How did you discover DataLounge?

I googled if someone was gay and this site popped up.

In college in 2012 on reddit

Michael Musto in the Voice. Thank you Michael!

I googled "why are lesbians so mean" after I began writing with a woman I reconnected with from high school who plagiarized my work and turned it into a piece of shit lesbian novel. I'm straight.

I did a Yahoo search for "gay gossip".

That was twenty years ago.

Googling Anderson Cooper who was still in the closet at the time. Loved the snark and lurked for a few years. Took the plunge and began posting like two or three years ago.

I think I Googled soap gossip, and here we are.

I seek the photograph of the big negro penes. And waalah! I be here ever since I found.

Behind the school, he offered the first hit for free. I’ve been paying ever since.

I found it about 2 weeks before 9/11. I came here that day, because I was alone, I was scared. The famous thread really helped that day, and I have been here since. The internet was far different then, but I still have a soft spot for this old school board.

It was while looking for something old Hollywood a long time ago. I can’t even remember the specifics. I was so happy to find all the detail I was looking for, from elder gays who are like museum curators of old pop culture. I know there’s a lot of nastiness and fighting about social issues, but I block a lot of people and in general have a good experience here. I have learned a lot, and until they started dying off, you could hear stories from industry people that actually worked in movies and who told amazing stories. There’s no place like it. There’s almost always someone who has (or claims) to have direct knowledge of whatever is being discussed.

Looking to find out if it was true that Jensen Ackles was homophobic and I found a topic here about.

I was looking to see where the odor was coming from.

[quote]There seems to be a lot of younger folk on this,

Gurl only if you are 100 years old.

Was googling Jodie foster gossip back in 2003 when I was a baby lez.

So.... I’ve been coming to this site for 17 years. Damn.

It was in 2019..I had just finished a biography of Eisenhower, and his wife seemed like such a lifelong bitch, so I Googled "Mamie Eisenhower is a cunt" and we all know where that took me.

I googled someone in 2015 (I forgot who) and one of the hits was DL. I spent hours here that day and got hooked.

[quote] I was looking to see where the odor was coming from.

Cheryl's pussy.

Several months after Chris Burrous died I came across a news item about him and was curious/puzzled about his manner of death. I stumbled across this site on a search and - hoo boy.,,,what an eye opener!! I was down the rabbit hole.

I’ve been here since 2011, almost 10 years. When I was bored, I would Google things like “hate Julia Roberts” and “hate Meryl Streep” and wouldn’t cha know, DL found ME!

2000, did a search for Nick Carter. Lurked for years, then life got busy and I didn’t have time for entertainment gossip.

2016, searched for something Trump-related and DL was the first hit. It all came rushing back and I will never leave again.

It was 1999. I probably did a search for gay gossip or something like that, or maybe got directed to it by chatting with someone on ICQ or MSN chat.

I go back to the a days. Netscape Navigator and I went looking for gay sites and I found one.

A friend steered me to DL in summer 2003, promising a den of vipers like I'd never seen before. I've been here ever since, and DL rarely disappoints. I've spent so much time here, I wonder what my life might look like if I'd invested that time more wisely. I could be a neurosurgeon by now.

I had heard boyfriends talk about it but the name always made me think it was for gay tech people. Hah!

I didn’t actually track it down until Obama’s re-election campaign, I think it was, in 2012.

In order to get closer to my daddy (non-biological and non-family-related), I had taken an interest in things he loved. And I discovered the great forum that is DLs. I have also discovered a lot of things, such as ancient treasures Dionne Warwick and Joan Crawford. And intersting words such as frau, cuntbone etc.

r15, I too was googling Jodie Foster. It was sometime after the high tech crash, probably 2001. She's kind of fallen off the radar since then,

I Googled “Talentless, overrated, actresses with genital warts and a secret drinking problem.” Naturally, M’s name came up as the first hit........something she really isn’t used to having unless there are younger, prettier actresses in the movie and M is just the “crackhead ho who fucks midgets”.

The first time I remember visiting the page was when I was googling the ski instructor Norma Shearer dated and came across a DL thread dedicated to Miss Shearer. I didn't realize it was a gay forum then so I didn't bother checking the rest of the page. A few months later Liz & Dick, starring DL fav and gay icon Lindsay Lohan, premiered on TV and I found DL's livewatch thread that night. I loved the snarky comments so I decided to stick around.

I think it was a link from PlaNetOut, but it was back in 1995. I'm not even sure there was a forum yet, just gossip items(?)

One summer night I got blackout drunk and the next morning I had a paid subscription to DataLounge. I can’t tell you how it happened but I’ve been here ever since.

[quote] The first time I remember visiting the page was when I was googling the ski instructor Norma Shearer dated

That sentence could only have been written by a DLer.

[quote] I think it was a link from PlaNetOut, but it was back in 1995. I'm not even sure there was a forum yet, just gossip items(?)

Ur old.

I have a few friends who are / have been regulars here over the years, and none of them can remember these threads:

Linda Evangelista, the ultimate full-stop supermodel

My boyfriend called me an IDIOT for putting bread in the fridge

Lesbian TV Network

Got here in April or May 2002.

I had seen a movie with British actor Jeremy Northam and was captivated by him. Googled him to find out more and go standard stuff. The I googled "Jeremy Northam + gay" and landed here. Was up until the wee hours that night reading various threads, but assumed it was just a one time visit to DL.

A few days later, I was jonesing to read more of the DL threads, but couldn't remember the name. So, I did the same google search for "Jeremy Northam + gay" and got back here. Quickly bookmarked the site. I've visited virtually every day since.

Hi this is r33. I just realized I didn’t sign my post correctly. Fixed?

I was googling for famous hung actors, and a Datalounge thread came up. I've been here ever since.

I think I found my way here via a link on IsHeSheGay.com back in the late 90s. I know it was while I was working a job that I held from 1997-2001. I used to visit while I working and I was always afraid I would get caught. This was back when the site also included news articles and the forum had different boards for different areas of interest.

I was looking up an HBO Madonna concert. I found a DL thread where everyone was calling her madonkey. Been here on and off ever since. I traded insults with shobe and cried tears of laughter and sadness in the Gail Grinds thread.

Apropos of nothing, I once googled “Nancy Reagan blowjob queen”, then lo and behold, here was datalounge.

Turned left at Greenland.

Datalounge found me.

I thought they might have food.

[quote] Datalounge found me. —Andy C.

It sure as fuck wasn't your wonky eye that found it.

I WAS JUST LOOKING AROUND FOR SOME BIG HARD COCK TO SUCK.

MY WIFE HAS NO IDEA.

GOD BLESS,

Don't remember other than stumbling upon DL 8(?) years ago finding a post saying Patti Lupone was Sally Bowles mother. I was hooked!

Just by looking online to see if there was any news about me.

It was on Neely's laptop the night she wanted to do the second act first. I had to peek! I mean, I wasn't about to watch that fuckin train wreck stagger onstage, was I?

BILL GET OFF THE COMPUTER! WHY ARE YOU ONLINE SO MUCH? I AM YOUR MOTHER AND I NEED TO USE THE PHONE!!

OH SHIT

1997-8 or so. Believe it was referred to on alt.gossip.celebrities

I was using The Google for some tips on how to rid myself of some extraneous baggage in my life and found this delightful and useful Website on the Internets.

[quote]I think I found my way here via a link on IsHeSheGay.com back in the late 90s.

I first came here in 1995 when it was the Out.com forums, then drifted to IHSG when it became the hot gossip board, then came back in 1999 when the "Darkspawn stole the board!" drama started at IHSG.

I was writing an article on a film starring Carrie Nye and Googled her name to see if there were other film appearances.

I used to visit the Oh No They Didn't gossip site. This was when Desperate Housewives was on the air and there were rumors that Marcia Cross would be coming out. That gossip led me to datalounge, I think that was in 2005.

My older friend recommended it to me in 2009.

I ran into DL around the time of 9/11 via Yahoo search. The infamous "The World Trade Center is an insatiable bottom" thread is the first DL content I can remember, but I was probably here earlier.

In 2013, Datalounge was in the Google results for "Henry +Cavill +gay".

I came here around 2002, there was a link to it on the IsHeSheGay site.

Saw it mentioned on alt.showbiz.gossip I think, maybe AGC, in the early 2000s and came here a few times. Didn't become a regular until 2004 or so.

Believe it or not, I was looking up Madonna.

Not to go off topic, but what exactly does "the world trade center is an insatiable bottom" mean?

I found Datalounge on google when I was teenager. I’ve been lurking about 20 years now and posting for around 10.

Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah's couch, somebody on another site linked to a thread here about it and I was hooked on this place.

R62 It mean it took a pounding up the ass to beat all time.

Probably '99 or thereabouts. I saw an a ad in the back of Homo Extra.

March 2014. Searched for underappreciated/overlooked films. DL was the second link. It was far more mature, intelligent and witty back then.

R66 what's an a ad? I used to read homo extra too.

I came here in 2004, and for the life of me, I can't remember how I found this place - maybe a Google search. I posted anonymously, but rarely. I wandered off for a few years, but came back in 2014, again posting anonymously. I came back once again in Spring 2019. I had just adopted a pair of sister cats from the SPCA, and one was named Lucy. When I took her out of her carrier it was obvious that she had this huge personality. I took her up in my arms, and said "You're not just Lucy, you're the Fabulous Miss Lucy. A couple of days later, when I joined DL again, I chose that as my name.

In 2003 I had just joined the military, and I was having a hard time coping. I did a search for "gay+military" and it led me to the DataLounge forums (which was part of the PlanetOut network). There were originally several sub-forums, but I think the transition to one forum occurred shortly after I arrived.

My friend, Miss Lindzey, recommended it.

I came across the Datalounge the way a lot of people did - in Google searches. In my case, I was looking for information on old movies and actors from earlier eras. This was some time in the 2000’s.

I learned always to do a search on "[topic] datalounge" for the best gossip about pre-1970 Hollywood. For a long time, that’s all I read – the threads on these topics linked from Google, some of them years old even then. They were always funny and informative, although somewhat puzzling in their references to grease fires (could they be talking about Linda Darnell, I wondered), pasta draining and strange foodstuffs like Red Dragon cheese and dollar store pound cake.

Eventually - but this was years later, probably around 2014 or so - I started visiting the site directly and was lost forever.

My Aunt Jack left it to me with her caftan collection.

I honestly don't remember what DL looked like back in 2003 or 2004. You only had 10 or 20 replies per page, and instead of scrolling you had to click to the next page, I remember that. At some point it changed to a mostly white format and people were complaining that all the color was gone.

While reading another Kennedy family bio, I came across what I felt was a discrepancy re JBKO. I googled to verify my assumption, found a link for DL, started reading, and was hooked. I love to laugh and I like to make people laugh. This site is a good fit for this. You guys are very funny!

Michael Musto's column in Village Voice online back in the Pleistocene Epoch, aka, early 2000s.

Lurked for a few months before posting. Was a groupie of some of the old-time authenticated posters- Pope Buck I was my favorite.

For the porn.

Just like everyone else 😅

Was furst assignment. Aug 2016. Never lyeft.

About 20 years ago, I googled obscure 30s movie star Norma Shearer and I found DL. I read a thread with over 100 responses from queens arguing in detail about her career, talent, sex life and I was hooked.

In the late 90s and early 00s, I worked in one of Broadway's business offices. The Theatre Gossip threads then were on fire in those days and lots of inside tea was weaponized there. It became my job to read DL several times a day to monitor what was being posted and to launch counter attacks in defense of our clients, as needed.

It wasn't my only job responsibility, but at times it was my most crucial. Some of the denizens of Broadway were really getting trashed here. Often with laser like accuracy. This place drove them nuts. Especially Lord Voldemort and a couple of press agents.

I no longer get paid to read all this shit, but I'm here. Look who's here. I'm still here!

Late 90s, from a gay coworker who was also a dear friend.

I believe it was a mention on some subreddit, so I came over here and got trapped in the quicksand of a Michfest thread. Hadn't laughed so much in years, or been so engrossed in something. Then a long involved Joan Crawford thread, and I knew this would soon be my favorite place on the internet. Although I'm an elderfrau, I can find so much wonderful and entertaining material here that it never gets boring.

Michfest! I miss those posts so much. Man on the land!

9/11/2001. Every other website was crashing/frozen. DL was text-only at that time and provided valuable information along with its irresistible cunty humor.

98 "Tom Cruise gay"

From Fametracker - a tiresome Canadian friend of the moderators called bstewart would repeat gossip he read on Datalounge over there. I disliked him so much that I came straight to the source.

R80 I love your writing style. That's what makes DL a go to for me.

I discovered it years ago when I googled myself and found a few DL threads about me, mostly full of mean bitchiness (of course!) I started looking around and became slowly addicted to the whole site. Taken as a whole, I love the cynical take on current events, and reverent exploration of things from the past. Now I have a paying membership and look at it daily. And if I’m mentioned in an occasional thread, I always defend myself (as an anonymous poster, of course).

Mrs Patrick Campbell mentioned this site to me back in 1956 in Barcelona while chatting about Joan Crawford’s next movie role. She said Bette was terribly jealous of Joan and that there was a whole thread on the subject. Also referenced an excellent thread on Red Dragon cheese I might be interested in.

An octegenerian wrote it in spunk on my chest.

I don't remember the PlanetOut connection, but that makes sense since I met said boyfriend on that site.

From 2010 to 2012, I came across DL threads several times when searching Google about a particular celebrity possibly being gay. Then one day in 2013, It just clicked that DL was a hilarious, interactive place, so I started hanging around. After I started my first thread in 2014 (about Brenton Thwaites possibly being bi) and it actually got some traction, I was hooked! I’ve been here ever since.

Love you messy bitches ❤️

R88, how exciting! Are you out or closeted? Are you in Hollywood?

Late 1998 or or early '99

It was a dark and stormy night

It was towards the end of the 20th Century...

I only discovered DL this year! It kept coming up in Google searches, particularly one about whether there were records of any gay slave owners in the South. Now I post and comment every day!

So then, R96, WERE there any gay slave owners in the South?

R97 - I think the consensus was that there must have been, but there were no narratives from the time that actually mentioned it. Except for the slave owners fucking or getting forced fellatio from their man slaves as a form of humiliation.

I turned left at Albuquerque.

I googled bitchy gay gossip.

A favorite moment was finding the top-rated threads.

The one about the teen who got his head lopped off by an overpass was my favorite.

Frankly I cannae remember how I found this site. But I enjoy the bantz, so I stay.

[quote] I discovered it years ago when I googled myself and found a few DL threads about me, mostly full of mean bitchiness (of course!) I started looking around and became slowly addicted to the whole site. Taken as a whole, I love the cynical take on current events, and reverent exploration of things from the past. Now I have a paying membership and look at it daily. And if I’m mentioned in an occasional thread, I always defend myself (as an anonymous poster, of course).

R88, who are you? TIA.

I had been Googling "overrated" or irritating celebrities (to see if other people agreed with my opinions). DL links would show up in my list of Google hits. I would click the DL links but was horrified (Mary!) by people calling each other cunts & worse. After a few months or longer, I took a better look at the variety of DL threads and started posting.

My best friend found DL googling Marcia Cross around 2004 (I think). Like others, I lurked for a long time. Didn't quite get the humor. What made me an addict was the perfection that was the African Baby Catalogue thread (around 2006?).

Funny, that friendship didn't last, but my affair with DL is stronger than ever.

Probably goggling gossip about a celebrity. I can’t honestly remember but it was late 2008/early 2009. I think it was prior to Christmas though as the Christmas department store party photo thread was around unless I am conflating memories.

R105 here. I obviously meant googling.

I googled a hot baseball player named Carl Pavano I had a crush on that was rumored to be getting blackmailed by a male high school fuck buddy and had apparently chosen not to accept the shakedown. One Google of "Is Carl Pavano Gay" and instantly appeared this site and by the time i first clicked on the link the DL web sleuths already had all the dirt that included receipts, Facebook pages of participants including families on both sides and the hot details that basically came down to the stud pitcher allowing some dude to blow him a lot in high school and then came looking for payment after he had become a rich pitcher. Still jack off to the fantasy of Pavano having some dude blow him sometimes. Thanks again DL

I was laughing about Chrissy Metz and a friend of mine said that there's this forum that rips her to shreds. Of course, I had to know the name of such a place. I originally just lurked, then actually created an account and the actually forked over the $20 membership fee. I've enjoyed almost every minute here!

I found it after doing a search on rumors of a relationship between Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts. This was sometime in the early 2000s.

This place is an embarrassment of riches, but it was the satire threads that really sealed the deal for me.

I got an STD test and the doctor told me I had it.

People were talking about DL on the old Aktol forums (anyone remember those), especially about soaps, so I checked it out in early 2002 and have been here ever since.

Saw DL mentioned a few times on Daytime Dish, a soap gossip/rumor/spoiler board, 2005-06.

Sometime before 2001, I was here on 9/11. I’m sure I was looking up gossip items and somehow landed here. It’s my go-to, even now after all this time. And it’s the only website I pay for.

About 1996 in the NY Times, an article about the explosion of Internet forums. DL was rather new.

R88 = James Franco

I imagine most were googling a celebrity and found DL.

From a Sumerian Housewife doing laundry on the banks of the Tigris.

I was googling 'vocal fry' and The DL was the third or fourth suggestion.

Came for the vocal fry, stayed for the wit.

Two years ago I googled "gay lonely at Christmas" and DL was the first site to pop up with advice.

I "came to" in an alley with 20 dollars tucked in my collar and covered in jizz. A homeless guy stumbled up to me. He slurred, "Another DL whore crawled out of the gutter, eh!" Then he masturbated in front of me, before vomiting all over himself. I was 14.

And another DL STAR WAS BORN!

My PR team was doing its usual search of the many tens of thousands of daily internet references of my storied life and career. They showed me the link to what they said was “the largest bunch of overweight, unemployed, and caftan wearing fags on the planet”- which is also my largest demographic.

I’ve been your queen every since......

I came for the frosting. I stayed for the Samsonite.

Boris told me.

A search for “a horrible ache in prostate after sex” led me here; men were straight up talking about “peoctor fulgax” or “proctalgia fulgax”, and I was advised to sit on a hard, straight-back chair to relieve the pain. Most of what went down here worked. And I decided to keep browsing, because I’m an old married guy who just wants a place populated by reasonable, intelligent men. But now it’s dick pics, “what do you think of this guy?” and all these troll threads that have nothing to do with being a man OR being gay. The silly sissies and Boris trollsseem to be taking over. I don’t mind that much, there are still plenty of guys on here that sound like the same kind of serious, adult men I want to converse with that I stick around. Ha, you crazy bastards! I love you guys.

Oops. Proctor fulgax.

One of the alt. groups -- probably alt.showbiz.gossip.

It was shortly after 9/11, but not too long after. Lisa Beamer was still a DL favorite when I joined, and I hated her so much that I felt right at home and joined in with zest and brio.

[quote]The one about the teen who got his head lopped off by an overpass was my favorite.

That was the young man who referred to himself as Dan Motherfuck. A hilarious thread!

The Terri Schiavo threads around 2005-2006 would make me laugh so hard that I would pee a little. Particularly when people would reply as her on an unrelated thread. I swear, people could be fighting about the Debbie Reynolds Museum and Terri would pipe in:

"Mmnung." — Terri Schiavo

I’ll go into more detail, even. We didn’t have all the rescue cats and adopted cats at this point, and still took a lot of time off travelling. We’d make love in some rented room—it’s the Landing in Guttenberg and the Quality in Quincy that come to mind—and I’d end up on the floor crippled with the implacable knot in my prostate, absolutely killing me. 2002 or ‘03 or thereabouts. DL to the rescue. And btw, ice cubes up the ass is NOT helpful.

I googled prolapsed anus and here I am.

True story

In 2013, after a search on Gillian Anderson. I stayed for the Oscar Pistorius murder of Reeva Steenkamp and started posting some time after. The first posts are always a bit daunting!

I'm a Gen-Xer who came out in the mid-90s, when web browsers were first pre-installed on Windows 95 (and yet I remember preferring Netscape over Internet Explorer - is that right?). I was in my last semester of undergrad and spent a lot of time in a campus computer lab, "surfing the 'net." I was only just starting to come out to close friends, and not yet to family. I had been raised in an uber-conservative religious environment, and was desperate to find tools to make the transition from quiet, bookish me to less-quiet, fabulous me.

The tech-savvy gays of the day were, of course, adept early adapters (anyone else remember Musclecop?). I stumbled on to the shiny stuff, including the culture of young drag queens of the time. Their effervescent personalities resonated with a part of my brain that never got any use in my everyday conversations. I was elevated to a higher plane of chatty proclivities. The best snippets, however, came from the unseen faces who left calling cards for the Auntie Mame of trailer parks.....Trudy. Publishing under the Mediapolis umbrella, Trudy composed entries in a sort of online diary, in which the adventures of Lancelot, Abbatoir, and Gertrude acted as a tonic that chased away any shadow of social ennui. From her mid-century trailer, Trudy inspired me to sparkle without sucking all of the attention out of a room. I learned that a properly-made Sazerac cocktail could keep the universe in balance. The Conversation Pit was left dangling in 2006, but a partial archive remains. Link attached.

Mediapolis' DataLounge, as I remember it, was first a clearinghouse of LGBT news items. In short order after coming out, I became the publisher of a newsletter for a gay professional organization, and DL was an indispensable resource to me at the time. I don't remember exactly when the anonymous gossip board appeared and the news items went away, but I was already a Mediapolis devotee. I've fallen out of circulation a few times over the last 25 years, but I always find my way back home.

"From Fametracker - a tiresome Canadian friend of the moderators called bstewart would repeat gossip he read on Datalounge over there. I disliked him so much that I came straight to the source."

OMG! This is exactly how I found DL back then in 2001. That asshole kept bragging about the great gay gossip he had and he just stole everything from here.

googled some gay gossip and one of the threads showed up in search results

Through Google. Searched a topic and Datalounge showed up most times.

I believe @2003, I typed "Lena Horne lesbian" in the Alta Vista search engine.

Same as many others, I googled an actor + gay and Datalounge popped up

R88- You must know we'd ask who you are. :-)

R80, can you recognise the counter attacks when you see it happening now?

I was Googling information about Dirk Benedict (this was back in 2012, 2013? I do not remember the exact year) and came across a link to this site. I have been an avid fan since then.

I Googled data on log rhythms and it appeared in the list.

Followed links from D Listed 10 years ago. Funny, I NEVER go there anymore.

Several years ago, I searched Lindsey + queen and DL showed in the list of links.

I can’t even remember what I ate yesterday, and definitely can’t remember how I came to DL in the early 2000s.

Googling Tony Geary about two years ago or whenever it was he retired.

THE BLACK SLIPPER brought me here and I haven't left!

Love you guys (hate you too)

Googled if General Jim Mattis is gay and I was linked to a DL thread about him.

Googling the Trivago guy.

I stumbled onto DL around 2009. I found a thread about “Bitch Ball”, aka Lucy, and could not stop laughing at the comments.

Somebody on Queerty mentioned it. I like DL's format much better than Queerty, so I switched.

Although Queerty has a lotta good images still

[quote]I’ve been your queen every since......

You sure ain't no Vivian Vance. She managed to keep her house.

It was floating in a cesspool.

I make google search for cleanlyness of Kellyanne's poosey.

Some queen dropped a smartphone off my bridge and here I am!

It was some sort of Google search that led me here. I don't remember the year.

I tapped my red shoes together and woke up here.

There's no place like home!

another Usenet refugee

the early days of the internet used to be a lot more gay. so I couldn't say exactly the when and where because it was all interconnected - well, actually, it was more separated at that time physically but if you were on a gay bbs in timbuktu you probably had a list of numbers to call, intermail, interconnected bbses, if not going into a small debt calling across the world or early day mega boards like compuserve, aol and some horrible but visually interesting service that started with a P - then there were user meets galore or breaking postal laws. though much of is a haze, it's likely sometime back from that era. frankly I think more hos, especially twinks of the era, remember xy than what came before. the lesbian crowd was nearly all slash, kim's xena fanfic archive and I think kristin's archive is still around. though a lot of fic in those days were too inside reference as people introduced characters from their local boards. asstr.gm went paywall quickly after the newsgroup scene was dead (as did alt.rec.bodymod) and fought nifty of the rights to newsgroup stories, and google only collected a small amount of the newsgroups, so can't really verify the when, where, who.