Your experience with people online?

Just curious how your online experience has been since you started using the internet. From then to now, how would you describe it? For me it's been a pretty fun ride, I've met amazing people. And it was mostly from online gaming, only a few from actual websites. Never met them in person so I can't say I truly know them, but I'll never forget the moments. Since I'm starting college and have a job I don't really have time to use the internet as much I used to. So yeah, just curious about your experiences

a reply to: RexPlex

The internet expedites the time it takes to connect with someone of similar interests. Irl in my surrounding area I'm out of place and a normal random person in the background. This is because I dont listen to hip hop and try to become a basketball fan / goon. I had a gf in highschool when I went to play some good rock music they even play on the radio shes like not here not in this area.

If you're online to make friends, you're good. At least in my experience, I've met some great people online. I've been on other sites/forums and have been helped or given good advice more than once.

That hot chick probably sent you some pics from a decade ago however

For me, I started in 02 (I was 10) and I can only really remember interacting with people when the first sort of instant messenger or social websites like..MSN? freewebs? Bebo? Myspace? Yeah haha, played runescape a lot mostly because of the community, I had 3 or 4 people I spoke to for years, communities differ from website to website and game to game, a bit like how each pub in a town has it's own regulars - and because of the vast variety of content on the internet there's almost an infinate amount of things you can try. Overall experience, well it really really does depend what you go on, I mean if you have ever used Omegle you will know how risky that can be, I don't really understand those sorts of people....but if you go on a online multiplayer game then chances are you're going to find a friend or at least some people to talk to etc. It's pleasant having internet friends, just there to talk to even though they're half way across the world

All I can really say about what's changed is you could troll people a lot easier back then in 2006/7, and I don't mean this MSM reported 'trolling', that's just slander and plain abuse. I mean the intellectual type of troll, you target someone who is clearly a d*ck or being a d*ck to someone and publically humiliate them online (Trust me, it was great fun, oldfags will know) But around 2/3 years ago people just started to either stop feeding the trolls or learned about trolling so knew how to deal with it, everyones grown a hard skin online and with this stupid 'i love haters' thing that goes on it's almost like it's a fashion to be hated online.

I feel like I was born at the perfect time, like people my sort of age grew up with technology so we became more accustomed to it, we know how much this stuff helps too because we know what it was like without certain technology (as in consumer products), whereas kids born after...say 2008, they were born with this technology already here...ipads are a completely normal thing in families now..my 7 year old sister can fluently use her mock tablet thing AND watch TV, when I was 7 I think climbing trees and playing tag was more of a priority..Massivley off topic though lol

a reply to: mikeone718

Oh you know it! I've received plenty of pictures before. Even some video chats on skype . Lol

a reply to: conz1992

Yeah I can relate to that

Ehe I remember signing up members for runescape and I explained to my grandad what it was, as soon as I said 'yeah you play with anyone in the world', he looked shocked and said 'you mean talk to anyone in the world?' wouldnt let me play it for a day or two until I convinced him that it's normal to be in contact with literally anyone in the world Dat generation gap

a reply to: RexPlex

I have met some of my best friends online. The internet made it easier for me to connect with like minded people compared to the small city I live in.

One of my best friends lives in Canada, she is like my sister from another mother. We have never met and have been friends for almost 10yrs. I would love to see her one day. It would be an amazing trip for sure. She has been there for me through many things and I have for her.

I have also made many great friends via ATS as well over the 5yrs I have been on here. I always say ATS has been my longest commitment ever lol.


Now the other side of the internet are the morons you meet. Ugh I have just learned to ignore them.

I still chat with a few people I met online almost 20 years ago. I'm sure many here agree when I say it was different then.
remember this old girl?

originally posted by: RexPlex
Just curious how your online experience has been since you started using the internet. From then to now, how would you describe it? For me it's been a pretty fun ride, I've met amazing people. And it was mostly from online gaming, only a few from actual websites. Never met them in person so I can't say I truly know them, but I'll never forget the moments. Since I'm starting college and have a job I don't really have time to use the internet as much I used to. So yeah, just curious about your experiences

I wouldn't say you know these to be "amazing people", you've not even met them in real person.

Back in the late Ninties I was online a lot (with a WebTv if you remember those) and visited many forums and chat rooms. Me and a pair of good friends that lived just up the road from me spent a ton of time "meeting people" online and becoming friends.

After about 2 years one of us (?) decided we should have a party so everyone could get together and meet for real.

I lived in southwest Michigan at the time and we had 3-4 couples in northern Indiana, one from Erie, Pa., a chandful from Wisconsin /Minnesota area, one lady flew down from somewhere in Canada and one lady took a bus from western New York state..was turning into a big deal.....

We decided to have the party at a couples house in Indiana that was sorta kinda central to everyone.

One lady who was 22 and very nice looking emailed everyone about a month before the party with news she wanted to confess before coming.....she was really 30 and that picture she showed everyone was her daughter.....
3 weeks before coming she emailed again, she was really 38.......
2 weeks before we received word that she was actually 45 and had 2 kids she was bringing to the party..

I would say besides myself that about 40-45 people showed up.

Out of those only 2 (one couple) were who & what they said they were. My 2 friends and I never felt the need to build ourselves up online and exaggerate things to impress people, we are who we are like it or not.

The husband and wife from Erie, Pa were amazing people who were exactly the people we had gotten to know over the couple years online and we ended up being good friends. He actually gave me my first 2 tattoos since he has a business doing that and is very good.

All the other people ranged from flakes, druggies, alcoholics, and just plain strange people and they were ALL liars.

Everyone SHOULD know this by now but I warn you to be VERY, VERY careful about the "amazing people" you meet online.
Hate to generalize but in "MY experience" about 95% are not who they claim to be and are liars and for some reason feel the need to build themselves into something they are not to impress you.

a reply to: mwood

I mentioned that in my post, that I don't truly know them because I've never met them in person. When I say amazing I mean the people I've talked to for years. And even they can be lying then, but I trust those few. I've had plenty of times people have lied about how they were. I wasn't surprised at all, nobody should be. It's the internet

Well i met one of my best friends online we met on a pregnancy forum when we were both pregnant with our first babies, i live in Australia she lives in Canada and we became very close, i ended up flying over there to meet her after a few years of talking online & phone, and it was great, she was a little different in person but i think most people are, over all it was a good experience, i was 18 at the time and being older now and more cautious i dont know if i would do that again, she could have turned out to be a crazy serial killer and i would have been doomed because i went alone! But i had spoke to her mum beforehand also and her family were such lovely people so i didn't really have any doubts at all.

a reply to: Shana91aus

How did she act in person compared to the internet/phone?

a reply to: RexPlex

My experience of the internet has been largely positive, although it was rather bland early on. I was an avid user of chat rooms on Yahoo when I was a kid, and made a few friends that way, but the conversations were often quite... asinine, certainly when compared with the quality of discourse which prevails here, for example.

I have cut off, or been forgotten by virtually all contacts developed during that time, so there is very little about that period of my internet usage which really inspires me. However, the loss of those contacts has to be put in context. I love my life, I love my people, those who have been with me for years, and those I have known only a short time. Life is not infinite in this flesh, it ends, and so do all things in the physical universe.

When compared therefore, with the vast weight of entropy in the universe, I have no complaints. The existence of this website has been vastly important to me since 2007, and I first accessed the internet in 2001, so for the seven or so years that I have been here, out of the thirteen years that I have been in the dataverse, I have been spoiled, my cup of internet quality, runneth over, and over, and over, as a result of membership here!

What with YouTube being what it is, the ability to connect to anyone on the planet in seconds should the need arise, the ability to extend my awareness beyond the edge of my nation, beyond the edge of my planets atmosphere, the access to information that this network provides... These things are of great value to me. However, it is the things in the net which are invisible, which concern me, and all my internet use is undertaken with the knowledge that something, somewhere, is collecting my data.

It disturbs me, it angers me, it makes me want to tear something into minute pieces. However, given the aforementioned benefits of a life lived with data, I will have to put up with it until some enterprising hero destroys the intelligence agencies involved with the spying.

*incidentally spy guys, you are so lucky that I do not understand computing. So, so lucky.*

So, overly positive in totality, is how I would describe my time on line, and the people I have dealt with along the way.

a reply to: RexPlex

I think my online experience has been very positive. I met my husband online, and we have been married almost 2 years now...

(I don't know if I recommend this for young people as much, because of the prevalence of predators online... but for those a little older, its fine I think...)

I have learned so much... I remember when my son was first talking me into getting on the internet, he told me I could read any book I wanted to, learn anything I wanted, and see anything. He was right... I have learned a lot, read so much... and seen things like the northern lights and the Smithsonian Museum too.

In general, people are more open online than in person... which sometimes is good and sometimes is bad. But you take the bad with the good I suppose... overall - positive for me.

a reply to: RexPlex

I wasn't meaning to imply the people you talk to are bad people, I just wanted to make that clear.

I was just saying that in my experience most people online twist the truth quite a bit when describing themselves.

On the internet you have everything from the 200 lb lady telling you she is really 120 lbs. all the way to the friend you met online and wants to meet because his freezer is getting low on human heads and everything in between.

originally posted by: RexPlex
a reply to: Shana91aus

How did she act in person compared to the internet/phone?

Her lifestyle was just alot different than she led me to believe, and she was kind of 2 faced in person, i try to avoid people like that because if you see them backstabbing everyone you can bet they are doing it too you aswell. But over all she was nice just, different.

My best friend and I met on a health advice forum 13 years ago. She was looking to buy a car I was selling a car. (don't ask how cars got brought up on a heath advice forum)

My husband and I met on an MMORPG, all our conversations seem to wind up about subjects I had just read about on ATS. It was very suspicious.