Apostates back in the days of IRC & Chat Rooms

by JustThatGirl007 14 Replies latest jw friends

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  JustThatGirl007

  I used to be really active in the JW chat rooms on IRC. I was an op on several and I had my fair share of banning apostates. (Sorry, if that was you. LOL)

  2 of them were pretty regular at harrassing us and creating other rooms with near-identical names to ours. They were ChrisA (I think his last name was Arndt) and Mark Cunningham (can't remember his username). At the time, I thought they were a couple of arrogant jerks, but now it amuses me.

  Does anyone else remember them? Or remember IRC? This was mid-90s.
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  JustThatGirl007

  Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?
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  mrsjones5

  I was mainly on yahoochat when a person could create their own room. The booting in the jw room was crazy. The jws that came were nasty too.
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  JustThatGirl007

  I remember being all haughty and stuck up because I knew the TRUTH. They were gonna die! So /kick and /ban and move on with my day. lol!!!!
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  lisaBObeesa

  I was over on AOL back in those days...good times.
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  NewChapter

  In the 90's the only thing I played with was AOL---and their chat rooms. I got my first computer when I was inactive (maybe 97) and it was the first time I ever spent any time talking to strangers on the internet. I gravitated toward the JW chat rooms because I was feeling weird about being inactive. But it was AOL, so I don't think anyone could get banned for being an apostate, and the rooms were open to the public.

  Anyway, I remember the rooms would fill up with apostates. There was one frequent poster who would be all enthusiastic about the religion, and say all the right things. But THEN he'd get on and say all kinds of apostate stuff. It confused me. So they explained that someone had come along and managed to sign on with the exact same name. I asked how that was possible, and they replied, "Satan". Years later I thought about that, and just laughed. I'm thinking it was more likely that it was the exact same person, and he was just stirring things up.

  WOW, I hadn't thought about that in years! LOL

  By 99 I was active again. Never went back to rooms like that.
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  NewChapter

  I remember there was one woman who even kept reaching out to me. I actually gave her my address (yeah, I know, but internet was new to many of us, and we didn't fully understand the dangers) Anyway, she mailed me WTs and AWAKES.
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  sabastious

  Anyway, I remember the rooms would fill up with apostates. There was one frequent poster who would be all enthusiastic about the religion, and say all the right things. But THEN he'd get on and say all kinds of apostate stuff. It confused me. So they explained that someone had come along and managed to sign on with the exact same name. I asked how that was possible, and they replied, "Satan". Years later I thought about that, and just laughed. I'm thinking it was more likely that it was the exact same person, and he was just stirring things up.

  Aristotle turns in his grave everytime someone uses the Satan Card.

  -Sab
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  NewChapter

  LOL, I'm sure he does.

  To be fair, the poster who blamed Satan was the poster who had the two personalities, JW/Apostate---maybe he was just messing with them. The entire experience was so new to so many of us, that we just weren't savvy enough to figure out other reasons, or even to call bullshit.
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  NewChapter

  MY GOODNESS---I'm sitting here thinking about how amazed I was with dial-up. Downloads took hours. We got booted constantly. But I was so excited. Now I take my Mp3 player, check my email, download books and music, play games, visit websites---and no wires. I stream movies through my blue ray, carry my computer from room to room, get directions from phones in my car.

  In just 15 years, our lives have completely changed. It's astounding.