I started lurking Reddit around 2010, actually got an account in 2012, to comment and upvote.

Before that, I was somewhat active from the mid to late 2000s in the MxTabs Forums (musician forum), Last.fm, and a brief stint at 4chan (never again).

Started at MxTabs in like middle school. They were having on/off problems with music industry assholes because we were "stealing sheet music." Around 05-06, Mx started having an exodus because of copyright issues, a couple DDOS attacks, a spam brigade attack and just people moving on to other places, so I started hanging out more on Last.fm. It was a fun and more relaxed community. Mx, while fun, was a bit more snobbish and took posting way more seriously than Reddit ever did.

By the time I reached college in 08-09, I hung out for a bit on 4chan. But it was too much, although I was there for the whole "New Users can't Triforce" thing (instead of users they said a homophobic slur). In which they coerced some kid into bricking his family's PC, to make an ascii art version of the Triforce from Zelda games. Basically like this:

 ∆

∆∆

(EDIT: Can't format it on Lemmy, despite the preview showing it)

Eventually made it to Reddit, from IRL friends talking about it a lot. At the time, Reddit was like 4chan lite. So the meme cycle started in 4chan, Tumblr or Reddit (mostly 4chan, though). Made it's way to 9gag, where it got more traction, because my girlfriend at the time would send me 9gag meme links, that I had already seen on Reddit. Then it'd move to Instagram, Twitter, sometimes Vine, get beaten over the head on Facebook and a hollowed-out version of it would finally die during late-night comedy skits and monologues.

I was on Reddit for a lot of fucked-up, weird, tragic and funny shit that went down there. Obama's AMA, the whole shit with Ellen Pao and banning r/fatpeoplehate, Woody Harelson's AMA, Wycleaf Jean's AMA (a similar but lesser talked-about AMA disaster), the whole Boston Bombers incident, Pizzagate, Aaron Swartz's passing. When the_donald started "as a joke" and then went full batshit, racist (it was always there festering under, until the egregiousness hit a critical mass). The fappening, all the gore subreddits that got banned, the first version of r/place, live broadcasts during COVID and all the insane amounts of misinformation. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the daily megathreads and now the whole fuck spez thing.

Granted forgetting a bunch more, but I was probably there for that. Left there as soon as I couldn't access through Apollo. Although, for years I used Alien Blue, then it started going to shit once Reddit got it and started forcing me to make an avatar and giving me free flair.

Now, I only lurk desktop on Firefox, just a couple communities, but a few of them are starting to pick up on Lemmy, so we'll see how this transition goes.

Damn, I just realized I've seen a lot of internet culture in this time. Like on man regaling on past tales, despite being 33.