If you grew up in the '70s or '80s, it was a great time to be alive from the point of view of the ascendancy of digital technologies. You were able to experience home computing and the tech-crazy '80s, as well as the offline life before the 1990s came alone, as did the internet and mobile phones AND you were able to experience the internet in all its anarchy before tighter regulation came along in the 2010s. No-one born from the 1990s onwards will have been able to experience life offline or away from the clutches of the digital megacorporations.
For instance, just think of p2p clients like Kazaa, Limewire and eMule, and how the record industry was in panic for years because of Rapidshare and Mediafire downloads. They literally had no idea what to do for years about the downloading. It was a total free-for-all.
We did have them, actually. I was born in 1989 and I'm familiar with everything you're talking about from the 80s at least.
I once linked a mate of mine Lemon Party, he wasn't very good with computers so he didn't know how to get rid of it.
His mother happened to walk in on him while he was furiously trying to close the window. He was banned from using PC's unsupervised for months, she actually moved it into the living room and put a password on it so he couldn't use it while she was out. His father that evening sat him down and gave him a 'birds and the bees' talk coupled with how old men weren't suitable partners for a teenaged boy.
I thought it was hilarious, don't think he ever forgave me for it.
The first proper PC I had my dad bought me from a closing sale at a LAN centre in our town called Wireworld. I spent every friday night at wireworld spending my paper round money. Good times! They were selling the PCs for £300, but he came home with one for £150 I think. The best thing was that all the 30-40 games were pre-loaded without discs, so I suddenly had about 40 games.
Anyway, it was set up in the dining room back then because I don't think they wanted me to have the PC in my bedroom. Sometimes my sister used it too. But obviously it was also my **** station, having discovered porn at some point. I remember my sister and her friend from over the road going on it to use the internet. I was always a bit on edge in case they found some site I'd be on. Lo and behold, I heard my mum shouting in shock - I'd been on bigsausagepizza and my sister and her friend had found it. My mum has always been a bit funny talking about stuff like that, my dad too I guess. Instead of saying "you're banned" or whatever she was just like, "you really shouldn't look at that sort of stuff. do you look at it often?" Of course I was mortified, but I was just like, no not often. It was probably one of my friends (same ones who'd apparently been looking up Diana Troy nude on my dad's PC).
That was bloody awkward. I never got banned from it though. I think MSN messenger damaged me more than watching porn did.
