Millennials - can you remember this?

[Creu]

I was watching a TikTok earlier where someone was talking about chat rooms in the early noughties. I'd completely forgotten about the amount of time I spent on these pre-MSN messenger & The Sims.

I'm trying to remember the name of a specific one and I can't and it's really bothering me!

Every time someone logged in they could chose a new name. I think it had a black screen and you chose your font and font colour. There was a main board that people got kicked out for 'flooding' (posting too many messages in a row). The names of everyone in the chat room were on the right hand side of the screen and you clicked on their name to message them. I think swearing was banned.

Something like worldwidechat?

Teenchat?

I remember chat rooms, I'm definitely gen x though and didn't really frequent them much, I preferred message boards.

A few years ago they tried to resurrect MySpace or Bebo can't remember which but it didn't work as Facebook/Meta has cornered the market now.

Oh god shudder just had another memory.
"You fit?"
I told him about my work out schedule, he didn't mean can I do Cross country!

I spent an untold amount of time on Yahoo chat rooms - mostly ‘down the pub’. This was around 99/00.

I also fondly remember logging in and out of MSN Messenger to grab somebody’s attention ‘oh hey, I just logged on’, not that I’d be waiting for them for 4hrs already 😂

Did WinMX have chat rooms?

I've re registered just to say it wasn't Jsmart was it? I was on it alot in the early 00's

Omg Thankyou OP for starting this thread and the contributions on it. Proper made my morning it has! We were all so cool 🫣😂

Did anyone ever use Y99/chat99?

We used them even earlier - pre www! They were on the academic network, and you literally typed. I'm older.

Anyone remember Coke Chat (not sure I got the name right!) It was like Habbo Hotel! I think it was later.

People remembering Club Penguin is making me feel very old as that is my DS1's generation

MSN messenger was great. What I really liked about it was encapsulated in a Tom Scott video he made a few years ago - he said it was good because there is nothing like this today - basically your online status told people "I'm bored and open to chat" or "I'm not here - don't bother messaging".

Because we're now all connected 24/7 that just doesn't exist. So you have to actively choose to send someone a whatsapp etc and hope that it's a good time for them. I think that's actually seeped into the etiquette for contact for our generation too - I literally never call a friend out of the blue to chat because I think it's intrusive. I text them and ask them when they are free for a catch up instead.

A predecessor to MSN Messenger

Yes it did! I mentioned them earlier. I spent most of 2000-2004ish in the UK chat room so if you ever frequented there we probably talked 😆 I know of at least one marriage that came out of it and a lot of shagging around 😬

Does anyone remember Hot or Not?

You posted a pic and people voted if you were, well, hot or not

Awful and yes I had a go at it myself to find out if I was hot or not

I used to go on the NME website chatroom in the 90s.

@DontBeAPrickDarren we probably did then!! Maybe winmx is the one that op was thinking of as it had a black background and coloured writing iirc

I remember this! Was never brave enough to post my own picture though!

I'm so glad that those photos are lost! I DREAD to think of what I looked like!

Imagine how funny it would be though 😂

Whilst all my friends were on chat rooms after school, Neopets was where it was at for me - I was so good at coding guild pages! Talent wasted, all forgotten by age 14. I wonder how many programmers started their coding careers at a young age on that site, there must be quite a few.

Well…? Were you?!

@Chocochoo

I don't want to blow my own trumpet but yes I was considered "hot" iirc it was done on percentages so people could vote ?
And write comments although I remember I did get some nasty comments too 😅😅

only to be expected if people put themselves out there I suppose

Neopets was amazing, they had a section where you could write your own choose-your-own-adventure type stories, I made a Harry Potter one.

I def did a lot of HTML coding on the guild pages and also my own geocities website probably best I have no memory of what was on this.

I then went on to do a little bit of web design in my first job but then CSS became the thing and I got totally confused by it and decided it wasn't for me after all.

I've just had a flashback to CelebDaq from the early 2000s, where you had to buy celebrity "stocks". I think that's how I learned more about random TV personalities etc. than a normal teenager should know!

This sounds so familiar, but I can't remember anything more about it.

This thread is teaching me one thing, my memory is absolutely terrible

In the early 2000s I used to go onto Lycos Mobile site to send free texts to my friends from the uni computer room...