Pretty sure it was in middle school, so we are talking like 98-99. It was in the computer lab. Other kids were playing gerbils on the mac while I was surfing I think a world factbook site, I remember clicking on Japan because I was obsessed with catching DBZ on the morning cartoon blocks before toonami was a thing. Seeing girls in kimonos and the usual fluff about ancient honorable Nippon and Tokyo. What about you?

    • GnomeGodsGnomeMasters [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      8·
      2 months ago

      Rotten, Ogrish, and &Totse pretty much ruined me. What’s crazy is Ogrish was the first site that I’m aware of to break the news about Kevin Spacey being a chomo when they posted a video of him in a hot tub with a Guatemalan boy in the early-mid 00s. I’ve since tried to find evidence to support this claim, but it’s long since been scraped from the internet, but that shit is seared in my memory.

      • SexUnderSocialism [she/her]@hexbear.netMEnglish
        8·
        2 months ago

        Rotten, Ogrish, and &Totse pretty much ruined me.

        I remember being 12 years old and downloading a random video through Kazaa, which turned out to be an Ogrish video of a bunch of Russians cutting some guy’s head off while he was still alive. yea

      • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        7·
        2 months ago

        places like totse exemplify just how wild the early web was. Openly available instructions on how to hack an ATM or whatever, right there on a public forum. Coordination on what sort of crimes they’d commit too, like there was just open talk about drug trafficking. I don’t think anyone from totse was ever arrested but i wouldn’t be surprised

        • GnomeGodsGnomeMasters [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
          4·
          2 months ago

          I was an active forum member in the heyday of &T, and I’ll say that people definitely did get arrested (myself included) but &T was rarely implicated. Post 9/11 there was quite a bit of attention because of antiterrorism propaganda, but to my knowledge Jeff and the mods all stayed out of trouble.

          It really was a fun place with some incredibly cool people. The horseshoe effect in full swing as well; from my memory it was a healthy mix of communists, anarchists, and libertarians. Also it was more racially diverse than you’d think. The text file repository was mostly 90% bullshit, but there were some incredible nuggets in there. Much of what I learned about chemistry came from that place.

          I often wonder what some of those folks are up to these days. Wish I’d been able to keep track of them. I ended up getting locked up for two years for unrelated shit and by the time I got out the place was pretty much dead. Those who remained were insufferable. There are &T enclaves around the internet, but they’re mostly boring and filled with sad people making the same jokes from 20+ years ago. Teehee huff raid teehee skreeeaaawwwww teehee u got belaired teeeheeee.