OG's of DATALOUNGE

I started lurking in 1999 and posting in 2000. There was already quite a crowd by then, and the gossip that got dished in here was much more raw and more plentiful than today. But then the Internet itself was so young then, too.

Not from the beginning, but probably a year into DL. I lurked until 2003.

Off and on since a few months before 9/11.

A friend had been telling me about it for about a year and then the EW mention happened around the same tone so I looked it up. However, I missed the Red Dragon Cheese thread.

Everyone here isn't male, OP.

I guess I’m a relative latecomer. I was lured over by a “Defamer” link in 2005.

About 20 years, maybe more. I love DL.

I think I’ve been here more or less since the summer of 2001. I definitely remember the WTC being an insatiable bottom.

I took a break during the most intense parts of med school, and it wasn’t until COVID, which was during the first half of residency and fellowship that I came back on the reg.

R5 is right, there were plenty of women among the majority demographic of gay men, back in the early days. For a while there was a DL subforum/category for “Lesbian Issues.”

I’ve been here since the late 90s - probably ‘98 or ‘99. Found my way here from the Is He/She Gay message boards. Back then it wasn’t a single forum, there were multiple topic pages - does anyone remember what they were? I think there was a dedicated lesbian one. Entertainment/celebrity gossip got the most traction but there were also pages for politics and health. Maybe travel?

And of course it was so much better last year

[Quote] when I worked in the business

🤔

What is "the business?"

I started visiting in 2002. I didn't start posting until about 10 or so years later. One of the first posts I saw was the notorious 9/11 thread, and Let's Roll Cinnamon Rolls.

I can barely remember last week, but I know I started on DL sometime after Prancing Ponies and before the 2008 election, so probably twenty years.

How is Let’s Roll Cinnamon Rolls doing in this Trump economy?

[Quote] What is "the business?"

Think it’s similar to “the works” or “the high hat.”

Since 1995. I'm 61.

That's not very helpful, R17.

Since 2002. A bunch of posters joined around that time, because DL got mentioned in Entertainment Weekly. That’s where the “Concerned Team Mom” signature you will see here came from-it was originally “Concerned EW Reading Soccer Mom.”

I think my first time here was around 98-99, another one coming from IHSG. I got away for a number of years, but I keep coming back.

I’ve been here since around 2000. I’d say intermittently because there might only be two or three topics at any one time that catch my interest. I’m 72, so I was already old when I arrived on the scene.

I started before the end of the 20th century, because I remember Y2K talk here. I came because Michael Musto posted something about the Datalounge in one of his articles, back in the day. It was indeed much juicier back then, with more Hollywood staff/insiders posting things, and more gay gossip. I think the growth of the internet has lessened the need for that type of content here - it's already been posted everywhere!

Like several other posters, I came here for the first time in 1999 from IHSG and lurked for a year or two before I started participating. Drifted away around 2014, then came back as a regular reader/poster around 2021. I was 33 in 1999, and just turned 59 a few weeks ago.

You told me Mitch Pileggi was a big bush supporter and major pussy hound and I collapsed and have malingered ever since.

I honestly cannot remember, but know it was before 9-11.

1997, but just lurked for years. My first post/thread wasn’t until 2005, probably March of that year and I rarely posted for several more years after that.

I've been haunting this place since the fall of 2000, the era of a, I'm 59 now.

Not original gangster but I’ve been posting since I was 19 in 2009.

"the era of a"

I'm old, dammit!

"the era of a"

Jesus...

Is E d w i n a a naughty word here?

You can’t post that name r32

R33, how odd, but, this is Datalounge, oddness abounds.

It is which really pisses me off given my affection for that dear old cartoon matchmaker.

I was surfing DL into the new Millennium: 1999. I didn’t find my voice for a while and I was still working then so not posting. DL was great on the screen at the office less the occasional unannounced NSFW link until I sort-of retired in 2018. As one of about forty paying customers now who aren’t bots or chaos agents, I feel a greater need to contribute lest I check in and find no nothing new.

DL was a godsend during COVID.

I'm pretty sure I was here in 2000.

I got here from some other site called something to the effect of "Is He Gay or Not" or something like that.

My friend and I were looking for evidence that Eddie Cahill (then guest-starring on "Friends") was, well, gay or not.

We had a friend who SWORE he fucked him in the late 90s before he was working regularly.

Turns out there was another thread on here with a bunch of guys who swore they had him too.

It was all the proof we needed...lol.

I started here somewhere between 97 and 99, but I'm not sure which year exactly. It all runs together after a while. To be quite honest, I'm not even sure how I found it.

My office was late to getting computers for staff, so I probably started visiting here in 1998 or ‘99 or so, was happy to share any opinions I had that I considered pertinent, and sometimes I shared gossip I had heard, generally second hand. Stuff I knew first hand I mostly kept to myself (counter to rumor, my generation of publicists often didn’t tell most of what they knew. This was even truer of older Hollywood hands who worked during the classic period. They knew where ALL the bodies were buried but would only offer up nuggets when flirting, bragging or drunk.

My old moniker for a long while was based on a character from Somerset Maugham’s “The Razor’s Edge,” played by Clifton Webb in the 1946 movie version. I got the idea because there used to be a guy that styled himself ‘Waldo Lydecker’ after another Webb Oscar nominated role in “Laura.”

Anyway, I’ve dropped in and out of Data Lounge over the years, sometimes I would keep it open on my computer all day but there were periods when things got very dull here and I’d stay away for months or even years. Just lately I’ve come back more frequently, often a few times a day, mostly to share opinions about movies, Broadway shows, TV series.

As for celebrity gossip, like many oldsters, I think most of today’s “celebrities” are cheap, attention-seeking hacks, and the only gossip I know is 30 years old or more, and about the last generation of movie stars that have any real claim to the name. But I’m not as cranky as I sound, I keep my hand in, go to the movies frequently and still have an eye for a cute male starlet.

I started 2002 or 2003 with a few years break ~ 2007/8. I'm pretty sure I learned about DL from Michael K on D-Listed.

I'm 60 now and it's amusing that we now have so many threads about getting older (non-life threatening, non-debilitating conditions is the latest edition) and I really appreciate them and have found them helpful (I have photopsia! Though I didn't know what it was called)

Many of you shut off your computer with your big toe.

I've been here since the late 1990s.

When I discovered that other little boys made aluminum foil Wonder Wonder bracelets, I knew I was home and had found my people.

I've been here on and off since the late 90s as well, and I'll be 53 at the end of the month. Formerly authenticated, but that seems to have gone by the wayside for most.

First found DataLounge in May 2002 while doing a Google search. Spent several hours that night reading various thread. Great gossip. Great dish.

But I figured it was just a one night indulgence and I'd never be back again. I didn't even make note of the website name.

Next day, I couldn't stop thinking about some of the juicy gossip I'd read. Loved that there was a gay take on these things. And such insider info. I wanted to go back and see if there was any follow-up to some of the threads I'd read.

Since I didn't know the name of the site, I had to recreate the original Google search with multiple tangents that ultimately landed me here. Place was as fun the second night as the first. I quickly bookmarked it and have been coming here daily ever since.

Not an OG but have been here I guess since early 2002, before the EW mention. It was after 9/11 but the threads were still very active, the Let’s Roll Cinnamon Rolls bit was in full swing.

I pretty much looked the same but there was a filter for Politics and probably Gossip or Entertainment. There were only two choices. I never filtered the content because I likely correctly intuited it wouidn’t work anyone.

People were saying it was over even back then. It’s been my gateway to the internet ever since.

*It pretty much looked the same. I, of course, still look 35.

I remember when soap threads were banned, red tags were entertainment, and there were separate gossip and politics threads. I miss those days.

Amazingly, everyone still looks 10 years younger.

[quote] I’ve been here since the late 90s - probably ‘98 or ‘99. Found my way here from the Is He/She Gay message boards.

Hah! Same here R10.

[quote]I remember when soap threads were banned, red tags were entertainment, and there were separate gossip and politics threads. I miss those days.

We ARE big. It's the pictures that got small.

Some of us still look 20 years younger.

Pope Buck I was the funniest DL regular ever.

I’ve been here since the beginning. We originated on the Is He/She Gay? Message Board. I was 30. I turned 60 this year. I’ve wasted half of my life here! I don’t post with my authenticated name often because there are more nasty posters than there used to be, but there are also good people, too.

[quote]I want to know the people who have been posting here since the beginning.

[quote]Of course, I'm just waiting for the rude responses but if you are one of the originals make yourselves known men.

You're rather a demanding old cunt, aren't you? And then you state you're waiting for the rude comments.

You started it, Carpetbagger.

I found this place in 2004 searching for some political info. This place was frenzied! You could not keep up with the hundreds of threads and comments—and the red tags! I loved the WW sidebar which I made a few times. The wit was off the charts.

This place has changed me—some for the worse (I’m much more bitchy and cynical) and for the better (critical thinking skills improved.)

I know a girl who posted on Datalounge in 1999. AND THEN SHE DIED!

I've been here since 1999 and I just turned 34!

I've been here since 2013, and I have been a much-beloved, respected, and even cherished contributor right from day 1.

I stumbled upon this lunacy in 2018/2019 after I found a thread on Gay Male Soap Opera stars (Russell Todd, can you imagine) and the much reported sudden death of Phillip McKeon. I didn't figure out how to pay my $1.99 or actually post until 2024!

I came here shortly before 9/11 and I remember" the sky was so blue that day".

Much like Cheryl herself, R59.

I still can not unsee Tubgirl.

Well, if we ever have a DataLounge reunion, Christian Bale will undoubtedly skip it. He's such an asshole.

I first arrived around 2001 via my job at the power company call center where I was relentlessly bored. I left for a few years but came came in the 2010s.

I'm 61 but easily pass for 22.

I started lurking then posting in 2000. I remember David E., Blue Agave, shobe, Libby, and all the old gang.

And I remember when we had a separate "Flames and Freaks" section for trolls

R61, I think I might have actually started “the sky was so blue that day” when I posted about my escape from the WTC on 9/11.

I was 35 then, 58 now. I discovered DL a few years before that.

I just got here! I wasn't allowed on the internet unsupervised until I turned 18.

I don’t know how soon after DL’s launch I became an habituae, but I have a memory of an old layouts, where you could only access maybe twenty posts to a given thread before directed to an ensuing page.

This thread made me fall in love with Datalounge

How soon after DL started did we see posters who would point out to an OP the folly of his or her inappropriate apostrophes?

Pardon me miss, but with all due respect. I have problems of my own.

R71 The first post and the second responder on that thread.

^YES, r71, 2 seconds. And there was no Spellcheck/Grammerly. For years, I only lurked and posted simple sentences due to grammar intimidation.

I've only been here since 2004, but before that I used to post on ASG and I bet some of you bitches did too.

Somehow I missed IHSG.

Was a very early adopter

Late 90’s

There were separate sections for politics, etc. “Wit and Wisdoms” were prominently and hilariously highlighted.

August of 2001 for me and I was 20!

I believe I missed some of the shit that was brought up here for years like The Sumerian Housewives, but this place was a saving grace during 9/11.

The soap I watched, One Life To Live was hugely popular here then, so that was cool.

But 9/11 formed some kind of eternal bond with this site that I cannot shake, even when I hate it or the posters hate me!

R74. For FUCK'S sake!! GRAMMARLY!

R70, that's about when I started. I also love that thread.

I miss the days when the first response to any thread no matter what the subject was incredibly bitchy often accusing the OP of being a CUNT.

Some of us remember the real Cheryl.

Also, DL swag. I still have the ballcap.

Op you’re a fucking liar.

I came here because MLOP on the All That Chat website was talking about how sick this place was.

I have been posting here for about 25 years…man those were the days

R6 same for me. My work was boring most of the time and our online activities weren't really policed so I spent a lot of time reading Gawker, Defamer, etc. Once I navigated to DL via a Defamer post (I think it was about Linds Lohan), I was in bitchy gossip heaven. Still love it here to this day.

DL was absolutely a godsend during COVID, R36. I kept a tab open constantly so I could switch back and forth from actual work to the various threads.

I've been here almost from the beginning. Maybe five years into it. I wasn't a paid member back then. I simply adjusted to Prime Time when it was on. I remember the old website, too. ant to say we really got some good gossip back then. We were also incredibly bitchy. Seriously. And there were grammar police. And there were so many distinct, wonderful personalities that gave DL a real identity and uniqueness.

JE SUIS LEGACY!

I became a subscriber in 2006, so probably lurking a year before that. I too was lured by Defamer. Remember "Butterscotch Stallion"?

Friends talked about it in late 90s - lurked 2001 or so - began posting 2002.

I've taken time off - up to 6 months - but I keep coming back.

23 fucking years - yikes.

I started posting in 2000. I'm now 51.

A latecomer, also in my forties like OP, I arrived in 2010.

DL is the longest relationship I've been in.

Been posting since 2005

I still remember where TheVoiceoftheNight got his username.

That was a looonnnggg time ago. I’m glad he’s still around.

I don’t remember people stalking peoples posting history like people do now even when trolldar was a thing. That defacto person did a number on some posters. I guess the retirees logged in everyday and started accusing everybody of being him. Now it’s a become a culture of tracking people’s comments. It’s annoying.

Yes, I was also here when Voice of the Night adopted his moniker. I thought it was a rather clever moniker to take one.

I guess we should say kudos to Al Holden for coming up with the name that inspired Voice of the Night.

I loved making wit and wisdom back in the day - I felt like a STAH!

This has been such a community for me.

TWOP, Defamer, Gawker, Jezebel, IMDB boards all ☠️ and none of them meant as much.

My pussy is wet.

R97, that thread on the demise of TWOP was classic DL.

I've been here since 2011. I think it was a Dlisted link that sent me here.

R89 HA! Owen Wilson! Damn I loved Defamer.

[Quote] That defacto person

So desperate for attention you even invoke yourself, r95. Ok are you happy now? You got attention.

I'm guessing I've been here since 1995. That would be thirty years. WOW!

Of all the old posters, I miss David Ehrenstein the most. He was reliably crazy, opinionated, and fun. His infamous "Friday night meltdowns" were a work of wonder. Sadly, we lost him this March.

[quote]Not an OG but have been here I guess since early 2002, before the EW mention. It was after 9/11 but the threads were still very active, the Let’s Roll Cinnamon Rolls bit was in full swing.

Same. 9/11 had happened and the Widow Beamer was EVERYWHERE. I was thrilled to find a like-minded community of cunts who saw through that opportunistic bitch.

I do miss opening DL and looking to see if any of my comments made Wit & Wisdom in the sidebar rail.

I can also tell you when I posted my first "Let Me Tell You About Deb Messing" thread — it was late 2005 or early 2006. I was on an extended business trip and bored out of my mind. It grew from there.

Probably not one person in 10,000 today could tell you who Joan Steffend was, but I used to amuse myself posting as the incredibly embittered Joan, drunk on Yellow Tail and incredibly jealous of any other home improvement show with a budget, no matter how small. Joan would dig in dumpsters to find things like a broken old school desk which she would turn into a "Kicky Santa Fe-style Study Nook" before getting drunk again.

I was also on DL the night Liza did her Home Shopping appearance and was shrieking "TURN THIS ON! TURN THIS ON!" Those who did made a party in the thread.

I’m not an OG, I’m a relative latecomer. I started here in 2011 and soon after that posted my first thread, a game-thread about actors with confusingly similar names attending a fictional party. You know, “Tony Franciscus and Tony Franciosa just called — they will be there!”

I remember the drama surrounding Obama’s reelection campaign and the liveposting during the debate when Obama phoned in his performance, and you could almost FEEL the datalounge hyperventilating.

After that some of my favorite threads were several on Marilyn that went hilariously off the rails, and the first (afaik) dead bodies on Everest threads (2013?) which oddly stayed quite focused.

In 2016 I ran a thread about what online gambling was saying about the election.

I also first learned about the whole delicious Anna Delvey story from the DL and I still recall sipping a martini after work and enjoying that thread, then switching over to NY Magazine.

I know I’m a new poster in comparison to many, but I can’t remember what it was like before DL — positively antediluvian!

I’ve been here since around 2005 or 6. When ever the prancing ponies were all the rage.

Didn’t know that!! R20

Same as R1. Started posting around 1999. I was 28 😕

2001. I was looking for gay social sites on my first computer: a hand-me-down Apple a wealthy friend gave me.

R70 mine was “Claire” and the damned bread pudding

I believe I was the one that introduced/encouraged the use of "You fat whore!"

(which was something a friend used to say all the time.....regardless of whether one was fat or not)

I recall blow outs between authenticated posters, like Judy “pills” and Justin and such

ElderLez, are you 'Ellen From Iowa'?

R112 - Judy Pills was a trainwreck. just batshit insane. Talking about helicopters over his house and threatening suicide.

I didn't enjoy reading all that. Felt like I was unwanted participant in a suicide / mental health hotline number.

[quote] I guess we should say kudos to Al Holden for coming up with the name that inspired Voice of the Night.

Moment of silence for Nate Marston. I’m glad he’s free of his demons now.

That just unlocked a memory, of the first long, dishy soap thread we had, at least during my time here. It really ramped up during OLTL’s week of live episodes in 2002. We were all having a blast watching together, and it was beautiful because the week culminated with the show winning its first (and I think only) Best Drama.

It may be gone, but if DL had an official soap, it was OLTL.

I’m also having a hard time deciding my favorite red tag memory. I wasn’t present for it, but there was the time (very early on, it was a low number tag) where a racist troll got tagged….which also resulted in White Belt Man’s posts given the same tag. And suddenly, we were calling him White Sheet Man. There was also a thread, again in the early days, where someone posted a picture (this was before even camera phones, so it was a bigger deal) of a twunkish torso and (boxer brief clad) pelvis. There were a bunch of posts telling the guy how hot he was, and then WHAM half the thread was red tagged. Someone said something like “OP, take a look at this thread and ask yourself what you think about yourself.”

Helen Lawson, bitches. The original OG!

R115 Ah, Nathaniel was so lovely and beefy.....sad his demons got the best of him.

Oh, gosh

Datalounge was really great during the last golden age of broadcast television. Most people were watching the shows at the same home, so it had a lot of real time reactions to plot twists and sassy repartee.

whet rumpy??

VOTN wore a purple safety helmet to ride the bus and they will never be allowed to forget.

Unless, this my afternoon dementia kicking in…

“Purple?”

Miss R121, what kind of homosexual are you? That safety helmet was *mauve*!

[quote] Found my way here from the Is He/She Gay message boards.

So I guess you can always go back there.

“The business” is obviously prostitution. Always has been.

The "I'm in Love With my Father-in-Law" was the Gold Standard for an Elaborate Scenario Thread.

Sordid, tawdry, addicting, preposterous.

Hundreds of DLers bit hook, line and sinker for it and hung on for a wild ride.

Then the OP, with a deft, subtle shift in tone let us know he was pulling our leg.

It was glorious.

The OP/OG eventually came forward and took a bow.

I asked him for more installments of the plot. He politely stated he had "retired those characters".

It was glorious.

Whenever I’m near the Port Authority, I keep a lookout for Denny and his suitcase.

I usually manage to get Autumn Harvest for the price of a Once Around the Garden.

Can someone let Griselda Medina out of her drawer?

Apparently the ancient CURIOUS caps queen.

I think I found myself here like R10 also

Price Leatherbarrow wore the purple safety helmet. He was always fun. I read he is no longer with us.

At the other end of the spectrum we had Luca Magnotta. I missed most of that one. I vaguely recall being suspicious and curious but having some big social obligation. By the time I came back it was all over and a bunch of threads had been erased.

I missed the meat of the story, so to speak.

Ah yes, Umpy.

So inappropriate but a few of his "questions" and the responses had me laughing until I was sore, and the "Let's Be" thread parodying him was *chef's kiss*

Dustin, dear. You had your own drama.

Wund is Love.

R131 - That I did! Life is much better now.

I am happy for you.

We had some good straight women as well. Lynn, for one.

I used to love when the Webmaster would start a thread or reply on a thread.

The red tags were fun too-“tubgurl fangurl;” “scat and other childish bullshit;” etc.

I printed out one of my featured W&Ws. I couldn’t show it to anyone.

Felt like I should grasp it to my bosom and wander the streets City on Fire. I pitied Glenn.

I loved when WW's were on the front "page." I was proud of mine.

"Price Leatherbarrow... I read he is no longer with us"

Do you mean.....?

It was around 2002 or 2003

R111. Sure you were...

I am not an OG, but a second generation for sure. I somehow find this site in 2004 because of the Marcia Cross lesbian gossip that was all the rage for two seconds.

I remember this not because I cared at all about Marcia Cross (I didn't then or now), but because I was actually 24 at the time DL had an ongoing joke handle that was "24 and 2 Hot 2 Be Believed".

And I 24! And I was insanely hot!

It was like a siren song calling me home...to my inevitable DL death.

R105, remember your first thread! It was clever, and clever DLers kept it going for a while.

R113 sorry, neither Ellen nor Iowa

I've been here since 2000 - 2001 and still have old posts from that period saved to my own personal DL archive. The site back then had a distinctive red and purple color scheme. (I seem to recall that users could customize this.) The most striking thing about vintage DataLounge was the incredible pace. There was nothing like it-- not even Usenet moved that fast! It was the sharpest, funniest, most outrageous online community I have ever seen. I've spent countless hours here laughing my ass off. DL today is very slow and a more than a little tame in comparison to its glorious peak, but I guess we're all getting on a bit now.

I recall the color themes you could choose

arrived here looking for real names of gay porn "stars"

R102 Don’t play yourself now. You still repeating that same lie and you bout 70.

I discovered a couple of those

I wasn’t authenticated at the time, but I was the one who started the infamous “Cash Bars at Weddings” thread. I had just returned from a wedding reception the night before where there was an open bar and many of the guests had imbibed themselves into a messy stupor. All I did was was make an innocent observation that while having a cash bar at a wedding should be considered tacky, they have some utility if it can mitigate the possibility of the reception turning into a drunken frat party.

I introduced the gaggle of queens/Diana Scream video. Muriel made the original thread go into the ether but while I was searching for it I found this thread where DL’s collective memory pulled together a bunch of threads from the past.

The cash bars thread is classic! Thank you for starting it, R150.

Man on land! Man on land! Why are straight me stupid?

[quote]Man on land!

My final year of med school was a year after Michfest went to the Menstrual Hut in the sky. I spent July and August working at hospitals around Michigan.

You have no idea how much I wished it had been a year earlier so I could have attempted to be a MAN ON THE LAND.

Didn't we do threads on Potato bars at some point, when they were a thing? And OMG the guy with the suitcase at the Port Authority! I died when I saw that. Thanks for making me remember him. Umpty was a mess. Didn't he and his cat live with some old lady at one point?

Baked potato bars at weddings. There was a whole sub-genre of DL threads centered around weddings. What was the thread about the lesbian wedding in a backyard in Florida about? The OP admitted years later it was all fabricated but it was very popular for a while.

It wasn’t a baked potato bar at wedding. It was a guy (allegedly) wanting to throw a party and thinking a baked potato bar with a bunch of fun toppings seemed like a blast.

I don’t remember if it was the cash bar thread or not, but we had one that was about trashy weddings, and we had a wedding photographer who had some doozies.

I’ve been mostly lurking - and only occasionally posting - on DL since 1997/1998. I’m turning 50 soon. I particularly enjoyed the wit, wisdom, and bitchery of tennis, US politics, Old Hollywood, and award season threads. Some practical advice threads about a range of topics were also quite useful. The empathy shown in threads about ill DLers (e.g. OPB/Brian) was quite moving. I hope DL continues for a good while.

Who was the poster that said Tim Walz presents himself as a secret weekend leather queen. It lives in my head rent free. It was so funny how it was stated.