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Remember the Early Internet?

An exuberant red haired white woman in sunglasses and a big-shouldered blazer types at the original Mac computer. The AOL AIM mascot is on their shoulder waving. To the right is a neon cyberspace with blocks of text. Text reads: The end is nigh, y'all! The once wildly popular messaging service was a rare relic from an age when the internet was still new and free and unbridled by 2.0. Email addresses that were all numbers! y2k! That screen name you still haven't let go of! What else dotted that vast cyber-hellscape?
One the Left, two hands trade the Mirabilis ICQ logo between them as it says, "Uh oh!" the trademark notification sound of the app. Text reads: AIM’s cutesy competitor ICQ by Mirabilis, bought by AOL in 1998 for $278 MILLION only to be sold again in 2010 to DST for $187 mil. On the right, Jan Brandt, former chief marketing officer at AOL says, "At one point, 50% of the CD's produced worldwide had an AOL logo on it." There are CDs raining from the sky and piling up into huge mounds.
On the left, a blonde white kid with a mullet and sunglasses gives an impressed thumbs up. He is mirrored ad-infinitum on the monitor behind him. The dog mascot from Microsoft Bob smacks their forehead. Text reads: Created in 1995 in an effort to make Windows more ‘fun’. Bob allowed you to decorate your desktop as if it were a room in a house. The service lasted a year and its only legacy is Comic Sans. Ouch! On the right a beanie baby holds up the text box reading: Ebay takes off thanks to the Beanie Baby craze, which at one point made up 10% of its sales.
On the left, a disheveled Jeeves holds a sign saying "Ask me anything" surrounded by other dejected search engine mascots like the Webcrawler spider and the Lycos dog. On the right, Willow from Buffy the Vampire slayer makes history. Text reads: Search Engines galore. Until one search engine came to rule them all when in 2002 an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer used the word "Google" as a verb for the first time.
An off-put black kid in a neon sweatshirt and flat-top haircut backs away from the computer which is filling with spammy chain letters. Text: Chain emails! The original clickbait!
An utter disaster of animated gifs including flashing lights, under construction signs, flames, and the famous dancing baby. Text: Everybody's Geocities Websites complete with animated gifs!
A wide angle shot of Springfield from the Simpsons. Text: Not to be outdone, The Simpsons launched its own ISP in 2002. Users got a thesimpsons.com email address, and the whole service was FREE! Atop the scene is a login window with Homer saying "mmmm targeted ad revenue." In the lower right corner, James Van Der Beek's famous crying face captioned: Sadly it didn’t last, and we never got a Dawson’s Creek ISP.

Accompanying the comic was a call to readers asking for their own early internet memories.

Anne Sullivan writes: The dial-up song! Below is a series of onomatopoeic noises that old modems used to make.
A Christmas tree decked out in CDs. Scott Hampton writes: We used the huge numbers of AOL disks from the mail to make a shiny shiny Christmas tree.
A series of negative emojis such as the angry face, sick face, and shocked face say things like: "You’d have to be crazy to meet someone you met online in person!" and "Never use your real name online!" and "Only people that can’t get dates use dating websites." Below them are two loving emojis and Amy Anscher writes: I met my husband online in 2010 when it stopped being so fringe.
The glow from a computer screen reduces the user to a burnt out skeleton. Chris Johns writes: I miss file sharing of days-gone-by. Half the time you'd get the file you want, half the time you'd get a horrible virus that would trash your system. What a thrill!

Description

  • The Nib

  • 2017

The early internet was a wild time. Warring search engines and homemade websites littered with animated gifs covered the cyber-wasteland.

But there we some gems in the rough. The Simpsons had its own internet provider. And like it or not, Microsoft Bob was the spiritual ancestor of the Animal Crossing games.

This comic commemorates the end of AOL Instant Messenger in 2017 with a tour of the internet's chaotic toddler years.

Additional Credits