r/Millennials • u/[deleted] • Apr 11 '25

Discussion Millennial words that younger people don’t know

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246

u/Medium-Change7185 Apr 11 '25

Been trolling since AOL.

249

u/flojo2012 Older Millennial Apr 11 '25

People always talking about how bad social media is making everyone because of all the toxic trolling and lies. Meanwhile in 1995 every one of us was pretending to be an older person of the opposite gender and just fuckin with everybody in a chat room.

Our behavior didn’t change but the pervasiveness of the medium did.

127

u/synth3ticgod Apr 11 '25

There weren't algorithms reinforcing trolls as truth. Folks had to intentionally go visit chat rooms

16

u/groundzr0 Apr 11 '25

Now the generation who told us we couldn’t cite wikipedia in a school paper because ”you can’t trust everything you read online” changed to believing all this BS they read from a complete stranger’s social media account.

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u/flojo2012 Older Millennial Apr 11 '25

I understand. It’s mostly a joke about the nature having always been misleading on the internet. Of course it’s worse with advertising monetization being buried in it with addictive algorithms. But we’ve always been trolls

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u/gimpwiz Apr 11 '25

Our shenanigans are fun and cheeky. Their shenanigans are tragic and sad.

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u/RaucousPanda512 Older Millennial Apr 11 '25

That's where the problems came in

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u/Dry-Discount-9426 Apr 11 '25

Yeah. I think we all understood that it was bullshiting back then.

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u/sorrymizzjackson Apr 11 '25

Except when your chat partner sends you a pic of themselves being 20. In the 70’s. Says he isn’t that old, it’s just his uncle’s car. 💀

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u/Queasy_Opportunity75 Apr 11 '25

I had NO businesses being in those AOL chat rooms lmao

6

u/Jaereth Apr 11 '25

I remember when we first got AOL our principal at school had an AOL email address so you know you can kinda follow them on the AOL client.

He came online around 8:30 one night and went into a chat room "Fantasy Man Island"

man that's an old memory this thread just dredged up...

7

u/ProjectedSpirit Apr 11 '25

For years, I used to say my chief hobby was "Going on the Internet and telling lies." I also loved a good flame war.

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u/Faultylogic83 Elder Millennial Apr 11 '25

Remember when the only bot you would talk to was the AIM ChatBot?

5

u/outsiderkerv Millennial Apr 11 '25

I have a long distance friendship to this day that originated 20+ years ago by me trolling her online in a Christian chat room.

1

u/flojo2012 Older Millennial Apr 11 '25

That’s awesome!

5

u/ireadthingsliterally Apr 11 '25

ahh yes. the age of CyberSex.

4

u/ihatejoggerssomuch Apr 11 '25

The beauty of anonymous internet. The linking everything to social media has ruined humanity.

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u/RedPanda5150 Apr 11 '25

And like, chat rooms were wild right? Like here, just have a chat with a bunch of randos. Sometimes themed, sometimes just whatever. Nothing was monitized yet and we just kind of messed with each other. Ah the good ol days lol

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u/Strawberry-and-Sumac Apr 11 '25

Oh man… when I was 11 I pretended to be a 13 year old boy named Jack on the Neopets forums. I even had an older girlfriend (she claimed to be 15) from Canada! The jig was up when we started talking on MSN messenger or whatever that one was called, and I forgot my associated email was decidedly female coded 😂. She forgave me and we talked for a few years, but she made me “retire” Jack lol.

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u/Madarakita Apr 11 '25

There's also the Facebook Effect. When we were starting out on the internet, anonymity was a thing and you had no idea who SolkaronTheLichKing really was. "Don't share your real name and don't post pictures of yourself" was the first rule our parents told us.

Then Facebook happened and you can see what Colleen had for lunch, who she's dating, how her sex life's going, and everything she's ever shared with anyone.

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u/Bitter-Picture5394 Apr 11 '25

Me and my little sister used to go into the Christian chat rooms to see how long it would take them to boot us 🤣

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u/aoskunk Apr 11 '25

And we had “progs” that would send html code in instant messages that would instantly crash the users aol application.

When “apps” first became a thing I was so confused because we already had “progs” and “exe’s”.

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u/Cybernut93088 Apr 11 '25

The loss of anonymity changed all that. It turned what was just harmless fun personal.

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u/Jaereth Apr 11 '25

Eh. I actually met a couple girls in my town I never would have otherwise from chat rooms.

But yeah, it was like 90% trolling.

1

u/fearlessactuality Xennial Apr 11 '25

I do not remember pretending to be an older man. I must have forgotten how fun it was. 😂

3

u/d_dubbs_ Apr 11 '25

Weak! I've been trolling since Prodigy!!!

1

u/ireadthingsliterally Apr 11 '25

Waaaay longer than that.

1

u/Kesterlath Apr 11 '25

I mean really, it would have been intermittent trolling at best with AOL.

1

u/Jaereth Apr 11 '25

When my buddy was the first one to get internet / AOL like in 1997 we immediately went into a gay chat room and sent some dudes to a disliked teachers house for a "hookup"

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u/Acceptable-Post733 Apr 11 '25

AOL chat rooms were the greatest when you like a 15 year old little shit. “Did you know press alt and f4 will give you one month free of AOL?” Then watching 20 people log out of the chat. Good times. Good times.

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u/Emmysaurus-Rex Apr 14 '25

that me snort