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Life before googleRehosted webcomic -removed (i.imgur.com)

submitted ago by joonyerr

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[–]Tactful 53 points54 points ago

This joke is quite a ubiquitous one, that has been thought of by a lot of separate sources independently. It's an interesting concept, the idea that our children will have been born into a post-internet society, that they'll grow up alongside these technological tools, these pillars that will hold up their lives just as television and the telephone held up ours. They've been given a gift, and as people who existed pre-internet, we almost feel like we have a duty to give them the gift of understanding what it was like in the before-times.

In eighty years someone's going to write a TV show set in the early noughties, about the rise of the internet, and it'll be the most prolific period drama of the late new 90's. It'll glamorise what we did, and forgo the nonsense. It'll excell our fashions and music to new heights. The growth and spread of dubstep will move people into a different mindset, and the grandchildren of the future will be shocked at how familiar these characters feel in this setting that's wholly alien to them.

[–]TheGoomba 18 points19 points ago

The only thing this comic made me think of immediately was

"I just thought of something I'd like to know more about - to the library to find a book."

You could still learn before Google was omnipotent.

[–]Osiris32 12 points13 points ago

Or, "Hmm, don't I have Encarta?"

[–]justin123456 0 points1 point ago

how could we ever forget about Encarta?

[–]NULLACCOUNT 1 point2 points ago

Also, "hey, maybe I will call someone who knows about this stuff." Now you get dirty looks if you ask someone a question that could be googled.

[–]alreadytakenusername 1 point2 points ago

We used to use Yahoo!, Lycos, and even Webcrawlers. Google didn't invent Internet search engine, goddammit. Page and Brin could have sold their algorithm if Yahoo! wanted it.

[–]Keitau 1 point2 points ago

Cant believe you forgot Altavista and Askjeeves.

[–]TheGoomba 1 point2 points ago

Yes, yes, I know, I know. Had I wanted to be pedantic I could have used those examples. Before the internet as a whole people were also able to learn things.

[–]sonicon 0 points1 point ago

You mean leave the house? What sorcery is that? And what did we do before the library? Go questing to learn from faraway masters and discover things on our own? That's not worth the risk. YOLO.

[–]77captainunderpants 0 points1 point ago

the chicago public library was this magical, omnipotent place, where they could answer any question. librarians were mighty guardians of knowledge.

[–]JFSOCC 0 points1 point ago

and possibly better because you'd have to dig through a lot of irrelevant information before finding what you were looking for.

[–]BitsAndBytes -1 points0 points ago

Except, it took a lot more time and effort to look something up. I probably wouldn't bother 99% of the times I wanted to know something if I had to go to the library to find the answer. It's a huge difference in how readily available and accessible information is.

[–]Breathing_Balls 4 points5 points ago

Scene one: Act one

Bedroom.

A teenager sits alone staring at a screen, emotionless. The room is dark albeit the flickering luminescence from the holographic projection surrounding the teenager's sitting area.

A long shot begins, focused on the back of the teenager. A slow zoom reveals a shiny object reflecting strands of light held in his hand. It is a razor blade.

As the camera pans out again, a login screen surrounds the boys face, in which he can only look down in despair.

The boy looks at the razor blade, then slowly raises his head to the encompassing display.

"Welcome to facebook"

Fade out.

End of act 1.

[–]Tactful 5 points6 points ago

I was thinking more Mad Men but okay.

[–]thelittlewhitebird 1 point2 points ago

I was thinking boardwalk empire :D

[–]IMasturbateToMyself 2 points3 points ago

I thought you were going for the "teenager getting caught masturbating" kind of angle.

[–]Breathing_Balls 0 points1 point ago

Good call. That's scene 3. His mom walks in, shocked, she subsequently finishes him off.

Don't worry.

Girlfriends are called Mom's in the future.

[–]the4thbandit 2 points3 points ago

Never heard the term "noughties" before. I wouldn't be mad if it caught on.

[–]TrueAmurrican 0 points1 point ago

Go back to Civcraft

[–]TellYouWhut 18 points19 points ago

You had to look in the encyclopedia.

[–]tommykay 6 points7 points ago

Yup, and you also needed to know the alphabet so you could tell which of the 35 books you needed to look in. No autocorrect back then :/

[–]JFSOCC 0 points1 point ago

or autocomplete

[–]TheLazyRebel 5 points6 points ago

If you had one or had access to a library.

[–]TellYouWhut 19 points20 points ago

Yes which most everyone did

[–]JFSOCC -2 points-1 points ago

our library let you in without a card, but you just couldn't take anything home without.

[–]TellYouWhut 5 points6 points ago

I think most libraries are the same. You can stay as long as you want and even make photocopies just can't borrow

[–]SpicaGenovese 0 points1 point ago

Or you had one of the Britannica or w/e CDs. You had an encyclopedia on your computer. OOOHH!

Oh gosh, I just remembered an even better one- at one point the online version of Encyclopedia Britannica became a PAID SERVICE, and you only had limited access to articles.

[–]phanboy 1 point2 points ago

Encarta '97 was where it was at.

[–]frazier6567 14 points15 points ago

The library?

[–]CellularBeing 14 points15 points ago

What am library?

[–]phanboy 1 point2 points ago

La biblioteca.

[–]jessicaesaurus 0 points1 point ago

But going there takes so much effortttt. You have to leave your bed, put on clothes, find the right book...wow just thinking about that is making me sleepy. I'm gonna go take a nap.

[–]SnarkyCanuck 1 point2 points ago

Don't forget that the book you do find on the subject is likely 20 years old and likely doesn't contain the answer you're looking for. Either that or you go to the encyclopaedia and get such little or generalized info that it's irrelevant.

[–]UncleTedGenneric 0 points1 point ago

Oh, it's just a place where homeless people come to shave and go BM.

[–]yeeshy -1 points0 points ago

maybe if you live in one

[–]taco_justice 3 points4 points ago

Why does everyone in this town use altavista?

[–]phanboy 1 point2 points ago

To be ironic.

[–]Nicknam4 7 points8 points ago

Oh, it's this picture again.

That's a damn shame.

[–]Levophed 0 points1 point ago

A terrible shame, doesn't someone have statistics on these reposts

[–]inqpom 2 points3 points ago

I will always upvote this comic.

[–]iKeeKe 4 points5 points ago

altavista :)

[–]Bragzor 0 points1 point ago

Only lamers used yahoo.

[–]phanboy 1 point2 points ago

The first time I went there I was worried it was a porn site.

[–]Vrapter727 13 points14 points ago

We'd all be fucked without Wikipedia

[–]UncleTedGenneric 0 points1 point ago

Save for Julian Assange.

[–][deleted] ago

[deleted]

[–]fodrox04 7 points8 points ago

I have no idea what idea you're trying to convey right now

[–]toadkicker 3 points4 points ago

He accidentally a verb.

[–]GethLegion 1 point2 points ago

Would you like to know more?

[–]V3RTiG0 1 point2 points ago

Amateurs.

[–]UncleTedGenneric 0 points1 point ago

Coincidentally, that's the very word that brought Google to it's height of popularity.

[–]rumpusrouser 1 point2 points ago

My dad's been a librarian for the past 35 years, and he's said that before Google people used to constantly call the library for their stupid questions that they would otherwise Google. He said that one time someone called and asked how M&Ms get their shells and he had to spend an entire day looking it up in books before he could call them back.

Us and our stupid questions.

[–]UncleTedGenneric 0 points1 point ago

Wait a minute... is your dad just a nice guy or did other librarians do that kind of research for random callers?

I'd just never considered doing it, but they would know the best place to look up info... I would have thought it would get a laughing "Hahaha no. Oh no no no... You come in and look that up yourself."

[–]rumpusrouser 1 point2 points ago

He's both a nice guy and the other librarians did it too. It was kind of considered their job, you know? I mean he was the guy with all the books at his disposal so he might as well be the guy that looks crap up for you.

[–]UncleTedGenneric 0 points1 point ago

That's awesome that they did that.

Followup, because i've never heard of this kind of thing before, is (or 'was,' i suppose) this a standard librarian etiquette outside of your father's library? Or was this just a thing at his place? (and if you don't know, that's cool, too. Again, i've just never thought of calling a librarian for info like this. As note, i'm 31 so i spent many a year in libraries while still in school)

[–]rumpusrouser 1 point2 points ago

From what my dad says, yeah it was pretty standard for all the libraries around the area to do this. He said one of the libraries he used to work at got more calls than others, but that was just because that library had more books than the others so they could find answers easier.

I mean, think about the type of people that work at a library. I don't think they really mind looking up stuff. At least, in my dad's case, he liked it. He learned a lot of random facts just looking through books all day. Also, there's not that much to do at a library. Since he's not looking stuff up for people anymore, mostly all he does all day is just sit at his desk and browse the internet, which is pretty boring for a 58 year old man.

[–]UncleTedGenneric 0 points1 point ago

Wow. That's very cool. I need to ask around locally to see if this was a thing around here, too. Also, thanks greatly for appeasing my ignorant curiosities :)

[–]supersolid 4 points5 points ago

Hey reddit, remember mail?

[–]smartalecky 0 points1 point ago

I still do when i get my mortgage bill, and when I have to throw away the overflowing abundance of junk mail.

[–]I_CAPE_RATS 2 points3 points ago

Shit, that reminds me to make my weekly trip to the mailbox.

[–]smartalecky 1 point2 points ago

Ha! You might as well call a trash removal service for the amount of shit you're going to have to toss.

[–]thelittlewhitebird 1 point2 points ago

Bring trash to curbside thursday evening, walk over check mailbox, immediately discard of all trash mail, done for the week

[–]phanboy 0 points1 point ago

Most companies will stop sending junk mail if you nag them. And if enough people nag them, their overhead will increase to the point where they go away.

[–]smartalecky 0 points1 point ago

Very true, but I wish it were that easy for me. What complicates my situation is my wife loves going through that shit. For that reason, I am doomed to an existence of piles and piles of junk mail...ugh.

[–]UncleTedGenneric 0 points1 point ago

You mean like email? From the computer?

It's got what plants need.

[–]0bsesshun 5 points6 points ago

Haha. Yep, google has become a digital text book to me. Also this.

[–]fodrox04 5 points6 points ago

... But chrome has spell check built into it.

[–]ValiantAbyss 2 points3 points ago

lol Spell Check only works if you are in the right area of the word.

Here's me spelling: destamblishmentasrism

On Chrome Spell check:

establishments

undernourishment

departmentalization

In google search:

Did you mean: disestablishmentarianism

[–]JFSOCC 0 points1 point ago

after firefox did.

[–]JadenGH 2 points3 points ago

Repost.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points ago

You do realize google wasnt the first and isnt the only search engine?

[–]Animetic 19 points20 points ago

Right? It was all about Altavista back in the day.

[–]slow56k 5 points6 points ago

Metacrawler, anyone?

[–]dangerousD85 8 points9 points ago

Oh god. I just remembered DogPile.

[–]olosh 3 points4 points ago

Any love for Hotbot ?

[–]CubeGuy365 0 points1 point ago

Hotbot dot lycos dot com. Such frustrating times. :/

[–]kar224 0 points1 point ago

Hotbot got me through high school.

[–]loopyhohe 2 points3 points ago

I remember using Bulletin Boards to search for "stuff". Had to search for dsc to find people using kodak cameras for candid pics and i cannot remember the default extension for scans back in the day.

[–]em22new 1 point2 points ago

I was using webcrwler in '94. It was actually quite easy to find stuff you wanted. Webring also helped.

[–]ABirdOfParadise 1 point2 points ago

Altavista for sure!

First week of junior high in my computer class (forget the actual name of said class) was my teacher giving reasons why Altavista was better than anything out there.

[–]theskett 0 points1 point ago

Netscape, anyone?

[–]JFSOCC -1 points0 points ago

I refused to google till they unloaded a a script which destroyed altavista's image search, I went to a lot of sites I knew of, learning they were all dead by then, and then I'd accept that google really was the only choice.

Yahoo! was way too late in removing double hits too.

[–]QuaereVerumm 4 points5 points ago

I used to use Ask Jeeves.

[–]UncleTedGenneric 0 points1 point ago

Correct, but it IS the only search engine have become a catch-all verb for searching on the web.

[–]Roflcpt47 2 points3 points ago

I don't want to be that guy but..this is a repost.

[–]mebd 1 point2 points ago

It's actually one of my pet peeves for anyone to say, "I don't know" while sitting in front of a computer. Either in real life (there's a computer or smart phone nearby) or having a conversation with someone on a computer, a topic comes up, and they don't know the answer to a question. You're literally sitting in front of the entire width and breadth of human understanding with the ability to find any answer to any question you could possibly have in mere seconds: google it, find out, edify yourself.

[–]Sir_Kegglesworth 1 point2 points ago

"Back in my day, we were ignorant. And we kept it that way!"
Unless you used a bunch of effort and looked things up in books.

[–]Pollydora 0 points1 point ago

Yeah cause now everyone knows everything about everything all cause of google.

[–]ramp_tram 0 points1 point ago

Webcrawler.

[–]Miceli123 0 points1 point ago

Nonsense; i could just consult my twelve year old encyclopedia or walk to the library and scan the microfiche for an hour

[–]come_on_seth 1 point2 points ago

or look up a word in the dictionary you don't know how to spell because when you asked the teacher how to spell it, she said;

[–]yayareaaa510 0 points1 point ago

While watching Bill & Teds Excellent Adventure, i tried to explain to my 10 year old that back in my day when i had to write a paper, i had to go the the library. If i got there after it was closed, i had to wait until the next day, if anyone else was writing on the same subject and got there before me, snagged all the good books, I'd have to use whatever was left, like the encyclopedia. He just shook his head and said, sounds rough mom

[–]Tastygroove 0 points1 point ago

Internet connected phones: a know-it-alls best friend.. (or worst enemy.)

[–]Derpybro 0 points1 point ago

What about going to une bibliothèque???

[–]rayzerdayzhan 0 points1 point ago

The Internet was a great learning tool way before google. Way before the web, even. Gopher, anyone?

[–]wheatfields 0 points1 point ago

BOOKS, Yes its true the lazy (like these two on the couch) would remain dumb because of lack of motivation. But if you are lazy you will probably not put any of that new information to any kind of good use anyway.

[–]Sevren 0 points1 point ago

Three words that our kids will never know. Dewey Decimal System.

[–]chka 0 points1 point ago

Life before Internet.

ftfy

[–]bellabob -1 points0 points ago

Library.

[–]Mr_Perrywinkle 0 points1 point ago

Before Google, we were animals. The things technology can do.

[–]CellularBeing 0 points1 point ago

That's what I got. But friend, we still are animals. If anything, we are more viscous form of animals. Look at ducks, they can fly in a v formation. Look at people, can they stand in line? NOPE.

[–]Mealymouthed 0 points1 point ago

Ask Jeeves?

[–]SpicaGenovese 0 points1 point ago

OH MY GOSH YEAH!!! And the commercials made a big deal out of it, like it was your digital servant. "Ask it questions lol"

[–]Crumbford 0 points1 point ago

Oh my god, he'd have to use Bing.

[–]WoodenNickel -5 points-4 points ago

REEEEEEEEEEPOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSST!!!!!!!!!!

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points ago

PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!

[–]come_on_seth -1 points0 points ago

DOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNVVVOOOOOOOOOTTTTEEEEEESSS

[–]LetTheMangoThrough -1 points0 points ago

There was a video posted on Reddit in recent months of a comic doing a bit about "remember not knowing things?" Haven't been able to find it since. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

[–][deleted] ago

[deleted]

[–]Acid_Baron 5 points6 points ago

false: incorrect use of a semicolon.

[–]firesash 2 points3 points ago

At least someone's trying to use them; what a poor lonely bit of punctuation.

[–]Tier4 -5 points-4 points ago

Search engines existed before Google. In fact, search engines much better than Google, which was nothing more than a list site, were far superior. They were not the first web crawler. Altavista was.

If you're going to make internet jokes, maybe learn something about it first.

[–]emzmcgee 2 points3 points ago

But ya know, most people know what Google still is.

[–]SpicaGenovese 0 points1 point ago

Elaborate! Now I'm curious. How were these engines better?

[–]JFSOCC 0 points1 point ago

Google now is better than they were then; But they were better than Google then. Back then you'd have to tell search engines your site existed, rather than letting their bots and search algorithms find it. This meant that the search engines with the most sign ups had the most use.

[–]SpicaGenovese 0 points1 point ago

Aah.. thanks!

[–]narky1 0 points1 point ago

Wrong. (the bit about Altavista)

You know what the first web crawler was ?

Not surprisingly it was WebCrawler in 1994. Altavista came out the following year.

Sort of depends what you consider a web crawler.

[–]reed311 0 points1 point ago

Nope, there is a reason why Google became the most popular search engine in the world very quickly. It was easily the best search engine and it only got better.

[–]Tier4 0 points1 point ago

"Nope?" So you're saying Google was the first crawler? Wrong.

They became the most popular because of better algorithms (Page Rank v1). However, they weren't always the best search engine.

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