Hi, everyone, When do you guys think the latest year I could set a story and have a character frequent chat rooms and it not sound weird? Another question: Let's say you wanted to go back and visit a chatroom you used to go to in the late 90's or early 2000's. Do you think any of them still exist?
Are you setting your story in the future, then? As any version of the future will be your own -- as it hasn't happened yet -- you can do whatever you like. Have chat rooms if you want them. I don't think it would be weird. While not quite the same as having chat rooms, I have a story set almost 200 years in the future where my characters use a social media platform somewhat similar to Facebook (with a few snazzy, future-features, but it largely works the way many platforms work today) and they message one another pretty much the same way as the way we message now. They also have group chats like you can get on various platforms, which is almost the same as a chat room, I guess. So, yeah -- I don't think it would be weird.
ideally I'd like it to be set in the past sometime. i remember going to college from 98-2005, and the only place we had the internet was in the computer labs.
A lot depends on the city or town where your story is set. In the U.S., for example, some cities and towns were far more advanced in terms of coverage than others. The first Internet chat room I used was 1991 or 1992 in Phoenix, Arizona, but that was real hardcore computer geekery a friend showed me. By 1993 or 1994 at the latest, most of my friends there had Internet connections of the type where you'd unplug the telephone and plug the phone line into your modem to go online on Prodigy or AOL. I had email in 1992 or '93, and I had internet at home in Los Angeles when I moved there in 1996, as did the businesses I worked with (although it was new to them). ETA: The last chat room I used was a private chat room in perhaps 2002-03. Companies at that time were using them as part of their branding, so you'd organize chats with, say, an author, or your favorite singer, or the head makeup artist for a cosmetics company or whatever. ETA: The chats would be invite only or the password to the room would be sent to the brand or author or band's email list.
