History Through the Eyes of Usenet

The first message on the topic began simply and calmly: “At 8:39 AM PST today, the shuttle Challenger exploded at about a minute into the flight. NASA is searching for survivors now.” And as the world grieved and wondered if humans would ever see space again, the Usenet community coped as it always had: through discussion and debate.

An ongoing fantasy about joyrides in space took a somber turn: “It will be many years before I'll even be able to think about taking a joyride in space,” someone wrote. “Yesterday, I would have paid $200 just to see a launch. Now, I wish I hadn't even turned on the TV.”

Decades before anyone started “blogging,” Usenet served as a real-time forum to share facts and feelings about unfolding history. For three decades, no event, no matter how solemn or how silly, has escaped Usenet’s attention.

New Coke Wasn’t It for Usenet

For example, the caffeine-addicted computer crowd had a lot to say when Coca-Cola changed its famous formula in 1985. “Is nothing sacred?” shrieked one writer. “They might as well outlaw the Beatles, or reinstate prohibition.”

As the Coca-Cola Company scrambled to undo the public relations damage, conspiracy-minded Usenet writers smelled a rat: Was the whole thing staged? Noticing the windfall of free publicity, one writer called it “the greatest Machiavellian marketing scheme in the history of capitalism.”

Usenet Newsgroups Get Wired

Not surprisingly, Usenet newsgroups have kept a very close eye on computer history, tracking important trends long before they reached the general public. A little company called Microsoft, and its new MS-DOS operating system, was first noticed in 1981. A year later, rumors of a new Apple computer called Macintosh began to circulate. And 15 years before it would become a worldwide obsession, one Usenet writer asked this simple question: What will happen to our computers when we reach the year 2000?

Usenet and the Tragedy in Tiananmen Square

By 1989, Usenet had grown beyond its American borders to become a truly global network. So when the student protests in China’s Tiananmen Square came to a violent and tragic end in June of that year, Usenet carried eyewitness accounts to a horrified world.

“The situation is Beijing is MUCH WORSE that what is reported by the media,” warned one long and detailed message. “A friend of mine just made a phone call to her brother at Beijing Normal University. Her brother said that thousands have been killed, many of them run over by tanks.”

Chinese living abroad debated about what they could do. Should they try to call or fax relatives in China, or would their calls and faxes be intercepted? A list of government phone numbers circulated quickly, but would outside pressure make the situation better – or worse?

Meanwhile, the messages flew. On the rec.ham-radio newsgroup, radio hobbyists shared times and frequencies that might help them get news from China. University students all over the world announced and organized protest rallies. People shared first-hand accounts and news clippings, trying to counterbalance the confusion and rumors.

Usenet Watches the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Later that same year came another, much happier, historic event: The fall of the Berlin Wall, signaling the collapse of Soviet Communism. “Amazing sights to see on the way to work this morning,” began the first message on eunet.politics. “DDR (East German) cars on the streets, DDR citizens everywhere, traffic jams near the wall, celebrations in the streets the whole night ... Can you picture people dancing on top of the Berlin wall?”

“I must say I felt extremely jealous of Berliners that weekend,” commented a user from Great Britain. “It was a momentous occasion, a cathartic release of decades of tension.”

Usenet and the 9/11 Attacks

Then, on September 11, 2001, came the event that would change America and define the century to come. The earliest Usenet messages came in breathless clipped sentences: “Check CNN. Plane crashed into World Trade Center near the top” “Watching right now. Scary!!!” “Two planes 18 mins apart!!” “wonder what else now...it's obviously terrorism.” No matter what newsgroup, no matter what topic, normal conversation came to a dead stop, as Usenet overflowed with expressions of confusion, shock and grief.

9/11 and its ongoing aftermath have not yet passed into history, and the debates and discussions will no doubt continue for as long as there is a Usenet to carry them. Buried within the messages, ranging from the hateful to the hopeful, is a window into a global mind coming to grips with what it sees.