This internet forum thread from Sept. 11, 2001 is a snapshot of what it was like to experience and share those tragic events as it unfolded.
Way before Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even MySpace, when people wanted to share events with each other online, there was always e-mail. But, more prominently than e-mail was internet forum threads. Earlier today, VW Vortex, specifically The Car Lounge, posted up a 17-year-old thread from that fateful day on Sept. 11, 2001 when two planes slammed into the World Trade Center resulting in the deaths of thousands.
The thread titled, ” A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center!!!” shares, like most internet forum threads work, a snapshot of how people reacted to that horrible event in real time. As someone who was around and poignantly remembers those days events like it was yesterday, I can empathize with what people wrote online that day.
A lot of their reactions are direct responses to what everyone was watching on television. With information trickling in as the hours ticked by, it was a pattern of shock, getting in touch with anyone who we might know in that area, and immediately wondering how we could help. Reading through this forum, it’s much the same.
Me being a Honda enthusiast, I wondered what Honda-Tech.com had, arguably the largest online Honda community at that time. Fortunately, that thread is around with much the same exact design and look it had in 2001. The forum’s being a tight-knit community that it is, immediately called out a lot of the screen names of members who lived and worked in the New York Area, wondering if they’re OK.
Woah!!
Main727 and Christian work right there.-Kamil, who works a black away from Empire Stae Building
Interestingly enough, with a lot of these threads still open, posts usually show up on the same date, every year with some people posting even today.
It’s good that people remember these events and as the cliche goes, to never forget. With forums going to the wayside for more popular forms of social media, it’ll only be a matter of time before these internet servers close down, and with them, the forums.
Hopefully, someone is taking snapshots of these web pages for posterity’s sake.
