I started using IRC many, many moons ago. I vaguely remember using Windows 3.1 to use mIRC so that had be around 1994. I was 13 years old, so naturally I gravitated towards teen chat channels (or 'rooms' to the layperson). I was a fairly shy kid. I didn't tend to speak to people I didn't know or at least start the initial conversation so chatting on the computer was comfortable to me. Not only did it give the opportunity to chat with hundreds if not thousands of people I wouldn't otherwise have been able to, it also allowed me to project a different persona.

Typing to people over the Internet can be very calculated. You can be snarky, mean, or caring often with basically the same words but words are all you're giving to people online. It doesn't matter what your body language is doing, it doesn't matter what you even look like. The only thing that matters is the content of what you are saying. To a 13 year old, it's paradise. You can be whoever you want to be simply by tapping away on the keyboard.

I poked around the different networks at first before somehow ending up on the original, oldest network there was (and still is today): EFnet. I was hooked for several years. Chatting up guys and girls alike. In #teen14 originally, when there were a zillion different teen channels (channels could be created simply by joining one that didn't yet exist). Eventually I migrated to the more populated and popular #teenchat and #teen. I made a number of good friends on that channel and had some real life encounters with many of them. It was that whole process that opened up my personality up a little.

As most people on IRC, I was snarky online. I created somewhat of an arrogant online presence, taking my nickname from the late WWE wrestler Mr. Perfect. By day at school, I was mostly quiet but when I got home and go online, I was anything but. It was a good non-destructive outlet for a teenager.

I got my first job at Stratos in Cleveland, OH which was purchased shortly thereafter by a company called CoreComm. They then also purchased MegsInet out of Chicago, IL. Interestingly shortly before the purchase, MegsInet linked an IRC server to EFnet which eventually got renamed for CoreComm's domain, irc.core.com. Being a part of the company and one of the few with a great interest in IRC, I got the privilege of being an operator (or IRCop as it's known).

This was in late '99 or early 2000. It was great fun being an admin of an EFnet server. irc.core.com also went on to set records for number of connected clients. I can't remember the number specifically, but I want to remember that it was the first server to reach over 10k concurrent connections. I remember purchasing the upgraded server for it, a massive dual Pentium III-500mhz if I recall. irc.core.com held a large percentage of all users on EFnet for a long time before it was finally shutdown by management due to DDoS attacks. It didn't help that most of the people that had originally supported the server (myself and wjr, William Rockwood) had left CoreComm. Losing the supporting employees of a server at a company will doom an IRC server. I was an operator on irc.plur.net after irc.core.com shutdown. Eventually, I found myself working for Easynews which already had sponsored IRC servers on EFnet and Undernet. It was natural at this point to become an operator on that as well.

And so I have been, ever since 2005. Over the years, IRC itself has inevitably seen a large decline in the number of users, peaking in 2003 with nearly 142k clients. The decline has largely been due to the evolution of communication over the Internet. Back when IRC was first developed in the late 80s, there was no IM clients and the web was in its infancy and not at all interactive. IRC offered a real time protocol to send short text messages to individuals or whole groups of people in channels. It was without question the most interactive and real time thing on the Internet. When ICQ and AIM came along and became popular, it started to eat into the user base. As time went on and forums and social networks began to enter the fray, it gave us new ways of meeting people and again reduced the usefulness of IRC. Today, EFnet handles roughly a third of what it peaked at, around 45k connections.

And finally, I get to the point of my remembrance. irc.easynews.com has been shutdown. With this server being delinked, I no longer am an operator on EFnet after almost 11 years. Being that I don't even use IRC much these days, I'm not sad that it's gone however I am sad nothing lasts forever and the good old days of my youth are officially gone.