Does anyone remember the heyday of chat rooms? Excluding Fluther's, of course, does anything like that still exist?

I remember them from 1996 when I first got an AOL account. They were filled with trolls and creeps.

IRC is still really popular. Most of the people that used it back then still do. It is just that it is a bit messy. The internet just grew so much and people new to the internet didn’t have the chops for it when there was AOL to handle the less technically curious.

And Newsgroups are still around too.

Yes
There’s a chatroom that I frequent and we watch videos all day. I’d say that it’s a lot more active than the fluther chatroom. It is the Hyperborea of the internet.

I do! It was what everyone did in middle school. I remember meebo.com used to link you to all of them (yahoo, Aol [AIM, the most popular], etc). Such awkward times.
It’s how I met my first girlfriend! To this day we haven’t seen each other in person though.

It is funny you are asking this now. I was just thinking of the same thing a few days ago and wondered if the chatrooms I used to visit were still there. I looked and they weren’t. I spent hours in them because at the time I was going through a divorce.

I remember chat rooms but I haven’t visited one in years (other than popping into the Fluther chat room once). I’m not sure I’d enjoy them as much as I did then. Different times and priorities and yes @chyna, no bad relationship issues.

Oh yes do I!

I was talking about this the other day. Good grief, we’d spend hours chatting on those things and what fun we had. Drama and all sorts. Back stabbing, lying and also tons of laughter and great friends!!

In those days, we believed that all the people were who they said they were. We fell in lust, in love and also out again. I had the best fun ever in those days. :))

@Michael_Huntington The Hyperboria of the Internet is called Hyperboria ☺
Ironically, it’s not part of the “regular internet” (technically it’s a “darknet”, because you need special software to be on it.)

I still use IRC and sometimes Jabber, and I monitor some mailing lists via a NNTP (news) gateway. Don’t have much use for regular newsgroups though.

I’ve not found that kind of camaraderie since. Freewheeling, mile-a-minute discussions of anything.

I think the internet, as conceived, has reached it’s prime. Or reached become Orwellian.

My guess is it’s reached it’s prime.

AIROW’s chat box would allow users to enter anonymously.

Also it had one called The Cesspool, where absolutely any expression was permitted.

Talk about great times.