Ye Olde Unintentionally Hilarious Argus Article

internet96By most accounts, 1996 wasn’t all that long ago. Most of us were in elementary school. Chances are you have some memories from the year, albeit hazy ones. Wesleyan was more or less the same institution it is now, even if buildings and faces were different.

Yet there’s one area in which 1996 seems completely—and hilariously—prehistoric: the internet. That’s why I’m thrilled to present this YOUHAA (pronounced “you-ha!”) from a generation past,  in which wide-eyed students ponder the boundless possibilities of the World Wide Web, from procrastination (“When I don’t want to do my schoolwork, I enter the web and change my papers from English to the Swedish Chef language”) to [gasp!] “X-rated photos.” Oh, innocence.

Learn about Lev Kushner ‘98, who “uses the Web for its games and to listen to Bluegrass banjo music”! (Hopefully he has since discovered more uses for it.) And bask in journalist Meredith Orren’s hilariously understated prediction that “the Internet is here to stay.”

Read the whole thing here: “Internet Continues to Be Source of Pleasure for All” (April, 1996)

This entry was written by Zach, posted on November 10, 2009 at 2:17 AM, filed under History, Internet, Random and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

9 Comments

  1. stdnt
    Posted November 10, 2009 at 5:18 AM | Permalink

    “doing email”
    hahahaha
    OH, 1996! SO ARCHAIC

  2. Mike K
    Posted November 10, 2009 at 12:10 PM | Permalink

    This unintentionally made my day.

  3. Abe Greenwald
    Posted November 10, 2009 at 2:35 PM | Permalink

    I happen to know Ms. Orren and she is hilarious, but I assure you, it is always quite intentional. You crazy kids with your “weblogs”. If you only knew that the method of instant messaging students at other colleges back in 1996 was to “finger” them.

  4. Mad
    Posted November 10, 2009 at 4:25 PM | Permalink

    Hey Abe, the more nerdy among us still may use that on our dear dedicated Unix server :P

  5. Lev Kushner
    Posted November 10, 2009 at 5:12 PM | Permalink

    I’ll have you know that “listening to bluegrass banjo music” was slang back in the day for twittering.

  6. me
    Posted November 10, 2009 at 7:15 PM | Permalink

    This is grand! Thanks for posting it.

  7. Max
    Posted November 10, 2009 at 7:44 PM | Permalink

    This made my life. Thank you, 1996 Wesleyan.

  8. Anonymous
    Posted November 11, 2009 at 1:08 AM | Permalink

    what the heck is an internet?

  9. Dominic
    Posted November 12, 2009 at 8:28 PM | Permalink

    I’m pretty sure this whole internets thing is a fad.

    Also, World Wide Web != internet. They’d had that for a while back in ‘96.

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