Memories of GEnie

[kathleen_dailey]

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.

Comments

[the_siobhan]

My first forays online with were with a local bulletin board, posting to Usenet. '92 sounds about right.

[kathleen_dailey]

Posting to Usenet--oh, yes. I think I first connected to Usenet through a local T.O. BBS called Proxima. I'd learned about Usenet at a Toronto Trek con when someone brought in a sheaf of printouts from one of the alt.startrek discussions about ST: TNG.

Talk about revelatory: when we leafed through all those pages (a Usenet thread printed on paper--the mind boggles), it seemed as if the future was conveyed whole and entire at that moment, and none of us ever looked back. (Until now, of course, when looking back is called "reminiscing.") :-)

[dewline]

For me, access to Usenet - as we remember it - came through National Capital FreeNet, and their dumb terminals in the various branches of the public libraries of the National Capital Region starting in 1992. NCF is still a going concern thirty or so years later, thankfully, and I'm still one of the co-owner-users of that system.

[kathleen_dailey]

I think I was signed up with the Toronto FreeNet for a while back in the early 1990s. IIRC, it wasn't just an ISP then--I seem to remember that it had a BBS function too. (I could be quite wrong about that--those days grow ever hazier in memory.)

It's very good to know that both the Ottawa and Toronto FreeNets still have a strong non-profit presence--and, as one might expect, social consciences. Good for you for remaining involved!