I’m guessing the OOP was born early to mid 80s.
I did it being born in 94. It wasn’t about who has access to the internet, it’s that I wanted to hang out with my friend in person like a normal 10 year old but the Internet was the coolest thing to do at the time.
Hell, friends and I were doing it 2008 in college. 6 or 7 of us all gathered around a single 24" monitor watching the latest episode from Nostalgia Critic or something similar.
One of things I miss most about my college years was when I lived off campus in a rambling old house with a bunch of friends, and we had an entire room for our PCs - so we weren’t crammed around one monitor, but we were physically hanging out together while each using their own rig. Permanent LAN party, for three years!
That was pretty normal when I was 10. I was born in the 80s. It was novel like TV in the 1950s or radio in the 1920s.
I remember my friend showing a BBS that his uncle had got him set up on and being blown away. Also, I guess my parents were impressed by Spokesdude Bronson Pinchot (The Bronster), because they got us a US Videotel console for almost a year.
I’d say the window of overlap for “look at the computer” and “information superhighway” was actually pretty small for most people.
Maybe 1996-2001?
So then you factor in how old people would have been during that period who would have done this. Being generous, I’d say 9-18. At different ages in that range “going to my friend’s place to look at the computer” would have been a euphemism for different things.
But the range there would be from 1977-1992, which is actually pretty impressive for a cultural moment. Essentially, most millennials.
I remember use of the phrase “information superhighway” only really existing for a short window around the early days of the WWW while it was still novel and exciting and before it started to become mundane. I’d say you’re bang on for the window.
Those were the best days of the Internet, and not just because I was a teenager who’d discovered there were pictures of boobs on it.
I remember there was this claymation loop site where it was people and animals pooping over and over
Did you just incept that memory in my head and all I really remember is a trend (meme as we call it now) of clayimation stuff on the web, or did I also see this site at my friend’s house