15 Old Internet Habits That Kids Today Would Never Understand

The early internet was less “user-friendly” and more “good luck.” It had a real Wild West feel to it. Half the time, you had no idea what you were clicking, and the other half, you were pretending you did. We were all just casually risking the family computer every time you opened LimeWire or wandered into a random AOL chatroom.

Kids today will never understand how normal these things felt.

1. Downloading Songs On LimeWire And Just Hoping For The Best

2. Letting Your MySpace Page Auto-Play A Song Loud Enough To Wake Your Whole House

3. Copy-Pasting Random HTML Into Your Profile And Hoping It Didn’t Completely Break It

4. Forwarding Chain Emails Because You Didn’t Want To Risk 7 Years Of Bad Luck

5. Installing CursorMania And Turning Your Cursor Into A Sparkly Disaster

6. Talking To Strangers In Chat Rooms Like You Were All Coworkers On Break

7. Leaving Your AOL Instant Messenger Away Message Up For All To See

8. Poking People On Facebook Like It Meant Something And Then Just… Never Following Up

9. Installing 3–5 Mystery Toolbars And Just Living With It

10. Trusting Any Website That Had A Counter That Said “1,000,000 Downloads”

11. Letting Antivirus Software Expire And Just Hoping For The Best

12. Clicking “Download” On The Most Aggressive Flashing Button On The Page

13. Believing Every “You’ve Won A Free iPod!” Pop-Up At Least Once

14. Joining Random AOL Instant Messenger Group Chats

15. Building Your Own Corner Of The Internet On GeoCities And Angelfire Like It Was Totally Normal