Never had that one, just looked it up. That’s a poutine crime if I’ve ever seen one.

Every so often I’ll see a link to Newgrounds and I’m shocked it’s still around every time.

NSFW rather than NSFL, but sooo many children learning things when going to whitehouse.com for a project on the U.S…

This is how I learned about top-level domains.

Idk, at the time I would have bought this if possible: https://youtu.be/UWzHkeBObw0

Every song ever made is either by Eminem or Weird Al, and I refuse to believe otherwise.

(Actually, for any long-standing data hoarders out there who retained filenames for limewire downloads - you know what would be fun? A playlist of songs based on the limewire-attributed artist.)

There’s a lot - MSN, forums in their hey-day, Geocities, the days when almost every ISP had free web hosting, long-form letter style emails being a common means of communication, email newsletters, etc. etc.

But three particular things come to mind:

R.E. League at Reality’s End (https://www.realitysend.com/) - like many children in the 90s-2000s, I was obsessed with Pokemon. This guy made a web-based Pokemon RPG, with all the usual stuff (battles, badges, etc.) BUT with puzzles and amazing writing. What’s more, anyone could make a website and be their own gym leader, WITH BADGE, with just a little code from Reality’s End. It. Was. Awesome. Still around, kind of, but most of the fan-made gyms are looong gone, and I’m not certain you can create a new user for the main site stuff anymore. Edit: OMG I WAS WRONG, you can still make new accounts! Nostalgia time! For anyone wanting to try this, see: https://www.realitysend.com/league/gssignup

[Town Redacted]MP3.com - As a young teenager I lived in a small city with a disproportionally lively music scene. This website had recordings from local artists of all genres, and started me off on finding all ages shows [this was also still thriving, I don’t see that many posters etc. for these anymore]. Met a ton of other kids, listened to a lot of good music, and it became a ‘cool kid’ feather in my cap. Also, in a roundabout way, was a catalyst for me discovering pot (listen to music and click on link for the band’s webpage -> get into a discussion in their guestbook with a member of a different, all teen girl punk band -> start chatting with members of this band often -> band smokes me out for the first time at a show for the band we met over, which was also my last night in town before moving)

The Pojo.com Forums - Again, Pokemon obsessed kid. Loved Pojo for TCG stuff, but it also introduced me to fanfiction. I wrote my own fanfics that were well received, which gave me a lot of confidence about writing in general. Also met some cool people here, and for nostalgia’s sake I find myself Googling usernames I remember sometimes.

I swear to god it’s intentional - defending your position is harder to do when squatting over a latrine. Morale (specifically defined as willingness to fight) is also high when you’re pissed off that you can’t poop. “Something’s getting unloaded, one way or another”.

The chili con carne they give Canadian troops is my jam, though. Kinda want a bunch of those for camping now that I’m thinking about it.

Not quite yet, but when RiF is gone so am I.

Partially because this situation is outrageous. Partially because I forgot my password a long time ago so and didn’t provide a recovery email, and I like my username.