Andrew / November 9, 2007 12:55 AM

Suggested by Micah. Got a good question for Fuel? Email it to inbox@gapersblock.com.

The first website I ever visited? Does AOL count? If not, probably one from Ohio State, on a Mosaic browser my freshman year there.

First I visited with regularity was probably Suck.

David / November 9, 2007 1:24 AM

I don't know the first website I visited but my first online experience was on Prodigy. I remember occasionally heading out to the Internet to visit websites, but I don't believe they offered that service until 1994 or so.

Brian / November 9, 2007 1:25 AM

The year was 1992. The very first website was Middle Tennessee State University's website where I was a student, in the lynx text-mode browser from the university's dialup unix machines. Then I discovered if I go to the CS dept's labs, I could use Mosaic and see things graphically. 15 years later I'm still addicted to the web.

Dragonslayer / November 9, 2007 5:23 AM

I cannot recall the first site. I can remember surfing precursors to the web on Gopher and WAIS in college in the late 80s/early 90s.

My first real website was probably some academic site.

Brian / November 9, 2007 8:32 AM

Dragonslayer: Gopher and WAIS! Them was the days...

Jasmine / November 9, 2007 8:44 AM

I don't remember what websites I visited, but in 1995, as a freshman at NIU, I discovered chat rooms. I'm still waiting for "Bud Wiser" to show up with a bouquet of flowers...

pantagrapher / November 9, 2007 8:52 AM

It was called Death Pics 96. A guy I worked with at the college paper always checked it out at the office when it was late and we didn't have anything to do.

It was pretty disgusting.

jennifer / November 9, 2007 8:56 AM

the first website that I can remember going to? hotmail.com to set up my first email address. that address went defunct long ago, but my hotmail username is now my password for most online accounts.

oh, good ol' hotmail.

p / November 9, 2007 9:02 AM

aol i think. and i discovered an aol chatroom for w4w purposes. i would attempt to iniate conversations with ladies under the guise of being a lady. i was largely ignored. for some reason i thought lesbians loved licking things off one another, peanut butter in particular, so i would try to entice them with online declarations that i had pb all over myself. turns out this type of talk does not titillate the online community but rather exposes as you as the ill-informed 12yr. old dude that you are.

flange / November 9, 2007 9:12 AM

the first website I ever visited?

i can remember the first woman i made love with and the first time we made love.

i can remember the first beer i ever drank.

i can remember the first byline i got in a magazine i'd read and respected for years.

i can remember the apple pies and coffee cakes my mom baked on thanksgiving and the chocolate birthday cakes she made for all us kids the rest of the year.

and i'm supposed to make room for memories of a website? i guess i'm not the gen xer i ought to be.

p / November 9, 2007 9:16 AM

flange i pictured you standing on top of a mountain peak booming out that post in a moses voice with your shirt off. not hating- just letting you know. also i see you with a beard.

m / November 9, 2007 9:19 AM

i too was a prodigy user. i was probably about 10 at the time and so the only things that interested me were games. i think there was some game involving a house... and solving something.... i really cant remember anymore.

i remember the first website i started regularly visiting was some music-related (akin to pitchfork) site, but i cant for the life of me remember what it was called. i think its still running but i havent looked at it since high school. im sure i could be a little more vague, but my memory isnt what it used to be. i need some gingko biloba or something.

Curmudgeon / November 9, 2007 9:24 AM

It was nineteen-aught-nine. Those Wright boys had folks comin' to the intertubes to see "photographs" of their infernal flying contraption. Firstly, nothing wrong with daguerreotypes, and no need to use either to hoax the simpletons and rubes of these fine 46 states. But the intertubes ain't for playin' around. It had one use and one use only: www.ticker.com. This is America and America is about making money. If I can follow the stock market on one of these computing devices, then so be it. Ticker tape is expensive, confound it!

Mikey / November 9, 2007 9:24 AM

Can't remember the first actual website, but it all started for me with Prodigy in the early '90s...

And like many people, my early experiences consisted primarily of feckless attempts to use this newfound power to get laid.

Pete / November 9, 2007 9:29 AM

I'm sure there were others before it, but the first one I truly remember being devoted to was the old music site Addicted to Noise.

flange / November 9, 2007 9:44 AM

p, it was more sotto voce in a grimy, dark bar, on a stool only i can sit on, between tales of frisbees not given back to youngsters because, after all, it IS my lawn.

and who wants to admit it was probably in his early teens and nudity was probably involved. which provides a nice symmetry, 'cause last night that was the last kind of site i visited too.

didn't mean to be a bringdown. it just wasn't a landmark event in my life and it catches me with surprise, wonder and anxiety that it is for others.

carrie / November 9, 2007 9:56 AM

Hmm, me and a girlfriend used to go to chatrooms, but I have no idea how we got to them. I was in HS and the internet was just becoming something. A few years later in college, I remember going to joemac.com- yes Joe from new kids. There was something funny sneaky to me about looking him up 9 years after initially loving new kids.

pat Jurgaitis / November 9, 2007 10:21 AM

Hmm... I don't think I can remember the specific year I started surfing the web, let alone which site was my first. There were a handful of BBS sites I went to pre 94 or so. And wow... did I rack up a lot of long distance charges for those.

fluffy / November 9, 2007 10:25 AM

It had to have been some chatroom where my siblings and I tried to get a pervert's attention.
If anyone saw 'you,me, and everyone we know', the movie, you know what I mean.

kelly / November 9, 2007 10:30 AM

juno.com eamail.

then, xfiles.com

kate / November 9, 2007 10:47 AM

It, too, started with BBS with me. I never fully understood them or why they existed, but as soon as my brother showed me the "chat" and "messaging" functions, I was hooked.

After that we got AOL and I spent a lot of time in ye olde chat rooms. This is back when AOL charged you by the minute. Man, my brother and I got yelled at a lot that summer. I think it was 94. Spent a lot of time on geocities - perfecting my super rad PERSONAL WEBPAGE!!

Sam / November 9, 2007 10:53 AM

I think the first site I remember my older brother showing me was some necrophilia site, all text. But of course, that was after years of BBSs, MUDs, and newsgroups.

Stat Guy / November 9, 2007 11:14 AM

Espn.com baby!! Early-mid 90’s.

Ever since then I have been the stat guy of the group.

Quick stat:

The Kansas Jayhawks, traditionally a basketball powerhouse, have a football team that is 9-0 and play Oklahoma State on Saturday night.

The Jayhawks haven't opened a season 10-0 since 1899.

Val / November 9, 2007 11:25 AM

flange - Thank you.

Brandy / November 9, 2007 12:25 PM

Where: Grinnell College
When: Fall of 1992
I had a classmate who nearly got kicked out for being online 99% of the time. Didn't really know what that meant.

First time I saw the Interwebs, fall of '95, Spring '96. It was some portal page - I can't remember exactly.

Wow. I haven't thought of Suck.com in a looooong time.

Andrew / November 9, 2007 12:45 PM

Nobody said it should have been a landmark event. Just a curiosity, considering who ubiquitous the web is in many people's daily lives.

printdude / November 9, 2007 2:21 PM

I first visited BBS's in maybe '80, back when sysop was a familiar term.
and you had to call directly into them.
With a 900 baud modem.

When we got 2400Baud, I thought we were gods.

but my first place on the WWW?
Geez, I think it was the AOHell people finder.

Hal / November 9, 2007 2:23 PM

Hmm, I first got internet access at home with Netcom back in 94, I think, and probably used the Web before then. I think the first time saw it in use was through a text-based browser when a friend was showing me some stuff U of C had. The first site I remember using with any regularity was Yahoo. I was also participating in a LOT of Usenet comics-related groups. Feels like forever, though.

Mo / November 9, 2007 2:37 PM

I have no idea. My mom was a computer programmer back in those days, so we had a home computer pretty early on, though I can't remember when we first got internet connection.

What I do remember, though, is giving a speech in a high school speech class in 1995 (maybe 1996) about the death of letter writing, and I cited email as a possible reason for this. And a kid in class raised his hand and asked, "What's email?"

flange / November 9, 2007 2:47 PM

p, as long as you're picturing me shirtless anyway, maybe we should hoo... meet up. sorry, frog in my throat. i definitely said "meet."

val, you're invited too.

winediva / November 9, 2007 3:37 PM

I honestly can't remember either! But I remember the first websites I created passwords for were expedia.com and winespectator.com. Epicurious.com soon after that.

Jake / November 9, 2007 3:50 PM

Bianca's Smut Shack. Is that still around?

SR / November 9, 2007 4:40 PM

Don't quite remember the site, but it was definitely fall 1993... I remember being dragged to the USITE lab at Harper Library (uchicago) and waiting for my geekiest friend to show me something "cool" in mosaic. I remember the waiting (and really wanting to check my email in PINE) most of all.

Emerson Dameron / November 9, 2007 4:53 PM

My younger brother introduced me to Netscape in the summer of '95, during his summer camp visitation weekend. I looked up a few bands I liked. So I'm guessing it was a primitive fan site for Catherine Wheel. Maybe that's embarassing.

Jasmine / November 9, 2007 5:31 PM

http://www.uchicago.edu -- the default home page for the Mosaic browsers in my dorm's computer lab. Fall 1994.

Leah / November 10, 2007 12:43 PM

No idea what the first site was, but I was introduced through TelNet and the Indiana Education Boards where I spent time in the Poetry section and wrote daily in 1992.

Poems "The Angry Chair" and other angsty masterpieces.

frankie / November 10, 2007 3:40 PM

I dont remember the first website I visited, however, I do remember the 1st time I ever was online. My family setup a subscription to eWorld. Ha - anyone remember eWorld? It was Apple's attempt at creating an AOL and only lasted a few months, I believe. I think this was in 1994.

cory / November 10, 2007 7:21 PM

It was 1991. King Olaf V of Norway passed on, Canadians were getting their first look at the Red Greene Show, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers were giving it away.

And deep in his wife's office at UMass-Boston, a young corydalus was looking at the mysterious thing called the World Wide Web.

No idea what the first site I saw was, but by #3, I'd bet vulvas were involved.

armaghetto / November 10, 2007 11:33 PM

the first one i can remember was Bianca's Smut Shack in about 1995

David / November 11, 2007 2:00 AM

oh, this one's easy: netscape.com, the default start page of my physics teacher's mac, which at the time was the only net-capable computer i had access to, a power mac running system 7 with a screamingly fast 33.6k modem. as a class, however, we weren't all that impressed with the web, or with email-- we spent most of our time playing L.O.R.D., usually when we were supposed to be running experiments.

paul / November 11, 2007 11:20 AM

I too, can't remember, but it was probably one of the NCSA link pages (the original weblogs). Whatever it was, it was Mosiac goodness, grey background, 100% browser width text lines, and maybe an inline graphic that would take a lunch hour to load.

My first intro to the internet had been a few years before that with Gopher or WAIS. But when I saw the web (back then it was the Web) I knew it was going to change the world and I went out to buy domains like cars.com, diamond.com, business.com, but alas, my credit card was already maxed out by my by-the-hour Compuserve account.

LD / November 11, 2007 3:46 PM

I believe it was yahoo, in 1995. I was working for WHERE Chicago magazine and this young guy working at the front desk was showing me the world wide web!