Amusing 1995 Guide to Surfing the Internet
The Internet has come a long way since the '90s. I remember the first time I used it! It was such a cool new piece of technology, and I was immediately hooked. I was always surfing the web and finding things to read and watch. I spent hours upon hours on stickdeath.com, Ain’t it Cool News, and various other sites where I enjoyed finding random bits of information about movies, writing, and history. I was all over the place!
Gizmodo recently posted some pages from a book that they came across called You Can Surf The Net, a how-to guide from the year 1995, and it’s pretty damn hilarious.
It goes over some great stuff like tips on how to avoid being ‘flamed,’ which was defined in 1995 as being when “people fill your electronic mailbox with angry messages telling you what they think of you.” I get flamed a lot these days! I guess starting a blog about movies, art, video games, and geek culture wasn't the right way to avoid being flamed.
I included some additional commentary that goes along with each image thanks to the site who has read the book:
“'Don’t worry,' the books tells me. 'You have to really mess up to get flamed.' Really, all you have to do to get into a flame war is mildly disagree with someone."
I love that there's an emoticon for smily Robocop! I-]
The site goes on to say that almost half the book dedicated to listing websites. "After the book tells you how buy a modem, find an ISP, set up a computer (with instructions for PC, Mac, Amiga and, of all things Atari systems) and get online, things rapidly devolve into lists of chatrooms, websites and things to do."
The book goes on to list news groups for stuff like Power Rangers, Brad Pitt, and even Sonic The Hedgehog fan-fiction. It even showed you where to find trivia for things like Star Trek: Generations, Toy Story, and Star Wars.
"Not only was the web small enough to put all of its notable websites and chatrooms in one easy to read index, but doing so was actually seen as valuable. The author even had enough leftover space to include a handful of websites he thought were a complete waste of time."
If you really want to pick yourself up a copy just for some laughs, you can buy it on Amazon for a penny.