Why IRC is better than Real Life (2000)

(everything2.com)

33 points | by jskherman 2 hours ago

7 comments

  • bsuvc 1 hour ago
    I am sure IRC was good for some people, but I can say for me personally it was a net negative and real life was so, so much better. I wish I never used IRC.

    I also personally witnessed multiple friends who dropped out of college due to IRC addiction in the early 1990s.

    I am curious if anyone else has a similar memory of IRC.

    • squidsoup 46 minutes ago
      I met my wife on IRC and migrated to New Zealand as a result. Worked out pretty well for me/us, well over twenty years later.
    • neom 47 minutes ago
      QuakeNet in the 90s, I don't know what to say, thank you? It was high school for me, like, I got through high school, got into computers in high school, have great memories of that time: because of QuakeNet in the 90s. hackernews community is the closest things I've felt to that since then, but it's pretty hard to beat QuakenNet in the 90s.
    • Obscurity4340 1 hour ago
      > irc addiction

      How quaint

      • bsuvc 1 hour ago
        Touched a nerve I guess.

        Care to elaborate?

        I also knew people who had MUD addictions.

        These were very similar to how in later years people became addicted to Second Life or EverQuest and essentially dropped out of society.

        I don't know if there is a modern-day equivalent, to be honest.

        • dmbche 1 hour ago
          League of legends and the likes today
        • JCharante 1 hour ago
          Discord addicts?
    • Guestmodinfo 53 minutes ago
      Even though I really like irc because I can get answers really quickly from helpful people but it's a net negative I have felt if you linger on and listen to people conversing. IRC is good for short help needs but if you spend lot of time then it's net negative. I feel for the helpful ppl on various irc channels who are there to help out of their own goodness. They must be having a lot of net negative
    • corndoge 1 hour ago
      Perhaps it was the experience of irc which led you to appreciate real life so much more when you finally did engage in it
  • goshx 55 minutes ago
    Most of the real life friends that I still have today I met on IRC.
  • lacunary 1 hour ago
    can't ride a netsplit to takeover and +m a huge channel IRL
    • boca_honey 9 minutes ago
      This made me feel so nostalgic. I haven’t heard the term "netsplit" in probably 25 years. It’s amazing how things that once seemed so important get relegated not just to history, but sometimes to total oblivion.

      Well, almost. Apparently, it has its own wikipedia article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netsplit

    • bigfatkitten 1 hour ago
      Or CTCP PING users with cheap modems with +++ATH0
    • _neil 1 hour ago
      damn right
  • ChrisArchitect 14 minutes ago
  • blondie9x 41 minutes ago
    This made me really nostalgic about mIRC. I miss Dalnet. The colors of IRC. How fast and reliable it was. The rankings of members and trying to build credibility with the community to move up in the channel.

    Fun times.

    • brandon272 28 minutes ago
      I had the same feeling and I had the same experience on DALnet.
  • ranger_danger 1 hour ago
    Missing "(2000)" in the title.