Gummi Bears - no not that one - the good one. The 1980s one sung by Joseph Williams from Toto (also singing voice of adult Simba in the original Lion King - which is a thing I didn't in any way just find out when checking his name. Nope.)
I think there was a wide and deep vein of “look at these fucking weirdos” that shaped a lot of early aughts internet gathering places. I’m thinking of Something Awful in particular but the phenomenon was certainly a lot more widespread than SA.
While “look at these fucking weirdos” was by no means confined to dunking on furries, I feel like for whatever reason furries kind of became the highest profile subculture to be brought to wider, mainstream attention—and derision—during this era. I vividly remember poking around on SA when I was in college circa 2003-04 and there was a lot of anti-furry sentiment (much of it grounded in the assumption that for all furries everywhere furridom was exclusively a sex thing.) Eventually that anti-furry sentiment was felt across the internet. LiveJournal, for example, was home to a lot of furries but also to a lot of furry-hating trolls.
The internet in the first decade of the new millennium was a deeply weird place. For a good (though extremely distressing!) overview of how and why places like SA became what they did, the Behind the Bastards series on Chris Chan is solid. It’s not furry-related, but a similar “let’s gather around and gawk at and eventually harass and provoke this fucking weirdo” thing played out in Chris Chan’s “discovery” by Something Awful. I’ll put a link below with a caveat that basically every type of content warning you can imagine applies to these episodes , though imho Robert Evans and Margaret Killjoy handle the Chris Chan story with as much sensitivity and compassion as one could hope.
Like I said, this isn’t actually about furries, but a lot of the “how” in this saga can, I think, be applied to the rise of anti-furridom in the early-mid aughts. Maybe some of the “why,” too.
(And seriously, proceed with caution. It’s an upsetting story rife with mentions of child abuse, ableism, sexual assault, elder abuse, racism, transphobia, suicide, stalking/harassment—I’m sure I’m leaving things out; be advised it’s rough. That said, it’s well done imho and worth a listen if you want a better understanding of how the internet got the way it is.)
There used to be a very janky waterslides on a hilltop that closed down. The place was notorious for giving kids scrapes and bruises and other injuries for years, my parents were surprised it hadn't closed earlier.
My elementary school was heavily renovated the year after I "graduated" sixth grade. It's not the same place anymore, and I have a lot of memories and nostalgia tied up with that old building — among other things, it's where I met the woman who'd become my wife.
Hastings’s stores. They sold books, CDs, DVDs, tabletop game supplies, video games etc. It was always exciting to go and look even if my parents were not going to buy me anything.
I'm in San Diego, and grew up here. Open space. Yeah, we are really good about keeping some open spaces (typically national/state parks) but just random open space is all filled with urban sprawl now.
When I was a kid, there was an area of San Diego county that was a GIANT piece of private property. There was one dirt road that ran through it (likely an easement/eminent domain thing), connecting the east and west part of the county.
Decades ago, when I was in high school, we used to party, and do all kinds of dumb shit out there. It had been the same for so long that my parents also partied back there too many, many decades before. I know there were at least 2 cars buried out there. I had gotten a car stuck in the mud once myself (had to dig it out in the dark. that was super fun) It's all but gone now.
Black Mountain/Black Mountain Road. All of that shit along the 56, and west to where Carmel Valley used to end on the east side, up to the backside/south side of fairbanks, and down to mira mesa used to be open space/rolling hills.
Ah yes, definitely familiar with that area. The sprawl that sprouted up in San Diego just over the last 20 years is crazy, not to mention the last 30-40. I've legit heard my older family members say "I remember when this was all orange groves" hahaha
My childhood home was built before the 5 freeway. My mother remembers playing in the trench they dug. The road to that house was dirt until well after I learned to drive. I’m old, but not THAT old. At least it doesn’t feel that way.
And yeah it was all groves, open space, and horse farms. I remember when Carmel valley didn’t really exist.
A roundabout in my home city was turned into an elevated 4-way intersection. It wasn’t an improvement. When I visualize the city I always see the roundabout. It was there all my life.
I don't know if there really is anymore. I started to notice Reddit was being gamed by bought posters.
Maybe something like signing up for Which.co.uk (apparently consumer reports in US) where you pay for impartial reviews. at least if you are the customer of which they may be more.impartial than internet sites where you are the product to me marketed to.
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