Cyberia and other olde-worlde internet cafe memories

[Cloo]

This article brought back some memories: Remembering Cyberia, the World's First Ever Cyber Cafe

I visited it a few times when in town and in the mid 90s felt awfully cool. We were actually online at home pretty early by national standards, but obviously without portable internet you had to go there if you were out all day and wanted to do something online. Not quite sure what I did while I was there; I think I might have done some work on a very basic and bad and never launched site intended as guide to young alternative London by young alternative Londoners my friend and I had a vague idea about.

I guess cyber cafes were useful for killing some time in town mostly and maybe I did some pragmatic stuff to do with applying for uni at them too.

 

[editor]

I went there a fair bit, mainly for product launches and when I worked in the States, I was always in internet cafes.

It's getting harder to remember what the world was like without constant connectivity!

 

[DaveCinzano]

I remember what might have been Bristol's first - ‘Dorothy's’ (as in ‘friend of’) in Old Market. The owner kind of went through wobbles about its identity, so when it first opened it was internet access and coffees and maybe cake; then he tried to make it a greasy spoon vibe; then a night time bistro vibe; then ‘Scottish cuisine’ (i.e. rollmops and, ah, well pretty much mainly rollmops).

None of the staff (who were mostly friends or people who worked in his saunas) were very techy (and nor was he really), and I seem to recall some random local guy hanging around to offer IT support when punters had a problem. Unless I am mistaken he later appeared on the front page of the Evening Post after some suspected burglar was chased by police across rooftops in Redland or St Andrews or somewhere like that until gravity decided it preferred him more at pavement level. The next time I saw him he was fulfilling a similar role, but performed from a wheelchair, at ‘EasyCaf’ on Stokes Croft, which was a better place altogether (though Stelios didn't think so).

Oh, and there was another one on Broad Street in St. Nick's, but I don't really remember much except a then-girlfriend took me in there to create my first email address.

 

[ouirdeaux]

I remember the era quite well. I had just discovered the world of the internet around the turn of the millennium, and was fascinated, but as I worked seven nights on, seven off, I deliberately didn't have internet access at home, so that I could live in the Real World. Few people did much on the internet back then anyway. If I had to do something on my week off, I went to an internet café, at least until libraries began to offer access.

 

[ouirdeaux]

I didn't know Scottish cuisine enveloped rollmops, though. It's looking up.

 

[Silas Loom]

I didn't know Scottish cuisine enveloped rollmops, though. It's looking up.

Staple foodstuff for me, never seen a Scottish brand. Not that I’d trust Tunnocks or whoever to put cloves and other essential flavourings in the vinegar.

 

[xenon]

Anyone remember IT boxes? Like a booth you could send email from do some basic web browsing. There was one outside the local Asda back circuit 2002. At that point I was using dial up from my Windows 95 laptop. It seemed well cyberpunk though. This Internet connected thin in the street.

 

[xenon]

I remember what might have been Bristol's first - ‘Dorothy's’ (as in ‘friend of’) in Old Market. The owner kind of went through wobbles about its identity, so when it first opened it was internet access and coffees and maybe cake; then he tried to make it a greasy spoon vibe; then a night time bistro vibe; then ‘Scottish cuisine’ (i.e. rollmops and, ah, well pretty much mainly rollmops).

None of the staff (who were mostly friends or people who worked in his saunas) were very techy (and nor was he really), and I seem to recall some random local guy hanging around to offer IT support when punters had a problem. Unless I am mistaken he later appeared on the front page of the Evening Post after some suspected burglar was chased by police across rooftops in Redland or St Andrews or somewhere like that until gravity decided it preferred him more at pavement level. The next time I saw him he was fulfilling a similar role, but performed from a wheelchair, at ‘EasyCaf’ on Stokes Croft, which was a better place altogether (though Stelios didn't think so).

Oh, and there was another one on Broad Street in St. Nick's, but I don't really remember much except a then-girlfriend took me in there to create my first email address.

There was an Internet café on East Street in Bedminster I remember. Never went in there. Do you remember these IT boxes? They probably got vandalised.

 

[xenon]

First use the Internet in 95. On a DOS based PC, newsgroups and email only though.

 

[DaveCinzano]

I didn't know Scottish cuisine enveloped rollmops, though. It's looking up.

According to Sean's ma, and I never fancied questioning that woman

 

[DaveCinzano]

There was an Internet café on East Street in Bedminster I remember.

I don't remember that one I'm afraid

 

[iona]

Staple foodstuff for me, never seen a Scottish brand. Not that I’d trust Tunnocks or whoever to put cloves and other essential flavourings in the vinegar.

Silver Tide? That's the main brand you see in shops here besides the local ones.

 

[Throbbing Angel]

There was one of these on Oxford Road in Manchester.

Very cool at the time.

/sigh/

 

[Mation]

I had heard, vaguely, of rollmops, but have only just looked up what they are.

No thank you, please.

I only went to internet cafes a couple of times. Not enough to properly remember what sort of thing for.

 

[Cloo]

Amazingly I only ever saw a guy blatantly looking at porn once over the few years I went to cyber cafes

 

[Saul Goodman]

I didn't know Scottish cuisine enveloped rollmops, though. It's looking up.

Battered and deep fried rollmops.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Don't remember ever seeing one. An internet cafe that is, not a rollmop.

 

[metalguru]

I remember visiting Cyberia once or twice, and also slightly later the bright orange EasyInternetCafes that were in really central locations such as Trafalgar Square and Tottenham Court Road. When I first visited New York in 2005, I was surprised to find a big EasyInternetCafe just off Times Square, I think.

Faintly depressing memories of the internet cafe scene for the most part really. I wasn't part of the rave culture that allegedly surrounded Cyberia - though Cyberia looked very tame when I visited. And they just seemed like soulless places in which to waste some time, and not even with good coffee.

 

[editor]

Amazingly I only ever saw a guy blatantly looking at porn once over the few years I went to cyber cafes

One guy famously set up in the Kaff bar in Brixton with a full PC set up - monitor, mouse, keyboard etc - just to gorge on porn.

 

[campanula]

Used to nip over the road to use the printers (in the imaginatively named Cybercafe) as mine were continually crapping out.

 

[stethoscope]

That article has evoked a strong sense of nostalgia, having visited Cyberia from time to time as a stop-off point whilst record buying in Soho. Radio 1 broadcasting their 'Interactive night' from there, with Orbital playing via ISDN This is what the future looks like!



That said, my first encounters on the internet was through staying at an uncles (Compuserve, Netscape, and discovering newsgroups like alt.rave) and then off to uni where I spent a lot of time surfing. I'm sure I must have landed on the Urban site at least once in the late 90s although I don't recall for sure. I certainly didn't check the forum until much later and even then I didnt join up for some years again (although that itself is now 15 years ago ). Pleased I've experienced some good years here and met great people, even if I do regret not doing so earlier during what seems like 'the golden years' (and missing out on Unsound, etc.).

The feeling I once had that the internet/web offered world-shrinking and revolutionary egalitarian and levelling possibilities seemed to have mostly passed by the mid 00s. Didnt take long really for it all to be subsumed into corporatism and capitalism. Certainly was mindblowing in those earlier days communicating with people around the world about music, politics, LGBT stuff, etc. Trading tapes (and later mp3s) of rave and radio tapes with someone over in the States! Rave music/artist sites such as Hyperreal and anyone being able to have a little home on Geocities. Chatting on ICQ! Bit later still radio stations live streaming.

The internet has and continues to radically change the world, how we live, work, and interact - in many ways for good, but in my view increasingly for the bad. The loss of that DIY and community ethos that has been taken over by big-business and monetised through 'social media' (which is why forums like this are so important as they embody those original values). I mourn the one-time naive exhuberance of it all which the 'cyber cafe' era reflected. Recently read 'Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet against Democracy' and that discusses much of where we find ourselves these days.

 

[tim]

I

Amazingly I only ever saw a guy blatantly looking at porn once over the few years I went to cyber cafes

My first time on the internet, in 1999, was in a an international cafe in Saudi Arabia about a week after the regime legalised it. I resisted the strong urge to search for anything that violated the censorship laws.

The only time I noticed people looking at porn was in Hounslow Library by a three young Somali women, which seemed slightly incongruous. They weren't taking it terribly seriously.

 

[Throbbing Angel]

Don't remember ever seeing one. An internet cafe that is, not a rollmop.

There were three I used to use in Manchester City Centre.
Cyberia on Oxford Rd, EasyInternetCafe in St Anne's Square and some other cafe I can't recall the name of (that is now a Starbucks) on the end of Tib St/Market St/Piccadilly Gardens. Mid to late 90's, Maybe 2000 at the latest.
I know Cyberia was still there in 2000.

 

[furluxor]

I had internet at home since I was 11. Internet cafes were grim places in my hometown - dingy, bad-smelling basements where teenage boys (and a few unsavoury characters) were endlessly playing Counterstrike. You could tell the ones who had spent a few days there (internet cafes were often 24/7) without sleep. Sometimes someone would pop out to buy a baguette and a jar of mayo, for sustenance.

Chatting on ICQ!

For me ICQ came later and was short-lived (along with MSN Messenger). The one that I really loved and kinda miss was mIRC.

 

[metalguru]

I was chatting to a friend recently who recalled that we went to Cyberia fairly early on in its existence, after shopping for a modem on the Tottenham Court Road, and someone there showed us some website about dolphins and John Lilly and chatted about the amazing mobile phones you could only buy in Japan.

That's kind of my impression looking back on mid-nineties Cyber-life: it vaguely hung together as a loose association of raves and flyers, with vague philosophies floating around - often thirdhand (Terence McKenna, Rushkoff), rumours about exciting technologies, dolphins graphics, 90s ambient music, day-glo colours, clubs that offered as then exotic live broadcasts from across the world (Timothy Leary?) via the internet on a club night, leafing through internet magazines that promised a bright future, and a general pleasant 'chilled' outlook.

 

[BassJunkie]

I was in Bangkok in 1999. I remember going into a kind of internet cafe on Khao San Road, where, incredibly, like living in a science fiction future, I paid to use the internet to call my parents' landline. I couldn't quite believe it at the time.

Now I spend half my time on Teams.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

About 98 I used to go to an Internet cafe to read schnews and urban during my lunch break from my office job, where we didn’t have the internet on our dumb terminal computers.