- (anchor) What is internet anyway?
- Oh my god.
- Could you imagine how small the world was before the internet?
- I know!
- It'd be just like your town and what the newspaper's telling you.
♪ (dramatic chord) ♪
- (reporter) It spans the globe like a super highway.
It is called "internet."
♪ (funk music) ♪
- (nasally) "They call it the internet."
- (reporter) Like a super highway.
- "Like a super highway." ♪ (funk music) ♪
- Oh, that's a little bit too sexy.
- (reporter) "The net" to longtime users.
- "The net" to longtime users?
I've been a longtime user,
and I've never referred to it as "the net."
- (reporter) One danger is this could turn out to be
an elitist system, one available only to people
with a computer and a modem. - That's right.
Only the most elite.
- Back then, it was expensive.
- Everyone just's got one on a phone now.
- They're talking about it like it's such a novelty,
this computer thing.
- (reporter) Phillips connects to Cupertino, California's cityrun
network, CityNet. - "CityNet."
- Look at that state-of-the-art technology.
- (reporter) One of its greatest achievements
appears to be as an aid in scientific research.
- (in jest) Remarkable!
- (reporter) By tapping into internet--
- They don't even say "the internet."
It's tapping into "internet."
- (reporter) Internet keeps growing, adding users and services.
- It kind of looks cool again now.
We've gone full circle.
- It's like on retro attractive. - Yeah.
- (reporter) When a youngster just home from school,
given a choice between Nintendo and the Encyclopedia Britannica,
they choose to access the encyclopedia.
- Wrong! - (laughing)
- (reporter) That might be a greater accomplishment
than the technology. - No.
- (both) No.
- People don't even know what an encyclopedia is anymore.
- The internet, that's my favorite place.
- Humanity's greatest mistake.
- I remember the days where if you wanted internet,
you had to close the phone line.
Those were the days.
Can you imagine uploading a video back then?
- (voice-over) CompuServe combines...
- What ever happened to poor CompuServe?
They tried so hard.
- (voice-over) CompuServe-- - (chipperly) CompuServe!
- (voice-over) ...with the convenience of your telephone
to bring-- - Wow, graphics.
- (voice-over) ...to bring you hundreds of online services,
like a complete set of encyclopedias.
- Throwing books at me. Information!
- (voice-over) It helps you decide on investments,
make airline reservations, and shop in--
- (feigned disbelief) From your computer?
- All those things are true.
I love the electronic mall.
- (voice-over) ...and offers games that pit you against
opponents around the country.
You get all this and more-- - Oh, hello!
- (laughing) Hello.
- (voice-over) So get online with CompuServe
and over a half million people-- - Half million people?
(laughing)
- (voice-over) See your local computer store.
- "Your local computer store." - Yeah.
- Those were a dime a dozen.
- That's a good description of what the internet
not only is, but what it became.
- I have no idea what that was.
Is that like AOL or something?
- It must've been something like that.
- I remember when that's how you got to the internet,
you had to go through the gatekeepers
like CompuServe and AOL and all these different guys
and dial into their service.
What is the opposite of nostalgia?
Is it just terror memories, where you're like,
"Oh, I remember back when the internet sucked!"
- Yeah, I just got America Online.
- Yeah, AOL!
- There's AOL. I knew they were coming.
- Oh man, that computer is huge!
- (man 1) I can't go to the game today.
- Aww.
- (man 1) I've got to send something for my mom's birthday.
It's tomorrow.
And then book plane tickets for our trip next week--
- Natural acting.
- (man 1) ...or to look up dinosaurs. - Oh my god.
- This guy.
- Life was so hard.
- If only there were an easier solution.
- (man 2) Hey, we can take care of all that before we go.
- (man 1) Yeah, right. - (man 2) Oh, with America Online.
- "Online."
- (voice-over) Call now for America Online,
a new way to use your computer to communicate, have fun--
- "Never have to go outside again!"
- (voice-over) ...have fun, and get instant news and information.
- What?
- (man 2) Now let's access the online travel service.
- (man 1) How long have you had this?
- How?!
- (man 1) How long have you had this?
- (man 2) About a week. - Wow.
- (man 2) All you do is point, click. - Wow!
- (man 2) All you need is a computer and a regular phone line.
- I remember that layout.
- (man 2) All you need is a computer and a regular phone line.
Here come the dinosaurs.
I saved you a trip to the library.
- (man 1) That's great! - Wow.
- (man 2) You know, I can even send email on the internet.
- He doesn't know what email is.
- (man 2) ...my personal favorite, live chat.
That's how I met my new kayaking buddies.
- Oh boy, he's doing online chats!
- (man 2) ...my personal favorite, live chat.
- What's he doing-- - Ha-ha, okay.
Yeah, I'm sure his wife knows all about the live chats he's having.
- (man 1) So how do you get America Online?
- (man 2) Oh, that's easy too.
You just call their 800 number.
- (man 1) I gotta check this out.
- "I gotta check this out."
Wow, that's so strange.
So the internet was like a company, America Online.
Whoa, weird.
- I'm sure back then the internet was such a new concept
that you have to relate it to people,
to make it sound convenient.
- It's gotta be actual magic to him.
"What?! I don't have to go to a travel agency
to book a flight?"
And now I can do that right here, right now.
I can book a flight while I'm talking to you.
In fact, hold on.
- (voice-over) America Online 4.0, the easiest just got easier!
- Again, America Online? They were like Google.
- I've seen this commercial a million times.
They ran this commercial every day, every hour.
- (woman 1) They made the internet easier--
- These graphics. - Wow.
- They're just beautiful.
- News, sports, kids, personal finance.
- (voice-over) We've spent over $1 billion dollars to create
the world's largest high speed network.
Now with 56K, connections are faster than ever.
- That was not fast back in the day.
- (voice-over) Now with 56K-- - 56K, man?
That's pretty good.
- (man 1) It's fast.
- (woman 2) From your home phone line,
you can go online.
- I still remember the modem sound.
- (man 2) What will they think of next?
- That's what I ask myself every day.
- (voice-over) So easy to use, no wonder it's number one.
- Oh, I remember that slogan.
"So easy to use, no wonder it's number one."
- How does anyone not know about America Online?
They sent CDs to everybody's house.
We all had, like, 300 of them in a drawer somewhere.
Everybody knew what America Online was.
They gotta save their money on their TV commercials.
- (Gumble) ...I wasn't prepared to translate that...
- Katie Couric.
- (Gumble) ...as I was doing that little tease,
that little mark with the A and then the ring around it.
- (anchor) "At"? - (Gumble) See, that's what I said.
- (gasping) The at sign! Oh my gosh.
- (anchor) "At"? - (Gumble) See, that's what I said.
Katie said she thought it was "about."
- (both) "About"?
- (Gumble) I've never heard it said. - (overlapping speech)
- It's around.
- (Gumble) See, there it is.
"Violence@nbc.ge.com."
I mean -(Couric) Aww, Alison should know.
- (Gumble) What is internet anyway? - Oh my god!
- (Gumble) What is internet anyway? - This is great.
- What?
Did he just ask "what is internet"?
- (Couric) And that is that massive computer network,
the one that's becoming really big now.
- You go, Katie.
It's getting huge.
- (Gumble) What, do you write to it like mail?
- (Couric) No, a lot of people use it in communicating.
I guess they can communicate with NBC writers and producers.
Alison, can you explain what internet is?
- Wow, that is so crazy!
- Remember the time when people didn't know what internet was?
- There was a time, a tragic time.
- Can you imagine how small the world was
before the internet? - I know.
- It'd just be like your town and what the newspaper's telling you.
- Hey! Why should I be on the internet?
- You shouldn't. You're too young.
- (kids chiming) Why? - (squealing)
- (girl 1) By the time I'm in college,
the internet will be our telephone...
- (girl 2) ...television...
- (girl 3) ...shopping center... - This is terrifying.
- (girl 4) ...and workplace.
- (boy 1) And it's already got more stuff on it
than you could possibly imagine. - That's true.
Oh, the wires in those computers.
- (girl 2) In less than an hour, you can...
- (girl 3) ...visit the planet Jupiter...
- (girl 4) ...take a tour of the Sistine Chapel--
- And also meet your friends? Your girlfriend?
Every relationship that you have.
- (girl 6) ...chat with a friend in Australia..
- (girl 5) And I even found-- - They're not wrong.
- (girl 5) I even found a recipe for cat food cupcakes.
♪ (techno music) ♪
- (girl 6) It is as much a part of the future as we are.
- (groaning) Oh.
- This is Tim and Eric before Tim and Eric existed.
- (boy 2) Shouldn't everybody be on the internet?
- Yes. - (all chiming) Yes!
- Yes. Yes.
- (boy 2) Shouldn't everybody be on the internet?
- Everyone is on the internet.
- (all) Yes! - (laughing)
♪ (techno music) ♪
- "Ask how YOU can get on the internet."
- "At your school or library."
- They did put a lot of effort in that, though.
- Yeah. I wonder where those kids are now.
- I bet they didn't even believe anything that they were saying,
but it's all true.
- They're all just trying to boil down
the cool everyday things you can do with the internet,
and it's kind of fun to see because how do you explain
to someone what the internet is, even today.
Even today, how do you do it?
- (FBE) So after watching these clips,
considering a huge part of your career
is due to the internet,
what are your thoughts after seeing the way the web
used to be talked about, considering where it is now?
- Oh my gosh, I'm so grateful I live nowadays, and not back then.
- You don't have to advertise the internet anymore.
I don't understand how you sell somebody the internet.
- Well, it'd be like selling air.
- I've lived through a lot of that, so I remember when people
were trying to figure that out, and, you know,
I got started making online video in 2001,
so this stuff is like-- trying to explain what online video
was to somebody, you know, it used to take me 20 minutes
at parties to tell people what I do for a living.
- They never could have anticipated, you know, phones, smart phones.
They never could have anticipated you could do all this from--
that must've been a sci-fi fantasy.
But they were starting to get things.
You could hear them, like, "Imagine putting your phone
and your TV together, and your this and your that
together in one device."
They got that right.
But I don't think they anticipated it being portable,
and I definitely don't think they anticipated
the social norms of it.
- I'm realizing we have it so much better.
Sometimes I just take it for granted, and I forget, right,
but I remember when there was a period of time
that if I wanted to learn something, you had to buy
an encyclopedia set for $1,800 dollars,
and then it was outdated the moment it got printed.
The very first time I'd ever seen the worldwide web
was in '94, and I was just shocked-- an HTML page with graphics,
as well as words, and you could click on the graphic,
and there would be bitmaps and you could use the graphics
to put words that you could click on!
- In my mind, I'm like, "What is next?"
Because I don't think internet is gonna be the last thing.
I feel like, after this, something more crazy's gonna come
and we're all going to be like, "What is that?"
And then in 30 years, we're like, "Look at them."
- (FBE) Can you imagine doing what you do now
back when the internet was in its earlier days?
- No. What would I do?
- It's crazy that we are the first people to do this job,
so no one knows where it's going to lead.
- YouTube is this new media that only happened
from the internet, where anyone could just put
something up there and do it themselves.
Before, it was just a completely different world,
where no artist or creative person could do anything
outside of the establishment of TV and radio and whatever.
- If we were this age now, when that version of the internet
became a thing, we'd have to go the traditional route.
We'd have to write actual film scripts
and be like, "Let's hope somebody picks this."
- I would've been on Access Cable, putting up shows
and making my own shows and putting them up.
Because you can make something and it was awesome,
and you weren't allowed to show it to anybody.
There was no way to get people-- unless you physically handed them
a VHS tape, there was no way anyone
was going to be able to watch your stuff.
You weren't just going to go to a network like CBS
and say, "Put my show up."
They'd be like, "Get out of here."
- (FBE) So finally, the way they talk about the internet
in these clips is hilarious to us today.
What do you think are some of the things
we're gonna look back on and laugh?
- Um, I think that we're all probably gonna be dead
because of the internet. - Yeah, the internet will take over
and crush us all.
- VR with our goggles that we put on, you know,
and our sticks that we hold in our hands,
and we act like we're in the future,
they're just gonna look back at that and they're gonna laugh.
- They'll look back at all of our memes
and just be like, "What was that about?"
Oh my gosh, can you imagine people in the distant future
looking back at these things, being like,
"They used to communicate in pictures of frogs."
- Data caps and having limited amounts of data
and the small amount of data you get with your data caps,
they'll look back and say, "How did people survive
with only 6 GB of data?"
- Technology these days, you know how I was laughing
at how giant the computers were,
I feel like we're gonna be like, you know, our cellphone--
"Oh my, I can't believe we had to carry cellphones.
That's ridiculous.
I have an implant and projector screen
like Iron Man in my head.
- I think people are gonna have Wikipedia
just in their brains as a chip, so you can just access
anything just by thinking about it.
- Everyone will have all information, all the time,
and everyone will be able to do everything
and when Facebook has that level of control
and all the information of our lives, we'll all just be enslaved.
- Robots will destroy us all.
- Thanks for watching this episode of YouTubers React.
- Subscribe to everyone that was in this episode.
- The links are going to be in the description box below.
- Bye!
- Hey, everybody, I'm Adam. - And I'm Dallen.
Thank you so much for watching this episode of YouTubers React.
- I remember a time without the internet.
How about you?
- No, I'm not that old. Goodbye.