

Grumpasaurus · 20/01/2021 01:22

I still to this day remember my ICQ password!!

Chatted to loads of randoms; made one long term friend. Scary though- he was 24 and I was 16 and thankfully he wasn't predatory because we did end up meeting a few years later. We are still in some contact.

GoldfishParade · 20/01/2021 05:38

Ohhh yeah! You have made me feel old. It must have been circa 2000 to 2004. MSN, AOL, and... Does anyone remember Napster? I used to meet people in the chat rooms there! I was also on a mailing list called Girl Chat. I also had a LJ where I basically pretended I had a different life. I made friends with a lot of Americans. One woman was so cool and she sent me CDs she made for me with lots of Tori Amos. All the way from america! 😂

There are some things that make me feel uncomfortable though. I was 14 and pretended I was 17. There was a guy who I developed a kind of relationship with, an American. But he was 28 - or so he said. I still remember his full name.

Also had a kind of flirty relationship with a guy who was 16 on Napster.
Now this makes me feel ancient: I remember walking to the local shopping centre to use a photo booth to take photos and then scanning them into the computer 😂

stackemhigh · 20/01/2021 05:45

I used to be on a Dawson’s Creek forum in my teens or so, mostly girls, it was the only chatting I did online and we had a great time. Then a stupid guy turned up and made fun of us and made insinuations about us all being lesbians etc.

If it happened now he would get short shrift but at that time we just stopped chatting as much.

Dancingmeldew · 20/01/2021 06:02

My DH spoke to people online alot in the 90's. He manage to pick up alot of online friends. He and his brother in their 20s went around britain and stayed with several people my DH had been speaking to online for years. Spending a night or two at each place.
We have a lovely watercolour on our wall one online german friend made for him. I think he still gets the odd email from an american pen friend who he met online about 25 years ago. I am 10 years younger and more cautious than my DH. He was diffinately chatting at a more innocent time.

I remember habbo hotel a blast from the past.

Bearsinmotion · 20/01/2021 06:03

Yes. 20 years on some those randoms are my closest friends, it became almost a culture. I didn’t see many of them for years, but that doesn’t matter: because we all met online the relationships lasted online. I ended up in a long relationship recently with a man who wasn’t part of the group and didn’t like it. That ended recently and it was that group of once randoms who were there for me.

Bearsinmotion · 20/01/2021 06:04

Incidentally if anyone who was in London and remembers a club night called Soxan - them!

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