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Memories of GEnie
Recently, someone made a passing reference to GEnie, the BBS that was a predecessor to the WWW. I signed on to GEnie around 1992, I think, in the days of dialup modems and connection charges based on time of day.
I remember the excitement of the discussions on the GEnie boards (especially the SFRT--the Science Fiction Round Table--and other genre-related RTs). People brainstormed, offered critiques, and generated ideas. The Wikipedia article lists some of the writers and editors who were active on GEnie until its eventual demise. Pretty impressive.
GEnie was text-based, which probably made it less fun for some folks when the WWW eventually emerged. But for the ASCII-oriented word-workers and fans who hung out there, it was welcoming.
The memory of that sense of community (not just in-groupiness, but what felt like genuine connection) and energetic creativity on the part of the members is something that's stuck with me to this day. I imagine those who participated in The Well in its heyday probably experienced something similar.
I spent so much time on GEnie and on other SF BBSs in those early years that I burned myself out, I think. I can't summon a lot of energy or enthusiasm for deep involvement in contemporary social media (except for Dreamwidth), although looking at other people's public postings on Tumblr can sometimes be fun.
According to the Wikipedia article, "In 1994, GEnie claimed around 350,000 users. Peak simultaneous usage was around 10,000 users." In 2023, I find those numbers hard to grok.
I remember the excitement of the discussions on the GEnie boards (especially the SFRT--the Science Fiction Round Table--and other genre-related RTs). People brainstormed, offered critiques, and generated ideas. The Wikipedia article lists some of the writers and editors who were active on GEnie until its eventual demise. Pretty impressive.
GEnie was text-based, which probably made it less fun for some folks when the WWW eventually emerged. But for the ASCII-oriented word-workers and fans who hung out there, it was welcoming.
The memory of that sense of community (not just in-groupiness, but what felt like genuine connection) and energetic creativity on the part of the members is something that's stuck with me to this day. I imagine those who participated in The Well in its heyday probably experienced something similar.
I spent so much time on GEnie and on other SF BBSs in those early years that I burned myself out, I think. I can't summon a lot of energy or enthusiasm for deep involvement in contemporary social media (except for Dreamwidth), although looking at other people's public postings on Tumblr can sometimes be fun.
According to the Wikipedia article, "In 1994, GEnie claimed around 350,000 users. Peak simultaneous usage was around 10,000 users." In 2023, I find those numbers hard to grok.