Before adverts, algorithms, apps, and AI; the internet was - for a while - serendipitous, driven by bottom-up experimentation, and peripheral. For 5 years until 2000, cyber.cafe was a racuous, late-night TV show joyously uncovering "What's Going on Online". 

 

We combed Compuserve, Usenet and AoL chatrooms to surface foot fetishists, anti-vegetarians, alien abductees, swinging couples, faith healers, and exhibitionists, all suddenly finding community. Celebrities were invited on, to be provoked with controversial websites. Individuals venturing online to challenge norms, support others, or serially fall in love, told their stories. 

 

The nineties internet unleashed humanity's curiosity about itself; driven by modem squeaks, c-prompts, crude web pages, images downloading line-by-line, and exhilarated hobbyists. It was all so new and odd, network bosses insisted cyber.cafe ended each week with an offer: send a stamped addressed envelope so we can post you an explanation of the internet. 

 

By decade's end, broadcast executives grasped with horror that online was an exponential business threat, not to be encouraged. At the same time, billions poured into commercializing web interactions. cyber.cafe - and the fragile era it had encapsulated - quietly died.

 

I still get asked about cyber.cafe. This compilation of clips and memories shares a glimpse of a rollicking, naive, but inspiring, technological period.

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Wingham Rowan

Anchor/Producer cyber.cafe