Throwback Thursday: do you remember your first email address? #TBT

[#1]

It's Thursday!

I remember the mid 1990's when the internet was going to us masses. Getting AOL disk in the mail, giving me a free trial month (or week or something). Signing up meant I needed to create a user name and email address. I am trying to remember mine but can't... I will add it in the comments when I remember. I hope this post doesn't break any security protocol...

Soooo, what email addresses did you have back in the day?

Was it something like cooldude99@ or xXskaterpunkXx@?

Let's hear those embarrassing (or surprisingly boring) first email addresses! 

Let’s make it a great Thursday!

KGM

[Sean Perry]

Yes! I got a corporate email address in March 1994 when starting at a new Television Network start-up in Rome, Italy,  and was impressed - until I realised I didn't know anyone else outside of our company with an email address 😊😊😊
@orbit.net, used it for 12-years. 

[Tomislav Tobijas]

I’m probably on the boring side here - I still use my first email address, and it’s actually my primary one. 😄
Surprisingly, it aged pretty well… except that it contains “.hr” in the username, which is the Croatian domain. So whenever someone asks me for my email address, there’s usually a short, awkward pause while they try to figure out if they heard me correctly. 😅

[Andy Gladstone]

Back when email addresses were not yet free, my brother worked for a hosting company and created an email account for me on a client's server. RIP aglad@mpcreative.net.

I never figured out who MP Creative was or what they did, but I thank them for hosting my email address for over a decade. Amazing to see how much storage my current Gmail and corporate email addresses consume. I can't imagine that between 1994 and 2004 I even had 10MB total of storage use. Now I get 10MB emails on a regular basis.

Thanks KGM!

[Sara_Schneider]

I think mine was something like "sportyshorty86" . I had lots of short girl variations like mightyschneidy (from when I did powerlifting and I loved mighty mouse as a kid) and shortstuff something or other. I've had so many I don't remember them all!

Sidenote, I also remember searching for "code" to make my myspace page the coolest page ever .

Thanks Kristjan!

[Barbara Szczesniak]

I know that I had company email addresses, but those were just some form of my name and the company domain. I remember one company where they used everyone's last name, except for me—I think mine was just my first name.

As for the first email address that I created for myself, like @Tomislav Tobijas, I still use mine. Younger members of my family have told me that it is passe to have a hotmail email address. I'm not sure why that should bother me.

[John Funk]

Sadly, I don't. That was a LONG time ago. It was probably a corporate address as we did a lot of federal government work. And I don't remember my first personal address either. But have had my current address for more than 20 years. 

[Andrea Dunlop]

Let’s just say mine belonged to a rebellious teenager… My first email was badgirly@… and then one day I had to say it out loud to a doctor. That was the exact moment I became an adult and created a new email address 😂

[Anne Saunders]

Showing my age, but it was ~1990 and my first email address didn't have an @ in it - just 7 random alphanumeric characters that I didn't get to choose. No need for domain routing if everyone is on the same domain!

[John Funk]

@Andrea Dunlop  - that might be one of the best TBT posts ever.  :-)

[Calvin]

Aw when I was a kid I had to walk to the library to use their internet and set up a yahoo one. I don't remember the email but it had 007 at the end because I loved playing Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64. Later I made a hotmail one to talk to all my friends on MSN messenger, I still remember sending nudges out to people and even inline gifs! Crazy that we still do gifs today now that I think about it.

[Shawn Stevens]

I worked at CompuServe before AOL became the new platform and it was just numbers. I will have to see if I can find my CompuServe "ID". That was before AOL took over and bought CompuServe. I also got in early with GMAIL and of course my Ohio State Email address, back in early 93. 

[Rishabh Jhawar]

I don’t remember the exact email ID, but Rediff was my first email account — something with “007” in it.

Around the same time, I also created a Yahoo email ID, which had something like “cool” in it. Very early-2000s energy. 😄

[Lorrie N_]

My first email address was "light4you," which seemed pretty innocuous at the time. However, my next attempt, "bigfatlalo," was a bit of a misstep. Let's just say my physique was more "toothpick" than "big," and I quickly realized that particular handle wasn't exactly a public-friendly choice. 

[Cornelia Jeppsson]

HAHA thinking about it made me laugh out loud - my first email was cornelia_singel_92 <-- singel in swedish is "single", as in my (non-)relationship status. LOL! And I was born in 92. I was 7-8 years old and apparently it was important to make those two things clear to everybody 😂🤣😂 and it was hotmail! 

[Bobby Taylor]

Another great #TBT topic @Kristján Geir Mathiesen ! I remember signing up for an email address at the university I was at ONLY because one of my professors said they would add 2% to our fall term grade if we did. So the IT department assigned me ASBT1@uaa.alaska.edu - which stood for Alaska Student plus my initials, BT. The only problem was that I didn't know anyone outside of my friend group in university who had email at the time 🤣. So it was much easier just to talk to people directly! 

[Anwesha Pan]

Hehehe omg this is the best topic of TBT @Kristján Geir Mathiesen  🤣🤣

now that I think about it, my first email was anwy.love@….. thinking I would be in love soon 🤣🙈 LOL

not much changed I am now with anwy.annie 🤣🤣 

I can feel you @Andrea Dunlop 🙌🏻

[Amanda Barber]

mandimay14 was my first AOL screen name...my kids are baffled and find it ridiculous - like why would you pick how old you were at the time?! (Duh, I had no idea that things would evolve to what they became.)

[Kristján Geir Mathiesen]

Hahahaha, thank you all for your comments. Fun to look back at those email addresses. So many of us put our age or when we were born. But I think @Andrea Dunlop takes the win! Takk for sharing that story with us.

[Dave Mathijs]

Not quite sure, I believe it was either @yahoo.com or @advalvas.be (Belgian search portal)

In Belgium, the telecom provider currently known as Proximus used to be Belgacom and they offered an @Skynet.be email address. Terminator vibes...

I currently have about 10 email addresses, with services scattered around.

Trying to move away from Gmail as I'm looking for more privacy minded options but it's damn hard with more than 400 online accounts.