OG's of DATALOUNGE

I started lurking in 1999 and posting in 2000. There was already quite a crowd by then, and the gossip that got dished in here was much more raw and more plentiful than today. But then the Internet itself was so young then, too.

Not from the beginning, but probably a year into DL. I lurked until 2003.

Off and on since a few months before 9/11.

A friend had been telling me about it for about a year and then the EW mention happened around the same tone so I looked it up. However, I missed the Red Dragon Cheese thread.

Everyone here isn't male, OP.

I guess I’m a relative latecomer. I was lured over by a “Defamer” link in 2005.

About 20 years, maybe more. I love DL.

I think I’ve been here more or less since the summer of 2001. I definitely remember the WTC being an insatiable bottom.

I took a break during the most intense parts of med school, and it wasn’t until COVID, which was during the first half of residency and fellowship that I came back on the reg.

R5 is right, there were plenty of women among the majority demographic of gay men, back in the early days. For a while there was a DL subforum/category for “Lesbian Issues.”

I’ve been here since the late 90s - probably ‘98 or ‘99. Found my way here from the Is He/She Gay message boards. Back then it wasn’t a single forum, there were multiple topic pages - does anyone remember what they were? I think there was a dedicated lesbian one. Entertainment/celebrity gossip got the most traction but there were also pages for politics and health. Maybe travel?

And of course it was so much better last year

[Quote] when I worked in the business

🤔

What is "the business?"

I started visiting in 2002. I didn't start posting until about 10 or so years later. One of the first posts I saw was the notorious 9/11 thread, and Let's Roll Cinnamon Rolls.

I can barely remember last week, but I know I started on DL sometime after Prancing Ponies and before the 2008 election, so probably twenty years.

How is Let’s Roll Cinnamon Rolls doing in this Trump economy?

[Quote] What is "the business?"

Think it’s similar to “the works” or “the high hat.”

Since 1995. I'm 61.

That's not very helpful, R17.

Since 2002. A bunch of posters joined around that time, because DL got mentioned in Entertainment Weekly. That’s where the “Concerned Team Mom” signature you will see here came from-it was originally “Concerned EW Reading Soccer Mom.”

I think my first time here was around 98-99, another one coming from IHSG. I got away for a number of years, but I keep coming back.

I’ve been here since around 2000. I’d say intermittently because there might only be two or three topics at any one time that catch my interest. I’m 72, so I was already old when I arrived on the scene.

I started before the end of the 20th century, because I remember Y2K talk here. I came because Michael Musto posted something about the Datalounge in one of his articles, back in the day. It was indeed much juicier back then, with more Hollywood staff/insiders posting things, and more gay gossip. I think the growth of the internet has lessened the need for that type of content here - it's already been posted everywhere!

Like several other posters, I came here for the first time in 1999 from IHSG and lurked for a year or two before I started participating. Drifted away around 2014, then came back as a regular reader/poster around 2021. I was 33 in 1999, and just turned 59 a few weeks ago.

You told me Mitch Pileggi was a big bush supporter and major pussy hound and I collapsed and have malingered ever since.

I honestly cannot remember, but know it was before 9-11.

1997, but just lurked for years. My first post/thread wasn’t until 2005, probably March of that year and I rarely posted for several more years after that.

I've been haunting this place since the fall of 2000, the era of a, I'm 59 now.

Not original gangster but I’ve been posting since I was 19 in 2009.

"the era of a"

I'm old, dammit!

"the era of a"

Jesus...

Is E d w i n a a naughty word here?

You can’t post that name r32

R33, how odd, but, this is Datalounge, oddness abounds.

It is which really pisses me off given my affection for that dear old cartoon matchmaker.

I was surfing DL into the new Millennium: 1999. I didn’t find my voice for a while and I was still working then so not posting. DL was great on the screen at the office less the occasional unannounced NSFW link until I sort-of retired in 2018. As one of about forty paying customers now who aren’t bots or chaos agents, I feel a greater need to contribute lest I check in and find no nothing new.

DL was a godsend during COVID.

I'm pretty sure I was here in 2000.

I got here from some other site called something to the effect of "Is He Gay or Not" or something like that.

My friend and I were looking for evidence that Eddie Cahill (then guest-starring on "Friends") was, well, gay or not.

We had a friend who SWORE he fucked him in the late 90s before he was working regularly.

Turns out there was another thread on here with a bunch of guys who swore they had him too.

It was all the proof we needed...lol.

I started here somewhere between 97 and 99, but I'm not sure which year exactly. It all runs together after a while. To be quite honest, I'm not even sure how I found it.

My office was late to getting computers for staff, so I probably started visiting here in 1998 or ‘99 or so, was happy to share any opinions I had that I considered pertinent, and sometimes I shared gossip I had heard, generally second hand. Stuff I knew first hand I mostly kept to myself (counter to rumor, my generation of publicists often didn’t tell most of what they knew. This was even truer of older Hollywood hands who worked during the classic period. They knew where ALL the bodies were buried but would only offer up nuggets when flirting, bragging or drunk.

My old moniker for a long while was based on a character from Somerset Maugham’s “The Razor’s Edge,” played by Clifton Webb in the 1946 movie version. I got the idea because there used to be a guy that styled himself ‘Waldo Lydecker’ after another Webb Oscar nominated role in “Laura.”

Anyway, I’ve dropped in and out of Data Lounge over the years, sometimes I would keep it open on my computer all day but there were periods when things got very dull here and I’d stay away for months or even years. Just lately I’ve come back more frequently, often a few times a day, mostly to share opinions about movies, Broadway shows, TV series.

As for celebrity gossip, like many oldsters, I think most of today’s “celebrities” are cheap, attention-seeking hacks, and the only gossip I know is 30 years old or more, and about the last generation of movie stars that have any real claim to the name. But I’m not as cranky as I sound, I keep my hand in, go to the movies frequently and still have an eye for a cute male starlet.

I started 2002 or 2003 with a few years break ~ 2007/8. I'm pretty sure I learned about DL from Michael K on D-Listed.

I'm 60 now and it's amusing that we now have so many threads about getting older (non-life threatening, non-debilitating conditions is the latest edition) and I really appreciate them and have found them helpful (I have photopsia! Though I didn't know what it was called)

Many of you shut off your computer with your big toe.

I've been here since the late 1990s.

When I discovered that other little boys made aluminum foil Wonder Wonder bracelets, I knew I was home and had found my people.

I've been here on and off since the late 90s as well, and I'll be 53 at the end of the month. Formerly authenticated, but that seems to have gone by the wayside for most.

First found DataLounge in May 2002 while doing a Google search. Spent several hours that night reading various thread. Great gossip. Great dish.

But I figured it was just a one night indulgence and I'd never be back again. I didn't even make note of the website name.

Next day, I couldn't stop thinking about some of the juicy gossip I'd read. Loved that there was a gay take on these things. And such insider info. I wanted to go back and see if there was any follow-up to some of the threads I'd read.

Since I didn't know the name of the site, I had to recreate the original Google search with multiple tangents that ultimately landed me here. Place was as fun the second night as the first. I quickly bookmarked it and have been coming here daily ever since.

Not an OG but have been here I guess since early 2002, before the EW mention. It was after 9/11 but the threads were still very active, the Let’s Roll Cinnamon Rolls bit was in full swing.

I pretty much looked the same but there was a filter for Politics and probably Gossip or Entertainment. There were only two choices. I never filtered the content because I likely correctly intuited it wouidn’t work anyone.

People were saying it was over even back then. It’s been my gateway to the internet ever since.

*It pretty much looked the same. I, of course, still look 35.

I remember when soap threads were banned, red tags were entertainment, and there were separate gossip and politics threads. I miss those days.

Amazingly, everyone still looks 10 years younger.

[quote] I’ve been here since the late 90s - probably ‘98 or ‘99. Found my way here from the Is He/She Gay message boards.

Hah! Same here R10.

[quote]I remember when soap threads were banned, red tags were entertainment, and there were separate gossip and politics threads. I miss those days.

We ARE big. It's the pictures that got small.

Some of us still look 20 years younger.

Pope Buck I was the funniest DL regular ever.

I’ve been here since the beginning. We originated on the Is He/She Gay? Message Board. I was 30. I turned 60 this year. I’ve wasted half of my life here! I don’t post with my authenticated name often because there are more nasty posters than there used to be, but there are also good people, too.

[quote]I want to know the people who have been posting here since the beginning.

[quote]Of course, I'm just waiting for the rude responses but if you are one of the originals make yourselves known men.

You're rather a demanding old cunt, aren't you? And then you state you're waiting for the rude comments.

You started it, Carpetbagger.

I found this place in 2004 searching for some political info. This place was frenzied! You could not keep up with the hundreds of threads and comments—and the red tags! I loved the WW sidebar which I made a few times. The wit was off the charts.

This place has changed me—some for the worse (I’m much more bitchy and cynical) and for the better (critical thinking skills improved.)

I know a girl who posted on Datalounge in 1999. AND THEN SHE DIED!

I've been here since 1999 and I just turned 34!

I've been here since 2013, and I have been a much-beloved, respected, and even cherished contributor right from day 1.

I stumbled upon this lunacy in 2018/2019 after I found a thread on Gay Male Soap Opera stars (Russell Todd, can you imagine) and the much reported sudden death of Phillip McKeon. I didn't figure out how to pay my $1.99 or actually post until 2024!

I came here shortly before 9/11 and I remember" the sky was so blue that day".

Much like Cheryl herself, R59.

I still can not unsee Tubgirl.

Well, if we ever have a DataLounge reunion, Christian Bale will undoubtedly skip it. He's such an asshole.

I first arrived around 2001 via my job at the power company call center where I was relentlessly bored. I left for a few years but came came in the 2010s.

I'm 61 but easily pass for 22.

I started lurking then posting in 2000. I remember David E., Blue Agave, shobe, Libby, and all the old gang.

And I remember when we had a separate "Flames and Freaks" section for trolls

R61, I think I might have actually started “the sky was so blue that day” when I posted about my escape from the WTC on 9/11.

I was 35 then, 58 now. I discovered DL a few years before that.

I just got here! I wasn't allowed on the internet unsupervised until I turned 18.

I don’t know how soon after DL’s launch I became an habituae, but I have a memory of an old layouts, where you could only access maybe twenty posts to a given thread before directed to an ensuing page.

This thread made me fall in love with Datalounge

How soon after DL started did we see posters who would point out to an OP the folly of his or her inappropriate apostrophes?

Pardon me miss, but with all due respect. I have problems of my own.

R71 The first post and the second responder on that thread.

^YES, r71, 2 seconds. And there was no Spellcheck/Grammerly. For years, I only lurked and posted simple sentences due to grammar intimidation.

I've only been here since 2004, but before that I used to post on ASG and I bet some of you bitches did too.

Somehow I missed IHSG.

Was a very early adopter

Late 90’s

There were separate sections for politics, etc. “Wit and Wisdoms” were prominently and hilariously highlighted.

August of 2001 for me and I was 20!

I believe I missed some of the shit that was brought up here for years like The Sumerian Housewives, but this place was a saving grace during 9/11.

The soap I watched, One Life To Live was hugely popular here then, so that was cool.

But 9/11 formed some kind of eternal bond with this site that I cannot shake, even when I hate it or the posters hate me!

R74. For FUCK'S sake!! GRAMMARLY!

R70, that's about when I started. I also love that thread.

I miss the days when the first response to any thread no matter what the subject was incredibly bitchy often accusing the OP of being a CUNT.

Some of us remember the real Cheryl.

Also, DL swag. I still have the ballcap.

Op you’re a fucking liar.

I came here because MLOP on the All That Chat website was talking about how sick this place was.

I have been posting here for about 25 years…man those were the days

R6 same for me. My work was boring most of the time and our online activities weren't really policed so I spent a lot of time reading Gawker, Defamer, etc. Once I navigated to DL via a Defamer post (I think it was about Linds Lohan), I was in bitchy gossip heaven. Still love it here to this day.

DL was absolutely a godsend during COVID, R36. I kept a tab open constantly so I could switch back and forth from actual work to the various threads.

I've been here almost from the beginning. Maybe five years into it. I wasn't a paid member back then. I simply adjusted to Prime Time when it was on. I remember the old website, too. ant to say we really got some good gossip back then. We were also incredibly bitchy. Seriously. And there were grammar police. And there were so many distinct, wonderful personalities that gave DL a real identity and uniqueness.

JE SUIS LEGACY!

I became a subscriber in 2006, so probably lurking a year before that. I too was lured by Defamer. Remember "Butterscotch Stallion"?

Friends talked about it in late 90s - lurked 2001 or so - began posting 2002.

I've taken time off - up to 6 months - but I keep coming back.

23 fucking years - yikes.

I started posting in 2000. I'm now 51.

A latecomer, also in my forties like OP, I arrived in 2010.

DL is the longest relationship I've been in.

Been posting since 2005

I still remember where TheVoiceoftheNight got his username.

That was a looonnnggg time ago. I’m glad he’s still around.