I was lurking in ‘98. Those people scared me. Joined in 2000 and almost immediately had A+ Bert fry me in a FReepmail for something or the other.
I was a lurker in 99 or so. I didn’t really say a whole lot until fairly recently. I am sure most people would prefer me to go back to lurking, but I am too old to care now, I am that old guy that walks around naked in my house with all the curtains open without a care in the world
Similar lurk and sign up dates. Don’t remember getting flamed like that, but definitely remember being intimidated about posting with the the FReepers of that era.
Back in that lurking era, I used to send obscure stuff I got from FR late at night to talk radio host Neal Boortz. I’d had his email from when he actually had it public on his web site a couple years prior, before CGI forms for that sort of thing became the norm. He probably went to bed at 8 or 9 so he could get up at 5 in the morning to do his show prep. Fairly frequently, he’d use the stuff I’d sent, so that was sort of fun. FR was ahead of the curve on so many topics back then.
LOL. A “baptism by fire” of sorts, indeed.
Remember Registered? He did some legendary stuff before memes were really a thing.