AIM —> Reddit —> lemmy
this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
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No Stupid Questions
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I was a big Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy fan in the 1990s, so I really started with h2g2. For those who don't remember, it was an early attempt to make a crowdsourced online encyclopedia, but unlike Wikipedia, a given page could only be edited by its original creator or admins. I learned quite a bit of HTML from there.
Every page on h2g2 had an attached comment section, and because anybody could make a page, most of us used it primarily as a message board. There was a lot of roleplaying.
From there I branched out into forums. The big one I posted on was TotalGames.net, the joint forum for a bunch of video game magazines, because I read Cube in secondary school and they regularly posted stuff from it to get more people to join. One of the regular members, Android18a, set up her own website at SilentDream.co.uk and had an attached forum which had six, maybe seven posters. That was a nice, intimate community, and we broke the rules of the forum software by regularly posting porn.
I signed up to a few other forums but never stayed long. In college, I joined TVTropes and actively contributed for a bit over 20 years; I just stopped this week because the new owners seem intent on turning it into another Wikia. TVTropes' forum software is quite good, really solid, and the community is probably the most thoughtful, rational group I've ever encountered online (except for that one moderator. If you're a regular on the TVTropes forum, you know the one).
I was almost one of the first people in Ireland to join Facebook. During college, I did a work placement where I shared a house with two American girls (also a Polish boy, a Romanian girl, and an Irish girl who moved out because she didn't get along with anybody). The Yanks told me about this great website called Facebook, which I had also seen mentioned on College Humor a lot. It seemed great, but I kept saying "Oh, I'll join tomorrow" until everybody else was on it, at which point I decided not to join it because it was too popular (yeah). That turned out to be the right decision.
I made a Twitter account after college because I was a fan of Channel Awesome and they all seemed to be on it, and so was apparently every other famous person. I could keep up with Twitter somewhat for a few years because I was unemployed and had little else to do, but actually keeping up with that site is a full-time job. I tried getting back into it on and off, and eventually deleted my account just before COVID when I figured out I have clinical depression and just reading Twitter aggravates it.
I started using Reddit at some point and I liked it, but stepped back when I realised it was addictive and toxic. I look in once in a while, and every time I do, it seems to be getting worse.
Then when Elon Musk took over Twitter, I started hearing about this thing called Mastodon. I made myself an account which I use daily, but I learned the lesson from Twitter not to bother trying to keep on top of everything. Mastodon led me to Lemmy, which led me to kbin, which is now mbin, which is where this account lives.
I also have a Discord account, but Discord confuses and overwhelms me.
Oh, and I also used UseNet a little bit, but its heyday was long past by the time I got online.
IM-based: AIM+MSN+etc... -> IRC -> Google Talk -> SMS -> (nothing for many years) -> Slack (for work)
Web-Based: forums (esp. GMC) -> Digg -> reddit (mainly) + HN (sometimes) -> kbin -> lemmy
AIM IRC MSN chat rooms TOTSE Livejournal MySpace (barely) Facebook (barely) 4chan Reddit Twitter Mastodon Lemmy
Not all of these are social media sites, but this list is my social internet path
Bolt dot com & SciFi channel chatrooms
AIM & Yahoo chatrooms
ICQ & IRC
Soulseek (I count it because I used to hang in the chatrooms quite a bit)
Eyeball chat, then followed friends to Camfrog chat, before both were enshittified
MySpace
Facebook and dabbling in Instagram
Reddit, left after Apollo went offline
Mastadon and dabbled in Snapchat
Threads
BlueSky, still here
Lemmy then Piefed, still here
ICQ †
StudiVZ †
Facebook †
4chan †
WhatsApp †
Reddit †
Feddit
I did post a video to Instagram once that got several million views, but that was on my employer's account.
I'm an elder millennial German
/.
Reddit
Lemmy
- CompuServe Chat
- Dialup Bulletin Board
- USENET
- Lemmy
Facebook was a horrible mistake. I jumped off when I realized I didn't want to associate with the people there.
Jumped off Reddit when my app was blocked.
Edit: mid-50's English speaker (well, American English, if that still counts), also remembered that there was a dialup bulletin board back in the day.
Usenet then Slashdot and a forum on a website that no longer exists.
Once I got Internet at home, there were a few online chatrooms that were web based, but were basically IRC. It looks like one of those sites still exists, but if it's the same one I used (and Yahoo used as a proxy) it's not at the URL I used it at. Also either I've forgotten my details or I've been deleted (or it's a knock-off).
Then Digg, Reddit, Twitter and now the Fediverse.
Oh and throw Discord in there too somewhere towards the latter end.
Dishonourable mentions: MyYearbook and Tagged.com. The former was a bit like old-school MySpace, but it became a soulless dating site called MeetMe with none of the fun Flash games and chat. Tagged was basically a (surprisingly smut-free) user avatar trading site. Attractive people's pictures (usually women) could end up worth ridiculous sums of fake money. Like vigintillions of dollars kinds of ridiculous.
Now it seems that both are part of the same company, at least based on how the websites for MeetMe and Tagged look. Very glad I'm out of there.
Usenet (and still there), mailing lists (hooray for any that use schleuder), a bit of IRC (though I was never one for quick fire & forget statements, today I'm good with Signal/Molly/Gurk and XMPP; Matrix never appealed to me), lot's of Forums (mostly related to my favourite games at the times), some twitter (though I was never really comfortable with the hustle to gain more visibility through large follower numbers), switched over to identi.ca (and eventually many different ActivityPub servers, currently one Akkoma and one Lemmy; not interested in PixelFed, though it helps I dislike the dev's attitude; PeerTube could be interesting as a consumer, but the UX still feels atrocious; I tend to leave my name/handle behind when switching, I'll inform some people important to me, but I am quite happy not having to maintain friendships and a reputation, gotta do that in meatspace, and I find it taxing even there). Lurked 4chan a couple years, but was never comfortable engaging, too much "fake" being a horrible person. Was relatively active on reddit, but ever since the redesign I felt it was too cumbersome to use (yes, old., I know, but who wants to rely on a legacy version being available?), plus their corporate decisions were pissing me off more and more (Yeah, I'm a pretty stout software freedom person, down to using libreboot & canoeboot, though I no longer wish to associate myself with the FSF, given their tone-deaf handling of the whole RMS situation), so, yeah, eventually lemmy. I'm more quiet than I used to be, getting older, I suppose, but I was also never that into anything "social" in the first place (I'm an Aspie, who'd have thunk?), so I mostly lurk and only post when I feel I can actually contribute something meaningful.
IRC
ICQ
MSN messenger
there was a site where you could post 2 choice questions that people could answer and comment on, I forget the name but I used that a lot
Digg
Lemmy..... I had a Lemm.ee account and that died. Had a lemmynsfw account and that died. Apparently lemmy.ml has a bad reputation. Instances defederate from each other. I just want to see memes without the drama. Don't know where to post to get more than a handful of people to see my post. I'm rapidly losing interest in the fediverse.
Back to books, podcasts and RSS..... Social media has nothing worthwhile for me.
A good rule for picking an instance is to find one with very few blocked instances and a big number of communities. You see almost everything and It's less likely to be deferated/disappear because it has a lot of content. Lemmy.zip is a good example. Lemme.ee was just unfortunate.
yahoo chat
myspace
elfpack
4chan
facebook
Spiceworks
9gag
reddit
Lemmy
Usenet Irc (many years offline) 9gag Imgur Lemmy
Does talking to randoms on Kazaa count? Otherwise various forums, uboot, Facebook (shudder), Reddit, Lemmy.
What counts and what doesn't is pretty fuzzy. I'm just including everything that could reasonably fit, just to keep it simple.
Neopets
GameFAQs
Various forums
IRC
Digg
Reddit
Twitch
Fediverse (fgc.network, kbin.social, fedia.io)
I started out with forums primarily. And Youtube.
I then tried out Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, but didn't like any of them. My school for a time also mandated Netlog iirc.
Eventually I moved to Reddit and joined Discord.
When the blackout protests came around, I went looking for alternatives to Reddit I could try out while the subreddits I cared about were dark, which is when I saw people suggesting /kbin. Which I liked a lot more than Lemmy based on first impressions, so I joined it.
When /kbin died, I switched to Mbin. I'm still active on Reddit itself because I originally really only joined as a temporary measure. I liked it enough to stick around, but Reddit has not become that unusable yet that I would leave it for good.
Never used Instagram, Tiktok, 4chan, etc.
I'm Swiss, German-speaking, born 1996.
newsgroups and irc then nothing then linkedin and facebook (only for connectins and stuff never really interacted much) then slashdot then myspace (really just to listen to music) then reddit (was doing mmos for a good bit and lots of chatting on them and came to reddit for them) then here. oh and youtube but I mean to me thats like watching something on tubi.
If it interests you to see an in depth what a zoomer's experience of social media might be:
spoiler
- [2015-16] only used YouTube, but a lot, and i was one of those idiots who would get into lomg winded arguments or try to hold conversations in the comments (i was a kid so don't hate)
- spent a lot of time watching videos on star wars lore and got more into it because the sequels were coming out
- discovered star wars forums
- [2016]forums for minecraft servers i was in
- [2017] big WhatsApp groupchat with school friends
- also joined discord because 1 friend refused to use whatsapp or something
- friends start to move to instagram for some reason, begrudgingly join
- [2018-19] start to use reddit becauss I was fascinated by the in depth heart to heart discussions, eventuslly realised it had an abundance of easy to access NSFW content, which was terrible for me
- [2020] start to use instagram professionally for art portfolio
- [~2021] become more openly anti-porn, which is a large reason I'm at odds with reddit
- [2021] start to use twitter/X. Completely impossible to actually grow there unless you have a cross-platform content strategy (e.g if you make youtube videos and your twitter acct is the same name)
- long period of no change, delete twitter accounts over and over for privacy reasons.
- [23-24] have to use facebook for uni societies, property viewing and various other grown-up stuff. Alao only way for relatives to know I exist.
- [2024/25] start to use Nitter instead whenever I want to see a twitter thing.
- [2025] delete instagram because it has high tech demands and is inconvenient to use
- discover piefed because it's advertised as reddit but less ccorrupt. Get permabanned from reddit around the same time. Other things I've dabbled in: pixelfed, twitch.
Never used: Telegram, Snapchat, BeReal, TikTok, PornHub or similar.
MSN messenger
Independent forums (like Invisonfree)
Bebo
Facebook
Reddit
Discord
Matrix
Lemmy
Instagram (originally just for a friend to sell me stuff but I now have some more friends and communities on this)
Tiktok (only used for a friend to send me things she likes)
In order: IRC (very briefly), MSN Messenger, Ultimate-Guitar forums, Facebook, Reddit, Lemmy.
MSN and U-G forums was peak internet era for me.
Deleted my FB account in 2017, migrated to Lemmy with the mass Reddit exodus when they fucked with the API. Permanently deleted my account that day.
local dial-up BBSs sharing gif and wav clips and chatting about anything that you felt like at the moment
AOL chatrooms
free hosted forums on Anglefire and Geocities
Larger forums(SA, Fark, etc)
FB/instagram
Lemmy/Piefed
I think that would be my path as it relates to communities where I actually ended up having a social community involved. I would say that it also is a direct increase in toxicity as it works downward. I find Lemmy/Piefed just as toxic as any other platform but the lack of a forced algorithm lets me basically mute all of the negative content sources and it's niche enough that you can actually mute the negative influence, which makes for a pleasant experience.
phpBB-like bulletin boards (first one I became active on was based on something called UBB which I've never seen elsewhere) -> wikis -> IRC -> instant messengers (although I'd sporadically used those before IRC already technically) -> reddit -> lemmy
Windows Messenger, Facebook, a small SNES forum, Tumblr and here. Never used twitter, instagram, tiktok, pinterest, etc. Those always gave me the laziness. Tumblr is a social media that I always want to go back, I spend the main time of my teens and early 20s there.
Facebook to reddit to lemmy
Compuserve chat rooms > Usenet > Web forums and IRC > Livejournal > MySpace > Digg > Reddit > Lemmy.
I basically first got online in the sliver of time when ISPs were now public, but just before the WWW existed.
IRC, that's all. Pseudonymous forums like 4chan or reddit are not social IMHO.