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

[Username73638]

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?

At uni I rang to ask what time the film was on..
Definitely not the eldest thing I did though.

Did you at least win the prize for best story that week? The lie would have been worth it for a £5 Claire's Accessories voucher, no doubt 😂

1-: used to put on (awful not convincing! American accents and pretend we had just moved from America (to anyone walking past)

2- call up a takeaway called "hot spot" and when they answered saying "hello hot spot" say you know where my hot spot is and hang up 🤣

I did the same thing!

It started on chat rooms in about 2000. I told people I was 21 and from Canada, but I lived a few blocks from Bleecker St in NYC. Both of my parents were dead and I didn't have a lot of money but I could figure skate. When people asked for a pic I sent them a photo of Alanis Morissette, but I got caught out once so stopped using it and found a blurry photo of a random woman on a subway. I moved on to forums, and when 9/11 happened my online friends started sending me frantic messages asking if I was ok and what was happening where I was, so I described what I was seeing on TV and told them that's what I saw. I said that as soon as it was safe to travel, I was going to stay with my aunt Margaret in Quebec for a while. I almost got found out when someone asked me how much I weighed and I made up a weight for myself in stones, but I managed to save it by saying I bought my scales in England.

Glad it wasn't just me learning coding to spread fandom joy as a teen 🤣

Also please tell me the game was Cats/Dogz 5!!! I was obsessed with it. I took was involved in the forum and downloaded the weird hexed pets!!

Not me, a 31 year old adult, sat reading fanfic whilst my 8mo DD is sleeping 👀 not ones with Hagrid bumming Harry though, lmao. Fanfic is full of crazy shit but there are some great ones!!

Internet wasn't around until I was well into my 30s 😜

Yes!! Well I played Petz 4 not 5 and there was definitely snobbery about those who played 5 😂

was it 'birth' ?

there was no online.

OMG late night love!! Graham Torrington was a bit intense but so good!

Goddam milk mafia out for a showdown 😂

I remember a parenting site with tickers - I think it was called Hunnybeez or something like that?

I remember going online with dial-up sometime at the end of the 90's and "meeting" an American boy who was really rude and said something like "Oh great, a Brit. Bet you have shit teeth and can only cook roast beef." I was outraged, weirdly. Am not at all amazed social media is a cesspit as a result though.

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.

Yup, and I hope my DC are never as stupid as I was.
At 13 I joined adult dating sites, saying I was 18, and regularly swapped numbers with much older men. Mostly sent texts back and forth, but a few did call and must have known how young I was due to my voice.
Eventually told my Sister who was older than me, thinking she'd be impressed. I was wrong, she was horrified and instantly told our Mum who went ballistic with me.

@Username73638 There wasn't any internet in my teens.

I remember that! Still remember things you could do if you had an ac.uk extension - for example, you could already check on people online - by typing finger and then their name and surname and it would tell you what time that person was online, that was in 95, such a novelty! And those round macs in computer rooms!

I remember a lady posted a picture of her in her wedding dress after it had been made. She clearly loved it and was beaming in the photos. She was just showing off the dress, not asking for advice.

Unfortunately the dress was obviously very, very badly made.

Some people were kind eg complimented the colour, some were supportive eg gave some gentle suggestions on how to improve the fit etc

Unfortunately most people were horrible. I've never seen a pack of women descend on one person for literally doing nothing like that. They were all egging each other to mock the dress and/or the woman. It must have been so upsetting for her.

She left the forum the same night. I left too.

I do sometimes wonder about her. I hope she was able to wear a dress she loved and see those awful people for what they were.

I spent so much time in a bravo chat room, I was 13, but I would share my A/S/L and always say 17/f/some made up place. I used to download pictures of Jessica Simpson or the Olsen twins and find it so funny when I managed to convince people that they were pictures of me.

I’d be talking to grown men pretending to be 17. I’d be getting unsolicited dick pics and would show my friends who were all do equally batshit and dangerous stuff on their computers.

I gave my address to some boys who lived in the same area as me, as me and my friend had been talking to them. They were a year older than me and went to a different school, they turned up at my house and luckily they were legit and we all stayed friends. Honestly I’m lucky to be alive lol, the internet back then was like the Wild West!

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.

Oh this thread is great, so much Babyworld and Ask Jeeves and Friends Reunited (whatever happened to that?) and Yahoo. Amazon sold books and then Google took over the world.

Yes to this! Me too. The soundtrack was pretty great; I wonder if anyone has made a playlist from the show.

He has some pretty weird contributors.

Online didnt exist 😂

Amazon and eBay used to be so good. Everything has turned to shit. Poor Etsy has fallen now. And wtf happened to Pinterest. Absolutely chock full with AI images.

I even remember how nice Facebook used to be. I'd log on in the university library, poke a few friends, and play my turn on Scrabbulous. That was before anyone without a university email could have a Facebook account.