well, probably not all. but whatever i can remember, while i can.
i am mostly writing this so i don't forget.
i was inspired by atharva's post about this many moons ago. this draft has been sitting around for a while, felt like finishing it up after listening to a bunch of ninajirachi on repeat. i suspect this is one of those posts i might keep coming back to add to.
random aside: one of the first things i ever looked up online was 'hrithik aishwarya dhoom 2 kiss'. like probably in the first 5 searches i'd ever made in my life. it was 2006 or 2007 i suppose, i was 7 or 8. my parents had taken me to watch dhoom 2 in theaters recently and i was...curious. my dad had an ibm laptop kept on a 'computer table' in the hall. both my parents worked so i was always home alone, finding things to keep me busy after school. i must have figured out how to use it one of those afternoons.
i discovered what 'internet history' meant after that whole situation. lesson learned.
before i was really making accounts on the internet, i was spending a lot of time on... barbie.com, some winx club website, games.co.in (probably played everything in the management games section), miniclip and the like. i think the first time i wanted to make an account on something it was the winx club website and i asked my dad if i could (i have no idea why) and he was like errr no. and so began a decade of stealth mode-ing to be on the internet.
i realise i'm not going to be able to do this in a very chronological order, so off the top of my head:
very active on club penguin 2010 onwards.
had a yahoo! answers account in 2010 where i would roleplay lily potter (lol) along with a little rp group, these were all mostly kids in the uk and us, we had a little group chat on chatroll.com, i remember feeling like such an imposter, i was probably the only person from south asia. i would become facebook friends with these people and was extremely fascinated by the life that these teenagers abroad seemed to live. twas very skins like. actually discovered skins through this lol.
oh the first account i ever made actually with my secret email id (once i learned that i should probably not be asking my parents for this kind of stuff) - was a quizilla account under UNIQUEFREAKGIRL. this is where i debuted poetry such as yOu ArE uNiQuE and Raindrops on my window. i also wrote a few seven minutes in heaven rp quizzes lol. oh good times. this was peak actually. you can view some classics (if you ask) that have been mercifully(?) saved by the good folks at internet archive.
iconique tumblr account that i still use. much influence on my personality that website etc. had multiple blogs actually, attempted to run a few fan pages but lbr i wasn't cut out for that life. was deep into the pjo fandom for a bit.
i think the first fanfiction account i made was on hpff (harrypotterfanfiction.com), after which i progressed to livejournal, fanfiction.net (this account is still up my god with some... interesting fics, i should archive it atp), ultimately ao3 but i dropped off a bit by this point. i partially learned /how to write/ because of writing terrible fanfiction, wanting to write good fanfiction, reading how to guides, getting feedback from people, finding a beta reader to help me out, etc etc. fun times.
i was also part of this harry potter website/forum thing but i cant for the life of me remember what it was called. you got sorted and could upskill and everything.
pirates of the caribbean online. i was way too into this very average mmorpg. disney took it down one fine day. i remember there was an active fan effort to recreate it, no idea how that's going.
i was very into hole/courtney love/nirvana. i would use this website a lot, downloaded a million concert bootlegs from the 90s and would listen to them on repeat. there was also kitty radio and turpentine forums where i would post a bunch, this was fun! lots of older grunge/riot grrrl heads who had lived through the 90s, discovered a lot of music and books and films from here.
deviantart. hoo boy. i would post my paintings here. and a bunch of writing where i think i was figuring out my sexuality and a bunch of identity things. i didnt have a tablet so i was making digital art on... crack photoshop i think? dont even remember. with my mouse or trackpad. like full on shading and detailing. i do not know how i did that. but never underestimate a young girls commitment to wanting to make femslash fanart ig. i cant for the life of me remember my username right now and this is upsetting me very much.
i think i trieeeeed to get into the warez/private tracker scene after reading this book but I was a bit too late (this was 2015 maybe) and there were other easier options abound. i guess i started using soulseek and rutracker more. and irc for ebooks.
old youtube account ofc. i was an active commenter.
wordpress blog. blogging just for the love of the game. good times.
8tracks. best time. discovered so much music here. rip.
minor shout out to the bangalore anime club facebook group. i actually never attended but ended up making my first internet friends who i met later met irl over there.
oh yeah, i guess i made a reddit account in 2014 and was super active there across indian subreddits and others alike. lots of suspect advice given/taken. one irl friend made. always fun when people ask us how we met.
remember polyvore????? good lord.
rateyourmusic.com
facebook, like everyone else. i still use it for marketplace and sourcing stuff (v useful), for deep dives into certain kinds of online communities that only exist on fb - usually run by older people - and a few music groups that are actually not terrible.
would pop into 4chan on occasion /mu/, /lit/ etc. and some other similar messageboards. fun if you knew where to look. also, research.
i really miss music forum culture, even though i was probably too late for the real heyday of it. a bunch of people from across the world with very specific shared interests talking about pretty much everything. the last i tried was getting into mausspace (for musician john maus), which kind of went defunct too iirc.
i feel like i am missing a bunch of stuff and will probably return to this post in the future.
i should note that post 2010 onwards was a turning point because we'd moved to a new house that had a guest room with a single bed, and the old IBM laptop had been traded for VAIO laptop that sat in this room. i began to cite wanting my own 'personal' space as a reason for not sharing a room with my brother and began to sleep in this guest room which basically meant uhhh unlimited unrestricted internet access post 10-11 pm. i would usually be up throughout the night till 5 clickity clacking my way across 10000 worlds here. this song pretty much encapsulates what that felt like.
It sounds like I've got a song that nobody knows
And I heard it in a post when I was twelve years old
I didn't know it would score the 64-bus home
Turn a Monday to a memory and change my world
It sounds like iPod Touch, little crack in the screen
FL Studio so late, I fell asleep on the keys
With it looping through the speakers, bleedin' into my dreams
It sounds like
It sounds like
I've got a song that nobody knows
And I heard it in a post when I was twelve years old
I didn't know it would score the 64-bus home
Turn a Monday to a memory and change my world
It sounds like first day, hallway, starting year eight
It sounds like beach day, heatwave, stoned and afraid
It sounds like me and my computer hangin' out until late
It sounds like