first went online in ... must have been 95 or 96. i was way into singing then so i downloaded a bunch of lyrics. i had nobody to show me the ropes so it was a massive mystery ... i wanted "the good stuff" but i had to figure out everything by myself. it was a different time ; i had to spend some time trying different search engines to get some meager results . also i was young , wanted to be "cultured" but didn't know how to go at it so it was all overwhelming.

a thing that was massive , for me and most ppl back then: USENET. it was basically like reddit. it helped to piece together who i was and rank my interests as a young adult by subscribing to different newsgroups , sort of like we subscribe to subreddits here.

i was so ignorant back then; didn't knew diddly squat about the history of underground music then and now etc but hey slowly but surely things started to pick off, with napster . i remembered when "they" connected their servers and some keywords i was attempting started to show results. i was like, " YMO tracks! wow". everybody was freaking out, we were all messaging each other, all perfect strangers to say how we were freaking out. then there was soulseek that i still use to this day. back then it was more about electronic music and i was fine with this, i was getting into this. something we sort of don't think about often: it took a long-ass time before youtube became essential to the internet experience... at first it was just a thing for expressive upstart nerds.
and the torrent thing.

man, my uni years would have been so different with facebook/wikipedia/google/local music forums/online dating... i don't "regret" this but ... idk. i was born 10 years too early... i feel the kind of guy i am would have thrived with all this when i needed it the most.