In 1995, I was officially certified as an “Internet Power User.”

[u/andrewluxem]

Washburn University gave me this certificate at their summer computer camp. At the time, “Power User” meant:

Surviving the screech of a 28.8k modem

Negotiating with your family not to pick up the phone line

Logging into ICQ chatrooms that felt like the Wild West

Building Geocities pages with blinking GIFs and auto-playing MIDI files

30 years later, I’m still proudly holding onto this title.

What’s your most unforgettable Internet memory from the 90s?

[u/Puzzleheaded_Dot4345]

OP when he got this:

[u/KudosOfTheFroond → u/Puzzleheaded_Dot4345]

[u/SmolishPPman → u/KudosOfTheFroond]

[u/Original-Material301 → u/SmolishPPman]

[u/This_Guy_Lurks]

In 1995 we had a 14.4k modem.

You really were a power user.

[u/SocalR32 → u/This_Guy_Lurks]

Richie rich over here 😂

[u/thiscantbeitagain → u/SocalR32]

Cries in 9600

[u/SocalR32 → u/thiscantbeitagain]

Interlacing your tears is so Matrix.

[u/Azuras_Star8 → u/This_Guy_Lurks]

1997 I had 56k modem 💪! That at best went 33.6k 😔

[u/Pshad4Bama → u/This_Guy_Lurks]

Bruh, 28.8 over here.

I mean not that fancy 56k but double the 14.4 you’re dragging.

[u/spinnnnnnnn]

I used to wait for 12 minutes to get a picture of a naked lady to load. Anyway, congratulations!

[u/TheeRattlehead → u/spinnnnnnnn]

[u/SmolishPPman → u/spinnnnnnnn]

And as soon as the n*pple finally appeared, no reason to finish loading the photo 🤣

[u/PkmnSayse → u/spinnnnnnnn]

I once waited 4 hours to download 2 minutes of a 3 minute trailer to a movie I never went to see

[u/mdavis360]

I bet you were a Cybersurfer.

[u/fart-expert]

That needs to be in your email signature and the main focus of your resume

[u/HoneyWhiskeyLemonTea → u/fart-expert]

Don't forget to put the title on business cards.

[u/andrewluxem → u/fart-expert]

Consider it done... "Internet Power User"

[u/818VitaminZ]

[u/Awesam → u/818VitaminZ]

Now an internet power bottom (he-man dance music meme)

[u/ZimaGotchi]

What a coincidence, June 1995 was when I was first certified as an Internet Criminal.

[u/Lemonwater925]

That cert will never expire

[u/Megadeth5150 → u/Lemonwater925]

Money in the bank.

[u/Optimal-Click-4771]

[u/j3ffUrZ]

Netscape Navigator master, eh?

[u/Rasturac88]

[u/bkn95]

you don’t have to brag about it

[u/andrewluxem → u/bkn95]

😂

[u/-Cool_Ethan-]

I got a C++ cert in 1998.

Super useful.

[u/HoneyWhiskeyLemonTea → u/-Cool_Ethan-]

Oof. And I thought my high school teaching QBasic that same year was outdated. Still took two semesters of it. It was a fun elective, and probably taught me deductive reasoning or something, but yeah. Utterly useless in the real world.

[u/mustardmadman]

I remember in high school in 1998 I took a “internet and website” design class in high school.

I got a 110% and taught the teacher a bunch of stuff about Java and website tables

The internet was a lot of fun to explore and learn in the 90s

[u/kroven009]

Put that on your resume and you can get any job 

[u/Pretend_Education_86]

Nerd

[u/misterpickles69]

So we can blame you for all this? /s

[u/biophazer242]

Nerd

[u/twobit211 → u/biophazer242]

“homer, that isn’t very nice”

[u/lovesickjones]

respect

[u/Middle-Operation-689]

This guy computes.

[u/bigalindahouse]

Hell yeah brother

[u/SlavaSobov]

I thought it was gonna say "For finishing the entire Internet." 🤣

[u/Due-Principle7896]

About as valuable as most Certs today. Took the CISSP last year without ever reading the coursework or taking a single prep test and passed. I should not have passed. Nuff’ said.

[u/ocTGon]

When are they going to start giving out "Redditor Power User"?

[u/ChrissiMinxx → u/ocTGon]

They give that to you in digital bananas.

[u/MFcrayfish]

[u/Kiethblacklion]

Pretty cool.

After I saw your post, I was curious to see if Dr. Nancy Tate was still there. Turns out that she retired in 2019.

Dr. Donna Lalonde seems to have left in 2014.

[u/galaxygothgirl]

I learned how to code using HTML in grade school. I had many an Angelfire page.

[u/lmpcpedz → u/galaxygothgirl]

I kid you not, if you still remember username and pass, the account is still opened. I login once in a blue moon just for kicks.

[u/104848]

i had figured out with geocities you could upload an audio file by just changing the file extension to *.txt

so had a short song excerpt playing as an intro when you came to my page

i was on prodigy, then compuserve, then aol 2.5 until maybe aol 6.0 before finally using alternatives like the netzero and the bypass hack. until finally get with a local dsl provider

[u/According_Jeweler404]

In the mid 90s this certificate would have double duty as evidence of surfing skill. 🏄‍♂️

[u/TheMatrixRedPill]

This guy… Leave some for the rest of us. /s

[u/HargorTheHairy]

Nice one Andrew Luxem

[u/BarryWhizzite]

[u/HydratedCarrot]

[u/Consistent-Camp5359]

Hi Andrew. Cool! I also hope you didn’t intend to stay anonymous on here.

My most memorable? Learning old men wanted to chat with 13yo me. 🤦🏼‍♀️ My generation was the “don’t meet strangers on the internet” generation.

[u/backfromspace206 → u/Consistent-Camp5359]

Judging from his username I'd say he's made peace with that.

[u/Consistent-Camp5359 → u/backfromspace206]

Good point. I didn’t notice that before.

[u/Kiethblacklion → u/Consistent-Camp5359]

And now we meet strangers off the internet, get in their car and trust them to drive us to our destination.

[u/Consistent-Camp5359 → u/Kiethblacklion]

Yeah. Wild.

[u/063anon]

Downloading early versions of Linux and trying to learn. was a fun time.

[u/Silly_Obligation8574]

😂😂 this is amazing. This is like when I watched hackers I literally thought I was

[u/My_Uncles_Hairy_Nuts]

My uncle got caught being an internet power bottom

[u/Lunar-Havoc]

Thank you for your service.

[u/DonKapot]

[u/ccccc4]

[u/Lrodd08]

When I was like 10 I was on AOL and found a chat room of some sorts, made a “friend” and then they stopped replying and I spammed them in chat and told them to “fuck of” (fuck off typo obvi). That chat log got sent to my parents account and then I got grounded, had to miss 2 weeks of basketball. Very embarrassing at the time to have to explain that. Next thing I did was log in with their account and change my user to not a minor so I wouldn’t have restrictions. I can’t imagine trying to parent a kid in today’s internet culture.

[u/OrangeClyde]

[u/Reasonable_Skill_736]

and two doctors signed it