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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:
Spudthespanner · 21/02/2025 07:31

Squidtentacles · 21/02/2025 07:26

Why do people bother posting if they are too old to relate? I think the OP, and well, everyone, is aware that not everyone had access to the Net growing up. I would just read what's here, or move on. I don't see the point of endless replies of 'no, I had no Internet..'

In 2003 I was groomed as a young teen (reading through this thread I don't feel at all alone now!) by my friend's next-door neighbour. My friend had been messaging him too. He told me he was a teen too. It's a bit of a blur now but I've no idea if my friend knew it was her creepy neighbor or what! After I found out who he really was I went on webcam to him with another friend and showed him my legs in my short skirt😐 It was my way of showing I wasn't bothered who he was (I was obviously embarrassed and was really!)

It's annoying me far more than it probably should

"I'd have to time travel to have been a teenager when the internet existed... ho ho!"

🙄

Finallybackinbootcuts · 21/02/2025 07:34

Spudthespanner · 21/02/2025 07:12

No! Really?! Do tell us more...

Show quote history

Oh why not Wink
Have you ever heard of something called the Yellow Pages? Time was when you’d have been lost without it. Oh and library’s with books. You had to physically go there and look stuff up.

KhakiOrca · 21/02/2025 07:36

OrangeCrusher · 20/02/2025 23:38

Handbag.com is still to me the greatest chat room that ever existed (sorry mumsnet). It was so fun, and full of really sharp, witty people and some absolutely fantastic trolls. It was such a shame when Boots took over and everyone dispersed off to new places.

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I loved handbag.com. I trolled on there under a different username to my normal account. I got found out when I accidentally posted under my normal account instead of my troll account as they were VERY different to each other. One was a man. I did have some laughs to myself about the trolling.
I wasn't a teen though I was early 30s 😳

Spudthespanner · 21/02/2025 07:44

@Finallybackinbootcuts

Millennials grew up with the best of both worlds. We're all good on yellow pages and phone booth stories, thanks.

This is a thread about misadventures on the early internet. You got any of those? If not, maybe head over to the Teenage Shenanigans in the Library thread.

Finallybackinbootcuts · 21/02/2025 08:00

Spudthespanner · 21/02/2025 07:44

@Finallybackinbootcuts

Millennials grew up with the best of both worlds. We're all good on yellow pages and phone booth stories, thanks.

This is a thread about misadventures on the early internet. You got any of those? If not, maybe head over to the Teenage Shenanigans in the Library thread.

Well you did ask

SpanThatWorld · 21/02/2025 08:05

I joined a baby group that grew out of a teaching website.

One of the members posted a very detailed tale of her pregnancy and then her child's leukaemia and eventual death.

Some of the women were incredibly compassionate, offering meet up etc but it all felt very off to me.

A while later another member turned out to be a troll who had twatted about with us on the original anonymous site. Pathetic fantasist.

Anyway, after this very real unmasking, several people started to question what had happened with the mum of the dead baby and eventually concluded that this had been a complete fantasy too. So many people had been kind and this person had milked it and had presumably been laughing at us all.

TennisLady · 21/02/2025 08:22

Agree, weird the people posting just to say the internet didn’t exist for them as teenagers!

This thread has made me so nostalgic. Definitely a dodgy side in that our parents had no clue or understanding of what we were getting up to! However I had so many online friends some who progressed into real life.

Hollyhedge · 21/02/2025 08:23

Spudthespanner · 20/02/2025 23:47

Fuck.ing.hell

Why are so many people posting this? If you don't relate to the thread then don't bloody post on it. Christ almighty.

Show quote history

It’s just funny to think you’re too old and it was all offline. Sorry it offended you.

Ohmych · 21/02/2025 08:30

Thank God there wasn't Internet growing up no lasting images of what I got up to. We did used to prank call people from the phone box. Was it bounty you were thinking of?

Moonlight222 · 21/02/2025 08:35

Can you remember the baby website I was on with tickers and then there was a whole other group DDDL or something like that.

I was in chat rooms and spoke to the guy who thought I was older and stupidly agreed to meet up and he had my phone number. When I got to the town centre he messaged his location as I walking from the station and I was very cautious and saw a dwarf on the bench, same description and he looked agitated and had a duffle type bag with him, I was 15 and absolutely petrified and wondered what the hell I was thinking. My friend worked in millets so I ran and hid in a tent and turned my phone off. I stopped pissing about online after that because I thought I was going to murdered and some of kill kit was in the bag.

Hufflemuff · 21/02/2025 08:38

There was this webcam site, where you'd log in and random webcams from people around the world would appear. About 25% of the webcams were guys just having a wank (naturally) and me and my teenage friends found that hilarious.

One time a group of Italian guys popped up and i just pretended my mic was broken and was typing, but using Google translate. I could tell they knew I wasn't Italian because it was obviously a shit translation. They asked where I was from and just said "Rome" 🤣🤣

Another time me and my friend just decided to eat chicken like wild animals/cavemen and laugh at the horror on the person's face when the new webcam popped up. It was disgusting 🤣

CandidRaven · 21/02/2025 08:41

Had a lot of dodgy run ins on MSN messenger as a teen, one was claiming to be a 40 year old woman and talked to me in a really disgusting way and about her daughter the same way...later discovered in a news article that it wasn't actually her it was her ex boyfriend who was trying to ruin her life by making out she was into underage girls! I was shocked when I saw the article

Original poster
Username73638 · 21/02/2025 08:46

Squidtentacles · 21/02/2025 07:26

Why do people bother posting if they are too old to relate? I think the OP, and well, everyone, is aware that not everyone had access to the Net growing up. I would just read what's here, or move on. I don't see the point of endless replies of 'no, I had no Internet..'

In 2003 I was groomed as a young teen (reading through this thread I don't feel at all alone now!) by my friend's next-door neighbour. My friend had been messaging him too. He told me he was a teen too. It's a bit of a blur now but I've no idea if my friend knew it was her creepy neighbor or what! After I found out who he really was I went on webcam to him with another friend and showed him my legs in my short skirt😐 It was my way of showing I wasn't bothered who he was (I was obviously embarrassed and was really!)

I know, honestly 🙄 And explaining concepts to me like phone boxes and the talking clock and dial up and the yellow pages. I was born at the start of the 90s, I do remember life before the internet. I’ve made calls from phone boxes. And I do understand the concept that people older than me didn’t have the internet as teenagers seeing as it was basically brand new when I was a teenager 🙈

OP posts:
Hufflemuff · 21/02/2025 08:55

KindLemur · 20/02/2025 23:07

I am a 90s baby so I have a lot of these !
my friends did some crazy shite too

  1. when home internet was first becoming a thing I was 7-8ish. My brother (older) made me an email address and AOL had tons of forums and chat rooms for kids. It’s very obvious now that the early days of internet predators were starting to emerge and decide talking to small kids online was something they could do with no recourse, it just wasn’t ’a thing’ to consider. I remember having a pal on a pony forum on AOL and it became clear to me after a few weeks that it was not a fellow 8yo pony mad girl. I never told anyone anything and there were no pictures exchanged or anything (wasn’t technologically possible) but definite probing questions etc. I remember about 2 years later ‘internet grooming’ became a buzz word and we had talks on it at school etc and being like oh yeah that’s a thing.
  2. Omegle. Nuff said
  3. fanfiction - I wrote and read it for hours. Some stuff was actually really beautifully written but I definitely read some VERY lewd and sexual stuff aged about 12/13
  4. used to come in from nights out at uni circa 2010/2011 and go on chat roulette and literally cry with laughter with my flatmates , saw SO many unsolicited penises
  5. tumblr. Just the whole place was weird

Omg chat roulette!! Thats what I was trying to describe in my post hahaha. Our parents really had no clue did they lol.

Hufflemuff · 21/02/2025 08:57

Username73638 · 21/02/2025 08:46

I know, honestly 🙄 And explaining concepts to me like phone boxes and the talking clock and dial up and the yellow pages. I was born at the start of the 90s, I do remember life before the internet. I’ve made calls from phone boxes. And I do understand the concept that people older than me didn’t have the internet as teenagers seeing as it was basically brand new when I was a teenager 🙈

Show quote history

IKR, start your own thread about prehistoric artefacts like phone boxes.

salemcooper · 21/02/2025 09:12

We had internet early in my house. Me and brother were allowed unreasonable free unsupervised use of search engines. Once when I was about 7 my parents sat me and my brother down for a serious chat after they'd found in search history that we'd spent a good hour searching for "boobies"...

Packingcube · 21/02/2025 09:15

Does anybody remember hot or not?
How awful was that website 😆

peppercornrent · 21/02/2025 09:30

Moonlight222 · 21/02/2025 08:35

Can you remember the baby website I was on with tickers and then there was a whole other group DDDL or something like that.

I was in chat rooms and spoke to the guy who thought I was older and stupidly agreed to meet up and he had my phone number. When I got to the town centre he messaged his location as I walking from the station and I was very cautious and saw a dwarf on the bench, same description and he looked agitated and had a duffle type bag with him, I was 15 and absolutely petrified and wondered what the hell I was thinking. My friend worked in millets so I ran and hid in a tent and turned my phone off. I stopped pissing about online after that because I thought I was going to murdered and some of kill kit was in the bag.

You were on Babyworld, then DDDL was a facebook group with people from Babyworld. All sorts of batshittery going on with a group sock puppet becoming a moderator on BW if I remember correctly.

ETA and trolls, and a move to a new website and back to unmask the trolls. It all seemed very relevant and revolutionary back in the day.

Misslola1999 · 21/02/2025 09:51

This thread has unlocked some memories!!
In 1999 I was 16 and at college and used to be constantly on chat rooms (Trouble i think?) and while most of it was chatting about Tupac vs Biggie (😂😂) I do remember chatting to one person for a few months and arranging to meet him in a nightclub in our town. (That notoriously let in underage kids!) Told him what I'd be wearing and everything.
Remember going to said nightclub with my friends and although I didn't meet him, I remember a middle aged man at the bar staring at me all night until we legged it out of there!!
I do think my saving grace was the fact I was in a big group of both boys and girls.
Stayed off chat rooms after that!!

Wendolino · 21/02/2025 10:11

Rachie1973 · 21/02/2025 01:54

We used to ring the operator on 100 and ask to speak to Busby. I cringe now.

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That's hilarious! I had an umbrella with him on it 😂

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 21/02/2025 10:15

Blimey. I was listening to John Peel's late night music show and recording albums off that (I still have my Stranglers 'Black and White' on tape somewhere...) and I thought that was pretty racy (I was supposed to be asleep/revising for my A levels).

Wintershealing · 21/02/2025 10:46

Why do people comment on a thread asking for your memories of the Internet as a teen, "there was no Internet when I was a teen" or "when I was a teen we did xyz (something totally unrelated to the Internet)"?

It's like someone starting a thread asking, for example, people's memories of the 70s and people replying with "I wasn't born in the 70s" or "I wasn't born but in 2005 I did xyz".

It's really bizarre!

Wintershealing · 21/02/2025 10:48

We didn't have the Internet at my house as a teen but my friends did and one used to go on the very early chat rooms and invite guys round for sex 😱 She was about 15/16! Her mum was an alcoholic and had no idea what she was up to!

WellsAndThistles · 21/02/2025 12:54

Wendolino · 20/02/2025 20:44

No Internet in my day, but my friends and I used to phone random numbers and pretend we wanted to speak to a name we made up. Don't ask me why, but it seemed hilarious at age 12/13!

We used to phone teachers and conduct random surveys. Winter Olympics 1998(?) was pure gold as we phoned them in the middle of night after coming out the pub (we were 17/18 ish) and pretended we were in a different time zone 🤣. Boat race was another good one 'Do you prefer watching 'cock' or 'cockless' Mrs Scott"!

Good times.....

MargaretThursday · 21/02/2025 13:27

The only on-line thing I did when still a teen was hang the washing up.