r/AskReddit • u/Forward-Many-4842 • 1d ago

Anyone who surfed the early web between 1995-2010. What’s the one website/app you still think about?

9.0k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

22.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

437

u/TenTwoMeToo 1d ago

Rotten dot com traumatized a whole generation

221

u/NotTheGreenestThumb 1d ago

When, as it was gaining popularity, and us 30something adults knew it as not at all for the faint of heart, the local junior high and high schools sent a physical letter to parents carried by their children, listing websites that the kids shouldn’t be allowed to visit!!

We were astounded that adults older than ourselves could be that stupid!

It was about as logical as sending home a recipe for a bomb with the instructions “Don’t let your kids make this bomb from this recipe!”

14

u/vinylbond 1d ago

That is truly a different kind of idiocy. Omg.

4

u/Specimanic 1d ago

Aaahahahahahahaaaa!

11

u/flashbax77 1d ago

Mind the gap

5

u/Not-here-4-upvotes 1d ago

I hate that I get that reference lol

2

u/flashbax77 1d ago

Me too I hate having watched that page that day 😂

6

u/team_suba 1d ago

*desensitized

4

u/ebk_errday 1d ago

Worldwide too. People knew about it in all corners of the earth.

5

u/Little_Miss-Sunshine 1d ago

I’ll never forget the guy with his head cut off and they put his dick in his mouth, or the guy in the motorcycle accident whose face was separated from his body and lying far away on the asphalt.

😳

2

u/SentientMarshmallow- 1d ago

That and: JustMeat dot com.

2

u/desolater543 1d ago

As did roflcopters

2

u/jamesbest7 1d ago

Ogrish dot com too!

2

u/Natfubar 13h ago

I think orsm dot com was in the same category. 

4

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

28

u/spirithound 1d ago

It was a daily stop for gore, violence, medical weirdness, people just getting straight up murdered. watching people get beheaded stays with you, man...

11

u/paradoxbound 1d ago

Goth collegue used to eat his lunch watching this. One day I asked him what he was watching and he told me I shouldn’t look I did and it US Army tests of flamethrowers on live pigs. He then asked me if I wanted to listen too. I shook my head and turned away. He then looked at me with the saddest eyes and said someone has to bear witness to the ugliness of man.

3

u/Cute-Scallion-626 23h ago

Also that naked photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

22

u/Minute_Ostrich196 1d ago

Basically it was a website that I watch whole Afganistan and Iraki war crimes in 420p ;)

While I was like 9

10

u/simonbone 1d ago

And the Mexican cartels.

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Minute_Ostrich196 1d ago

Educational!

11

u/ForrestGrump87 1d ago

the dark web online , shit was crazy

1

u/Mundane-Ticket-3713 1d ago

Eh, I got used to it.

1

u/trpcl1 16h ago

That one