gURL 'hoods
June 19, 2016 6:13 PM Subscribe
"When I asked women to share their early Internet “safe spaces,” dozens responded to my inquiry talking about how Neopets, AOL chatrooms, fan fiction Tumblrs, X-Files LISTSERVs, LiveJournal communities and more introduced them to comfort on the Internet. Most of these sites were beloved exactly for that same dual sense of security and inclusion members loved — and when that sense was lost, from time or toxicity or something else, the woman who made them moved on to another new place." Julia Carpenter, for The Hairpin: "Sisterhood of the Traveling Safe Spaces: Where women gather online."
Oh man, raise your hand if you were an AOL Community Leader.
posted by bologna on wry at 6:55 PM on June 19, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by bologna on wry at 6:55 PM on June 19, 2016 [6 favorites]
In a similar vein, I really enjoyed this first-person piece on the safety and insularity of Cabin X , an X-Files community that the writer had joined as a teen and the members of which she tries to track down years later.
I love hearing stories from women who found a tightly-knit sense of community online, maybe even more so than they did in real-life spaces you could enter without any of the rituals of 90s digital kitsch like dial up modem beeps. I used to be very active on a fanforum for a queer TV show as a teen, and it's bizarre and wonderful to think that the internet allowed me to form intense, committed friendships with people whose faces I'd never see, and who lived many time zones away, but gave me my first taste of friendship, proper close friendship, the kind that comes from knowing someone really, really well and being there for them unreservedly. Part of me really misses that wholesale immersion in a community.
posted by Collaterly Sisters at 6:58 PM on June 19, 2016 [5 favorites]
I love hearing stories from women who found a tightly-knit sense of community online, maybe even more so than they did in real-life spaces you could enter without any of the rituals of 90s digital kitsch like dial up modem beeps. I used to be very active on a fanforum for a queer TV show as a teen, and it's bizarre and wonderful to think that the internet allowed me to form intense, committed friendships with people whose faces I'd never see, and who lived many time zones away, but gave me my first taste of friendship, proper close friendship, the kind that comes from knowing someone really, really well and being there for them unreservedly. Part of me really misses that wholesale immersion in a community.
posted by Collaterly Sisters at 6:58 PM on June 19, 2016 [5 favorites]
For me it was the message board for fans of Cameron Mackintosh's Bad Girl guides - her "Bad Girl's Guide to the Open Road" made me a road trip fan, and her work is pure 90s BUST MAGAZINE feminism-empowerment-meets-girly, so she had quite the following in the late 90s and early 00s. We also had our share of trolls, but seemed to quell them - I remember one time someone started in with us and for some reason we all started talking around him in the personae of jug band members, and he just sort of left after some confused minutes.
I also had a habit of randomly creating shrines by posting pictures of various deities and saying I was doing it to give myself some good juju, and people,would take hat and run with it.
The site is long gone, alas, and I dropped out when the drama got a little overwhelming and I got too old for it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:15 PM on June 19, 2016 [8 favorites]
I also had a habit of randomly creating shrines by posting pictures of various deities and saying I was doing it to give myself some good juju, and people,would take hat and run with it.
The site is long gone, alas, and I dropped out when the drama got a little overwhelming and I got too old for it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:15 PM on June 19, 2016 [8 favorites]
One hundred percent Pandy's . I owe my mental life to them and married someone from that board. I'm not in that stage of my life anymore but it impacts my life everyday.
posted by AlexiaSky at 7:27 PM on June 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by AlexiaSky at 7:27 PM on June 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
For me it was the Well, back when we were the young ones invading the private space of hackers and hippies online. I also have long-lasting friendships from that space, and because nothing is ever erased there unless you do it yourself, I could go back and look at years and years of me being embarrassing online, if I ever wanted to torture myself. If you have to grow up online, it was nice to do it in a secret walled garden like that, where almost nobody from the general public ever has to see your early dramas and errors.
posted by PolarSouth at 7:29 PM on June 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by PolarSouth at 7:29 PM on June 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
I entered the online world as a teen and I'm so so so glad it was all under pseudonym. I feel bad for kids who have all documented.
posted by AlexiaSky at 7:50 PM on June 19, 2016 [19 favorites]
posted by AlexiaSky at 7:50 PM on June 19, 2016 [19 favorites]
Mighty Big TV (or Dawson's Wrap or Television Without Pity, depending on your vintage). I never thought much about it at the time, but in retrospect, it was heavily dominated by women (both commenters and writers/mods) and really well moderated. As a teen, I loved that the thing that community valued the most was intelligence, humour, and writing ability, which was... very different to my high school experience at the time.
posted by retrograde at 8:02 PM on June 19, 2016 [17 favorites]
posted by retrograde at 8:02 PM on June 19, 2016 [17 favorites]
FandomWank!!! Totally woman/girl dominated. For a long time afterwards I assumed anyone I didn't know the gender of was female because that was a pretty good call, there.
posted by Deoridhe at 8:14 PM on June 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Deoridhe at 8:14 PM on June 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
For me that site was Coolsig Forum... I graduated to lurking Mefi at some point (it was during the Kaycee Nicole thing, how can that possibly have been 15 years ago?) and I drifted away, but it still breaks my heart a little that it's gone.
posted by beandip at 8:18 PM on June 19, 2016
posted by beandip at 8:18 PM on June 19, 2016
Pandys is unique in the fact it is still around, but it is focused on a very specific need for survivors of sexual assault to come together. Somewhere along the way it became a nonprofit.
posted by AlexiaSky at 8:26 PM on June 19, 2016
posted by AlexiaSky at 8:26 PM on June 19, 2016
Oh, my goodness, gURL.com. I was definitely on there and went into the chat rooms and met penpals and stuff. I didn't get deep into the community but I loved that site.
If you had asked me a month ago, I would have described the forums where I hung out in middle school as my "safe space." They certainly were safe compared to my real life in 2002. Most of my online life took place in these Zelda forums, and they were, I guess, mostly dominated by dudes. There were a few of us girls on there but my friendships with the guys tended to be much more intense. It was basically my entire social life, I had two or three friends in RL who were weird enough to make accounts and cross the streams occasionally, but I have often credited my online friendships with saving my life.
I googled some of my old online personas recently and came across one of those forums. There was a thread about "What's on your bed?!" and I had posted in it (zines, my purse, sketchbook, colored pencils, chapstick, etc) and some guy responded "I have all these pictures of [sunset in snow country] but they're stained, I need new ones". SERIOUSLY. And I just ignored it and kept posting in the thread because that was what cool girls did.
Maybe I never had an online safe space.
I had a LiveJournal. The Zelda dudes followed me there.
LiveJournal communities were probably the closest thing I had. The generic feminist ones were full of fighting, but oh man, it's coming back to me now... VaginaPagina (a sex ed community), the zine community I was in, and the Francesca Lia Block fan community were all amazing. I did holiday card swaps with the FLB girls, and we crowdsourced a cookbook based on all the foods mentioned in her books. So there was a lot of good that came from me being online as a teenager, but it's amazing to look back and realize all the harassment I put up with from the very beginning of my online life.
posted by sunset in snow country at 8:47 PM on June 19, 2016 [11 favorites]
If you had asked me a month ago, I would have described the forums where I hung out in middle school as my "safe space." They certainly were safe compared to my real life in 2002. Most of my online life took place in these Zelda forums, and they were, I guess, mostly dominated by dudes. There were a few of us girls on there but my friendships with the guys tended to be much more intense. It was basically my entire social life, I had two or three friends in RL who were weird enough to make accounts and cross the streams occasionally, but I have often credited my online friendships with saving my life.
I googled some of my old online personas recently and came across one of those forums. There was a thread about "What's on your bed?!" and I had posted in it (zines, my purse, sketchbook, colored pencils, chapstick, etc) and some guy responded "I have all these pictures of [sunset in snow country] but they're stained, I need new ones". SERIOUSLY. And I just ignored it and kept posting in the thread because that was what cool girls did.
Maybe I never had an online safe space.
I had a LiveJournal. The Zelda dudes followed me there.
LiveJournal communities were probably the closest thing I had. The generic feminist ones were full of fighting, but oh man, it's coming back to me now... VaginaPagina (a sex ed community), the zine community I was in, and the Francesca Lia Block fan community were all amazing. I did holiday card swaps with the FLB girls, and we crowdsourced a cookbook based on all the foods mentioned in her books. So there was a lot of good that came from me being online as a teenager, but it's amazing to look back and realize all the harassment I put up with from the very beginning of my online life.
posted by sunset in snow country at 8:47 PM on June 19, 2016 [11 favorites]
Any MBTV/TWOP folks also hang out in the Pamie.com forums when they were a thing? That was huge for me. Massive.
posted by padraigin at 9:20 PM on June 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by padraigin at 9:20 PM on June 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
Was anyone else here a member of The Womens Room> on ISCABBS? That was such a great community.
posted by SisterHavana at 9:47 PM on June 19, 2016
posted by SisterHavana at 9:47 PM on June 19, 2016
Mine was the Savage Garden fan club on the Sony BBS. I think they eventually changed the BBS somehow and everything splintered.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 10:12 PM on June 19, 2016
posted by the agents of KAOS at 10:12 PM on June 19, 2016
Any MBTV/TWOP folks also hang out in the Pamie.com forums when they were a thing? That was huge for me. Massive.
Me!
posted by CrazyLemonade at 10:14 PM on June 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
Me!
posted by CrazyLemonade at 10:14 PM on June 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
Oh man, the things I ran...the IRC chatrooms, the mailing lists, the archives, the Livejournal communities, and now just with a couple of Tumblrs.
I even did research on how fanfiction communities were a place where young women could explore their sexualities in a safe environment - by transposing their feelings onto a fictional character, they could figure out what they liked and what they didn't like and then when they were ready to take that next step, they had more control over what happened.
And while MBTV was a wonderful place, I mostly stayed on the Hissyfit forums, because it was a pain in the ass to keep up with the commentary when I wasn't able to watch the shows.
posted by Katemonkey at 1:14 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
I even did research on how fanfiction communities were a place where young women could explore their sexualities in a safe environment - by transposing their feelings onto a fictional character, they could figure out what they liked and what they didn't like and then when they were ready to take that next step, they had more control over what happened.
And while MBTV was a wonderful place, I mostly stayed on the Hissyfit forums, because it was a pain in the ass to keep up with the commentary when I wasn't able to watch the shows.
posted by Katemonkey at 1:14 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
grep SailorMoon * for me and many others. Not just women – quite a few LGBTQ too. Eighteen years(!!!) later there are still about twenty of us in regular touch.
I felt very, very lonely on the early web before grep sailormoon. Started out in the days of Prodigy message boards in the 1990s, very quickly learned to pass myself off as a guy (I was 14). Wrote my own IRC client a few years later in large part so I could filter abusive sexist shit; I remember sharing my filters with a few rare women I crossed. We'd set up private channels and the like; I still remember my friendship with a young woman in California who went by the nick Wyrd. (If ever that was you and you remember chatting with an oakley, that was me, feel free to get in touch. Yeah, I chose a non-gendered nick on purpose; I'd sound out people, ping and finger them before answering the a/s/l thang.)
Y'know that meme about the only women on the early web being men pretenders? Yeah, it was the opposite. We women very often pretended to be men. I've told the story before, but at one point I had to go to the fucking asshole grad student sysadmin of our university to fucking prove to him that I was an actual fucking woman so he would fucking unlock my account. My university account that I used for school.
Anyway. Another safe space was our School of Music lab, in fact. We had to have powerful Macs to run music composition software, and we'd also fiddle with the web. Again, it was an LGBTQ-inclusive space. I'll always be grateful for it, those experimentations and friendships laid the foundations for my career.
posted by fraula at 1:35 AM on June 20, 2016 [10 favorites]
I felt very, very lonely on the early web before grep sailormoon. Started out in the days of Prodigy message boards in the 1990s, very quickly learned to pass myself off as a guy (I was 14). Wrote my own IRC client a few years later in large part so I could filter abusive sexist shit; I remember sharing my filters with a few rare women I crossed. We'd set up private channels and the like; I still remember my friendship with a young woman in California who went by the nick Wyrd. (If ever that was you and you remember chatting with an oakley, that was me, feel free to get in touch. Yeah, I chose a non-gendered nick on purpose; I'd sound out people, ping and finger them before answering the a/s/l thang.)
Y'know that meme about the only women on the early web being men pretenders? Yeah, it was the opposite. We women very often pretended to be men. I've told the story before, but at one point I had to go to the fucking asshole grad student sysadmin of our university to fucking prove to him that I was an actual fucking woman so he would fucking unlock my account. My university account that I used for school.
Anyway. Another safe space was our School of Music lab, in fact. We had to have powerful Macs to run music composition software, and we'd also fiddle with the web. Again, it was an LGBTQ-inclusive space. I'll always be grateful for it, those experimentations and friendships laid the foundations for my career.
posted by fraula at 1:35 AM on June 20, 2016 [10 favorites]
Ms. Magazine bulletin boards anyone? In retrospect they were pretty formative for me, and I still can taste the sadness from when they were shut down. Also later LJ Stargate & feminist communities. Now, it's basically all metafilter.
posted by Salamandrous at 1:41 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Salamandrous at 1:41 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
3WA! Up until it became The Simplest, which was around the time I drifted away from it.
posted by joannemerriam at 5:46 AM on June 20, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by joannemerriam at 5:46 AM on June 20, 2016 [6 favorites]
Yes to Pamie.com! But my very first internet safe space was a U2 board on Prodigy, U2Z. The only people who ever posted there were me and like four other teenage to college age girls who for many years were my closest friends. We were even pen pals in the sending physical letters sense, some of which I still have over twenty years later. I miss those girls. I really, really miss U2Z.
posted by palomar at 6:07 AM on June 20, 2016
posted by palomar at 6:07 AM on June 20, 2016
3WA as well! Man. I miss that place too.
posted by palomar at 6:08 AM on June 20, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by palomar at 6:08 AM on June 20, 2016 [5 favorites]
Middle 90's Highlander and Sentinel email mailing lists back when Sandra was mostly running them. Back before Onelist. And then the Subreality site/IRC channels in the comic book fandom. There were guys, but way in the minority.
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 6:09 AM on June 20, 2016
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 6:09 AM on June 20, 2016
mine were tori amos fan boards, and then a mailing list especially for rape/abuse/etc survivors. i also spent a lot of co-ed time in the park chatrooms, especially the philosophy room. i always wonder if anyone hanging around here used to be in the philo room...
posted by nadawi at 6:19 AM on June 20, 2016
posted by nadawi at 6:19 AM on June 20, 2016
Mailing lists! Some of which date back to the late 1980's.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:33 AM on June 20, 2016
posted by rmd1023 at 6:33 AM on June 20, 2016
so many memories! I spent a lot of time on the Misty list, for Mercedes Lackey fans, and sort of simultaneously graduated to LJ and MBTV/TWOP. I'm still Facebook friends with someone I meet on LJ in Lord of the Rings and fandom, and I made a real life girlfriend at one point.
I definitely remember the Pamie forums, and I spent a huge part of my life on Tomato Nation (RIP Hobey, how has it been so long???) TWOP really influenced my writing and humor voice; I remember writing a vicious takedown of standardized testing for a high school English class that the instructor could barely get through, he was laughing so hard. And I was sort of nonplussed, because this was stuff I was reading every day, and much more skillfully done.
Man. So many memories, and so much a part of who I am now.
posted by kalimac at 6:34 AM on June 20, 2016 [7 favorites]
I definitely remember the Pamie forums, and I spent a huge part of my life on Tomato Nation (RIP Hobey, how has it been so long???) TWOP really influenced my writing and humor voice; I remember writing a vicious takedown of standardized testing for a high school English class that the instructor could barely get through, he was laughing so hard. And I was sort of nonplussed, because this was stuff I was reading every day, and much more skillfully done.
Man. So many memories, and so much a part of who I am now.
posted by kalimac at 6:34 AM on June 20, 2016 [7 favorites]
My adolescence would have been a lot rougher without salon.com's Table Talk boards; when they went pay, I migrated to Worldcrossing with everyone else. The Buffy threads I spent most of my time in eventually set up their own site, which is still active to this day. I haven't posted there in years, though.
I'm FB friends with a lot of the people from there, but after a while the space that was so vital and welcoming when I was twelve stopped fitting quite right. Which is okay: I'm not the same person I was then, and I'm also not the same person I would have been without that space.
posted by nonasuch at 7:29 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm FB friends with a lot of the people from there, but after a while the space that was so vital and welcoming when I was twelve stopped fitting quite right. Which is okay: I'm not the same person I was then, and I'm also not the same person I would have been without that space.
posted by nonasuch at 7:29 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
Tomato Nation!!!!
Oh man. Today's going to be an extreme nostalgia day.
posted by palomar at 7:31 AM on June 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
Oh man. Today's going to be an extreme nostalgia day.
posted by palomar at 7:31 AM on June 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
HISSYFIT oh man that was the best. I hung out on Pamie, and MBTV and TWOP too for a while, but then kind of moved on from that group. They were like the cool girls I wanted to be.
I see similar things at the Toast and other blogs, in the comment sections. I'm sure there are other spaces I'm just not in.
I think what's happened to me at least is that I've taken that intense online friendship thing as far as it can go, and started seeking out real-life women to be friends with instead. And that is much harder and slower, but much more lasting when you can do it.
Also there was a kind of competitiveness there that comes with youth I think, where you felt the need to one-up each other and be the Most Witty and it gets tiring after a while.
posted by emjaybee at 7:31 AM on June 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
I see similar things at the Toast and other blogs, in the comment sections. I'm sure there are other spaces I'm just not in.
I think what's happened to me at least is that I've taken that intense online friendship thing as far as it can go, and started seeking out real-life women to be friends with instead. And that is much harder and slower, but much more lasting when you can do it.
Also there was a kind of competitiveness there that comes with youth I think, where you felt the need to one-up each other and be the Most Witty and it gets tiring after a while.
posted by emjaybee at 7:31 AM on June 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
Neopets! I had forgotten about that. Loved it.
posted by agregoli at 7:39 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by agregoli at 7:39 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
I was never that fannish myself, but I loved some of the fannish corners of LJ for the smart and funny women getting to be themselves. LJ helped me form female friendships and absorb smart feminism in ways that shaped my thinking to this day - plus, many of those friendships have eased on to IRL, which has been awesome.
posted by ldthomps at 7:48 AM on June 20, 2016
posted by ldthomps at 7:48 AM on June 20, 2016
For me, TITM (a Crowded House/Split Enz/all things Finn) was a real safe space and I met some really good people there. But LJ was the real deal for me. I still have a core of friends I first met on LJ in various fan fora and reading groups - and I met Mr Bookish on LJ too.
I miss LJ circa 2001.
posted by kariebookish at 7:56 AM on June 20, 2016 [4 favorites]
I miss LJ circa 2001.
posted by kariebookish at 7:56 AM on June 20, 2016 [4 favorites]
oh! and diaryland, geocities, angelfire, tripod. all incredibly important communities to me throughout my young life.
posted by nadawi at 8:06 AM on June 20, 2016
posted by nadawi at 8:06 AM on June 20, 2016
soc.motss for GLBT issues from 1985 til about 2000 or so?
sappho mailing list also for lesbian issues
systers mailing list (current) for women in tech
posted by elmay at 9:00 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
sappho mailing list also for lesbian issues
systers mailing list (current) for women in tech
posted by elmay at 9:00 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
I read TWOP, Pamie, and a lot of the Damn Hell Ass Kings sites, but I didn't post much on forums. I was on LiveJournal, mostly to keep up with a group of friends I made posting on the Fametracker forums about Lord of the Rings.
We got kicked off of Fametracker for squeeing too much about the hotness of the LOTR guys and a couple of them started a new BBS just for us, then we all migrated over to LJ. Now almost all of us are in a secret group on Facebook.
I can't believe that was 15 years ago now.
posted by apricot at 9:00 AM on June 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
We got kicked off of Fametracker for squeeing too much about the hotness of the LOTR guys and a couple of them started a new BBS just for us, then we all migrated over to LJ. Now almost all of us are in a secret group on Facebook.
I can't believe that was 15 years ago now.
posted by apricot at 9:00 AM on June 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
I was on various X-Files fandoms (I even moderated a Usenet group for it!) but I'm of a slightly older generation, so my formative experiences were actually MUDs and MUSHes, particularly various PernMushes and AmberMush. They weren't female-only by any means, but at a time where structural access to the Internet was male-dominated (tech companies, CS students, etc), they were balanced to female-dominated.
Of which one side benefit was that you could meet up with people in real life with a lot more confidence. I'd had quite enough in middle school through college of being the only one, or one of only a few, women in my various geek circles. It was pretty amazing to find so many women I could bond with in the same way, and I can sincerely say it changed my life. I wouldn't live where I live or do the work I do without it.
posted by tavella at 9:04 AM on June 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
Of which one side benefit was that you could meet up with people in real life with a lot more confidence. I'd had quite enough in middle school through college of being the only one, or one of only a few, women in my various geek circles. It was pretty amazing to find so many women I could bond with in the same way, and I can sincerely say it changed my life. I wouldn't live where I live or do the work I do without it.
posted by tavella at 9:04 AM on June 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
Now that I have RTFA, I have more to say. Heh.
The women-only spaces I'm in now are mostly mom groups on Facebook, which is an interesting subset, I think, of this kind of online space.
posted by apricot at 9:05 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
The women-only spaces I'm in now are mostly mom groups on Facebook, which is an interesting subset, I think, of this kind of online space.
posted by apricot at 9:05 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
3WA, definitely. The early days were amazing, since it was like a giant party full of people I mostly knew or at Ieast knew of, through online journaling (NOT blogging, nope, that was for Diaryland sellouts, heh).
I remember when the Hissyfit refugees arrived en masse, and while I stuck around for a little while after that, it felt less safe because there were so many new people at once and the overall tone of the place kind of changed. I drifted off to a smaller breakaway forum (where I still check in at least daily, and continues to be my safest online space), and not long after that tripped and fell over fandom, ending up in the LiveJournal space for a while.
Oh, the nostalgia.
posted by Superplin at 9:29 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
I remember when the Hissyfit refugees arrived en masse, and while I stuck around for a little while after that, it felt less safe because there were so many new people at once and the overall tone of the place kind of changed. I drifted off to a smaller breakaway forum (where I still check in at least daily, and continues to be my safest online space), and not long after that tripped and fell over fandom, ending up in the LiveJournal space for a while.
Oh, the nostalgia.
posted by Superplin at 9:29 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
lol wut, diaryland folks didn't call what we did blogging, it was very much online journaling. i still have a wav of the theme song.
posted by nadawi at 9:34 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by nadawi at 9:34 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
Nadawi, I meant that "blogging" was a disparaging term we old-skool OLJ folks used for people who used those automated sites when they came along, even when they weren't technically blogs. The terminology was part of the turf delineation.
It's kind of like how Mefi's own John Scalzi refused for years to call his site a journal, even though he was on Diary-L and went to Journalcon and all that jazz.
posted by Superplin at 9:46 AM on June 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's kind of like how Mefi's own John Scalzi refused for years to call his site a journal, even though he was on Diary-L and went to Journalcon and all that jazz.
posted by Superplin at 9:46 AM on June 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
oh yeah, i'm just saying internally at diaryland we never described what we were doing as blogging, those were other people with their own sites where they were trying to talk to a wide audience instead of journaling in the open.
posted by nadawi at 9:58 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by nadawi at 9:58 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
Back in the olden daze I was big into "web design" on the assorted free webspace sites, but I didn't have a checking account or means to purchase a domain name (plus, my parents would definitely had said no had I asked them whether I could buy my own dot com). So I connected with other girls who had their own domain names and after a few messages one girl agreed to host my blogjournal under her banner and shared server space. I had a subdomain, an email address and everything.
Then, when I got that means to purchase a domain name and hosting, I did the same thing for other girls. It was truly a mentor-mentee situation, except everyone was around the same age (preteens and teens). Eventually a hostee would move on to their own webspace, and we'd keep in touch by exchanging little button gifs and linking to each other on our respective journals and fansites. This definitely happened post-webrings, but we kept it going in spirit!
Camgirls, too, developed beautiful and creative vanity sites. In retrospect it was definitely a problem that girls were being targeted by adult men but I know more than one successful tech career that flourished from that scene.
I'm a senior-level web developer now. If it weren't for girl spaces online, I wouldn't be where I am today.
Anyone here remember Nova Boards?
posted by theraflu at 10:05 AM on June 20, 2016 [10 favorites]
Then, when I got that means to purchase a domain name and hosting, I did the same thing for other girls. It was truly a mentor-mentee situation, except everyone was around the same age (preteens and teens). Eventually a hostee would move on to their own webspace, and we'd keep in touch by exchanging little button gifs and linking to each other on our respective journals and fansites. This definitely happened post-webrings, but we kept it going in spirit!
Camgirls, too, developed beautiful and creative vanity sites. In retrospect it was definitely a problem that girls were being targeted by adult men but I know more than one successful tech career that flourished from that scene.
I'm a senior-level web developer now. If it weren't for girl spaces online, I wouldn't be where I am today.
Anyone here remember Nova Boards?
posted by theraflu at 10:05 AM on June 20, 2016 [10 favorites]
@SisterHavana: TWR member right here!
posted by Autumnheart at 10:31 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Autumnheart at 10:31 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
I know several of us here are alums (or maybe still active) on ADL, a feminist forum spin-off from a wedding planning site. Interesting how topics perceived to be girls-only, that no guys want to be a part of, like wedding planning or certain fandoms, get turned into places of shared power and support and strength.
posted by gingerbeer at 10:43 AM on June 20, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by gingerbeer at 10:43 AM on June 20, 2016 [5 favorites]
Chainsaw Records message board was such a space for queer punks. Archived thread from 1998 on what will be considered 90s in the future.
posted by larrybob at 10:48 AM on June 20, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by larrybob at 10:48 AM on June 20, 2016 [8 favorites]
Larrybob, that thread is a thing of beauty.
posted by Superplin at 11:03 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Superplin at 11:03 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
All my majority-female "safe spaces" in fandom tended to end with women being totally awful to each other, and going to closed systems that I was never sufficiently in with the in crowd to enter.
posted by Electric Elf at 12:28 PM on June 20, 2016
posted by Electric Elf at 12:28 PM on June 20, 2016
I started in USENET with alt.folklore.urban and alt.music.nin, flowed through the Hissyfit and Pamie forums where I made extremely close local friends too, bopped around a number of Hissyfit/OLJ-intersectional spaces, spent many years on a board that wasn't technically private but wasn't easy to find and so generally unaffected by most of the high-level forms of destruction. There's half a dozen (possibly more, with usernames I don't recognize) people here on Metafilter I've known through all those spaces since before or around 2000.
These days it's a couple of secret Facebook groups, which are the worst for a format that encourages ongoing discussion, and they tend to operate on a "friends of friends" model which means a) there's constant waves of newbies re-covering old ground because the format is so crap, b) some people have garbage friends and aren't embarrassed or judicious enough, c) some of those people think standard FB etiquette is okay, and d) these spaces are reliant on volunteer moderation and so you can only have so many standards.
Or it's fucking Slack. Nothing against Slack for certain applications, but it's a gussied-up IRC server continually hobbled by goldfish-memory, not a discussion forum.
I really miss a good bulletin board but I know from experience they are hard as fuck to run, keep bug-free and updated, and still has the same moderation issues as any other environment.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:24 PM on June 20, 2016 [6 favorites]
These days it's a couple of secret Facebook groups, which are the worst for a format that encourages ongoing discussion, and they tend to operate on a "friends of friends" model which means a) there's constant waves of newbies re-covering old ground because the format is so crap, b) some people have garbage friends and aren't embarrassed or judicious enough, c) some of those people think standard FB etiquette is okay, and d) these spaces are reliant on volunteer moderation and so you can only have so many standards.
Or it's fucking Slack. Nothing against Slack for certain applications, but it's a gussied-up IRC server continually hobbled by goldfish-memory, not a discussion forum.
I really miss a good bulletin board but I know from experience they are hard as fuck to run, keep bug-free and updated, and still has the same moderation issues as any other environment.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:24 PM on June 20, 2016 [6 favorites]
i remember a lot of mefites from fandom wank, you wankers all know who you are.
posted by poffin boffin at 2:29 PM on June 20, 2016
posted by poffin boffin at 2:29 PM on June 20, 2016
Wow, this is such a huge part of my life that I can't really believe that I haven't seen more articles on it. I joined getcrafty on 4/20/2000 and have formed lasting, deep respectful relationships with about 10+ of them. We know everything about each other.
posted by Duffington at 4:12 PM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Duffington at 4:12 PM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
For me, the Internet groups as a teen were a space were I could be recognized and validated.
My real life was full if middle school immaturity, but I was dealing with very real abuse being codified as other things. I got much needed support and respite (the women who litterally look me in for summers at a time) and got a foundation in the world is not my fault.
The relationships impacted me in ways I can't describe because growing up how I did with who I did didn't leave room for someone-like-me(tm) who was way to old and hurt to be one of the teens but way to inexperienced and helpless to be an adult. They taught me life lessons, reminded me to keep fighting and promised me that some of the bullshit would end. And it eventually did.
I had some blind faith, but I had a group of people willing to listen, support and care 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I was 16 years deprived and I found safe women. I know as an adult, (and though much therapy)this could have gone very differently.
As I said, I eventually married someone from a forum. It wasn't expected but it happened anyway, after 7 or 8 years of membership.
The Internet is such an amazing place.
posted by AlexiaSky at 4:55 PM on June 20, 2016 [4 favorites]
My real life was full if middle school immaturity, but I was dealing with very real abuse being codified as other things. I got much needed support and respite (the women who litterally look me in for summers at a time) and got a foundation in the world is not my fault.
The relationships impacted me in ways I can't describe because growing up how I did with who I did didn't leave room for someone-like-me(tm) who was way to old and hurt to be one of the teens but way to inexperienced and helpless to be an adult. They taught me life lessons, reminded me to keep fighting and promised me that some of the bullshit would end. And it eventually did.
I had some blind faith, but I had a group of people willing to listen, support and care 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I was 16 years deprived and I found safe women. I know as an adult, (and though much therapy)this could have gone very differently.
As I said, I eventually married someone from a forum. It wasn't expected but it happened anyway, after 7 or 8 years of membership.
The Internet is such an amazing place.
posted by AlexiaSky at 4:55 PM on June 20, 2016 [4 favorites]
Moderating boards on TWOP was some of the more intense and unpleasant emotional labor I've done, but reading everyone's fond memories of MBTV/TWOP makes me very happy.
posted by sobell at 7:45 PM on June 20, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by sobell at 7:45 PM on June 20, 2016 [5 favorites]
I also miss 3WA. Metafilter seems to be the last place left for non-Facebook-social-media discussion. And here's a bit big for the same kind of intimacy that 3WA had.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:12 PM on June 20, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:12 PM on June 20, 2016 [4 favorites]
I love seeing how many people I knew from 3WA are posting here.
posted by Superplin at 9:37 PM on June 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Superplin at 9:37 PM on June 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
I still get pangs for Hissyfit! I loved that it wasn't fandom or popcult based. Topics were as varied as those on the front pages of the blue & green. After it folded I skulked around the usual places: 3WA, MATH+1, DigsBoard, TWOP, but those boards never seemed as wide-ranging and conversations didn't move as quickly. Hot topics on Hissyfit would accumulate posts (thoughtful ones!) as fast as you could refresh the page.
Sigh. Miss it all the time, and in fact got a little thrill from seeing Sobell post above! Pretty sure I started using eye cream on her advice, and set up my filofax (!!) with a little pocket for stamps, just like she said to.
posted by apparently at 4:39 AM on June 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
Sigh. Miss it all the time, and in fact got a little thrill from seeing Sobell post above! Pretty sure I started using eye cream on her advice, and set up my filofax (!!) with a little pocket for stamps, just like she said to.
posted by apparently at 4:39 AM on June 21, 2016 [2 favorites]
Back in the olden daze I was big into "web design" on the assorted free webspace sites, but I didn't have a checking account or means to purchase a domain name (plus, my parents would definitely had said no had I asked them whether I could buy my own dot com). So I connected with other girls who had their own domain names and after a few messages one girl agreed to host my blogjournal under her banner and shared server space. I had a subdomain, an email address and everything.
Then, when I got that means to purchase a domain name and hosting, I did the same thing for other girls. It was truly a mentor-mentee situation, except everyone was around the same age (preteens and teens). Eventually a hostee would move on to their own webspace, and we'd keep in touch by exchanging little button gifs and linking to each other on our respective journals and fansites. This definitely happened post-webrings, but we kept it going in spirit!
This describes my pre-teen/early teen experience on the internet exactly. We'd spend 99% of our time designing websites, and then a token 1% creating content (poetry, or sketches of something or other if we had access to a scanner or something) to justify the existence of the website. Don't forget to screenshot the whole thing so you can add it to your gallery of former versions of your website!
I lost contact with almost everyone from those days but connected over Facebook with my closest friend (and once-host) a few years ago and take some pleasure in seeing that her life has turned out well.
Is there even a word for that community (which felt really insular and I probably could recognize any of dozens if not hundreds of similar domains at the time) and does it still exist in any form today? At the time I remember we called it "teen domains," which is obviously meaningless.
posted by telegraph at 9:13 AM on June 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
Then, when I got that means to purchase a domain name and hosting, I did the same thing for other girls. It was truly a mentor-mentee situation, except everyone was around the same age (preteens and teens). Eventually a hostee would move on to their own webspace, and we'd keep in touch by exchanging little button gifs and linking to each other on our respective journals and fansites. This definitely happened post-webrings, but we kept it going in spirit!
This describes my pre-teen/early teen experience on the internet exactly. We'd spend 99% of our time designing websites, and then a token 1% creating content (poetry, or sketches of something or other if we had access to a scanner or something) to justify the existence of the website. Don't forget to screenshot the whole thing so you can add it to your gallery of former versions of your website!
I lost contact with almost everyone from those days but connected over Facebook with my closest friend (and once-host) a few years ago and take some pleasure in seeing that her life has turned out well.
Is there even a word for that community (which felt really insular and I probably could recognize any of dozens if not hundreds of similar domains at the time) and does it still exist in any form today? At the time I remember we called it "teen domains," which is obviously meaningless.
posted by telegraph at 9:13 AM on June 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm amused to see how many 3wa folks are here who I have no idea who they are - presumably you all are under different pseudonyms, whereas I've always stupidly and uncreatively used my real name. I bet I am Facebook friends with at least half of you.
And if I'm not, I should be. I miss the community there. Fun fact: I met my husband on 3WA, and we got married on the same day (but ten years before) the Supreme Court marriage equality decision.
posted by joannemerriam at 11:36 AM on June 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
And if I'm not, I should be. I miss the community there. Fun fact: I met my husband on 3WA, and we got married on the same day (but ten years before) the Supreme Court marriage equality decision.
posted by joannemerriam at 11:36 AM on June 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
Shoutout to MoFi, my happy place for years, and the wonderful (MeFi's Own) tracicle. Among other things, it was the place where I first learned to vote #1 quidnunc kid.
Before that there was the Xena: Warrior Princess Netforum, which I joined in the late '90s in order to have the online-community experience. There were trolls, but there were also a hell of a lot of intelligent, strong, thoughtful women. I, and my life, are better for having known them.
posted by Pallas Athena at 3:38 PM on June 21, 2016
Before that there was the Xena: Warrior Princess Netforum, which I joined in the late '90s in order to have the online-community experience. There were trolls, but there were also a hell of a lot of intelligent, strong, thoughtful women. I, and my life, are better for having known them.
posted by Pallas Athena at 3:38 PM on June 21, 2016
I was on a listserv for female comic books fans in the late 90's, and we ended up forming an online magazine about comics. It was awesome. I miss that group and am still friends with a few people from that era.
I was active on LJ for years, but was never really a part of a women only group. Now I'm part of a secret, women's only group on FB (thanks in part to friends from the LJ days), and it is FANTASTIC. I also know an amazing group of women who support and cheer each other on on Twitter, but it is anything but a closed group.
I'm very lucky to have the strong female friendships I do now. I wish I had had these in my 20's.
posted by bibliogrrl at 7:46 AM on June 23, 2016
I was active on LJ for years, but was never really a part of a women only group. Now I'm part of a secret, women's only group on FB (thanks in part to friends from the LJ days), and it is FANTASTIC. I also know an amazing group of women who support and cheer each other on on Twitter, but it is anything but a closed group.
I'm very lucky to have the strong female friendships I do now. I wish I had had these in my 20's.
posted by bibliogrrl at 7:46 AM on June 23, 2016
I can't remember the name of it now, but there was a cats club I adored once upon a time. We all pretended to be cats. It was great.
Recently, a safeish space was lost on reddit when the largest female-oriented sub, twoxchromosomes, became a default sub. Granted, it wasn't that safe to begin with (and has quite the untransfriendly name), but it was one of the few relative oases on a generally misogynistic site.
Last I checked, it sucks.
posted by Baethan at 8:35 AM on June 23, 2016
Recently, a safeish space was lost on reddit when the largest female-oriented sub, twoxchromosomes, became a default sub. Granted, it wasn't that safe to begin with (and has quite the untransfriendly name), but it was one of the few relative oases on a generally misogynistic site.
Last I checked, it sucks.
posted by Baethan at 8:35 AM on June 23, 2016
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
We basically all decamped to LJ for a while, which was great in some ways, but wasn't nearly as open - of course, that protected us from the trolls, but also meant the community didn't really grow at all. And now we're all on Facebook and there's a private FB group but honestly, I miss the old message board.
But at the same time, I identify with what the writer talks about in terms of not needing the group anymore. In my early twenties it was so amazing to have this secret society of women to confide in and ask questions from, but we've all grown up and I don't really have the inclination to spend hours in an online community anymore. Luckily I still have ties to a lot of these women though - I think we're so lucky and it really speaks to the strength and specialness of this community that so many of us have stayed in touch and are still friends.
posted by lunasol at 6:27 PM on June 19, 2016 [16 favorites]