Any BBS boomers here? What were BBSs like? Any stories? How did they compare to Any Forums?

ancientfag here. there were no normies on bbs's. the only people who were there, were high intellect computer enthusiasts who most of the time were very hands-on with tech and could desolder and resolder a chip to a board back before everything became plug and play. they would call us hackers, people who were out to do the world harm, but no. we were explorers. exploring the new technological landscape. sure we might have stolen a few calling cards to make some free long distance calls so we could have communication and also cracking and pitating games that went on 5 1/2" floppies, but it was our world and normies were never a part of it. it was where we ruled supreme and had complete control.

then AOL happened later on and ruined everything.

> west west
Ugh, had a seizure there WILD west.

I am just surprised that super technically literate people were also pretty much 1:1 pedos.

each was unique, most were independently run hobbyist operations. Custom ascii art on entering, integrated MUDs or other games you could play, upload/download ratios if you wanted access to the good stuff. Much more similar to an irc warez channel or newsgroup than most of what you'd see these days.

Nah, I wouldn't go that far, but basically all social outcasts found their niche on the internet. Once the internet really went mainstream many groups once considered outcast became normalized (anime for one example), and once something is normalized the tight-knit communities die. The other outcasts which didn't get normalized ended up in places like Any Forums

kek yeah, tons of it. Feds couldn't do shit especially if you knew what you were doing, feds really didn't become tech savvy until like the 2010s and moderation wasnt really a thing. I remember alot of snuff images as well.

Attached: 960x1278_54e43445cefed81cea9524d3eaa61cd3.jpg (960x1278, 147.49K)

no one used this, it was all the government.

In 1992 I brought a lawnmower off a woman from a BBS. Anyway I shot her in her garage and never got in trouble for it. True story.

you are currently using a modernized version of a bbs
it's basically the same thing

exactly

Attached: how hobbies die.jpg (2404x1260, 443K)

I got into anime before it went mainstream so I kinda get it. I was never on a BBS though.
But a friend's mom's bf introduced me to 80s anime and dubbed anime no one knew about long before it was cool like Akira. watching that in the early 2000s when I was a kid. he was on BBSs and just an all around weird but interesting guy. It's hard to picture anything being so closed off since everyhing is now on reddit.

Sysop is breaking in for a chat

Damn, that pic summarizes it pretty succinctly.

It's a pretty sad affair, hell it applies to Any Forums itself. It'll never go back to what it was, but you can't help but hope.

An aside: one of the other contributing factors is the monetization of everything produced on the web. People used to make videos, games, programs, art, literally whatever just because the could and it was neat. Now everyone just does it for the views, copies the most profitable formats, and drain the next interesting community of any soul before going off to reap again.

isn't it weird how outcasts pretty much create everything that becomes cool?

I used to love anime and the community around it, now it's cancerous.

Globalization was probably a mistake... We are turning into an amorphous blob of uninteresting consumerists.

Attached: 4V2o7hr.jpg (690x453, 75.32K)

were BBS anonymous or did you sign in to them?