/vr/ - Retro Games

Oldfag here, born in 85 and been using the Internet since 93. The big fanbases back then were DBZ when it was new, and Final Fantasy has always had a huge fanbase, even before 7 came out.

People on AOL would do chatroom role plays where they played as characters in the DBZ universe, FF universe, Sailor Moon universe etc... I would say DBZ was definitely the most common one at the time though. Anything that was shown on Cartoon Network back then had something of a following (Tenchi Muyo, Gundam, Sailor Moon etc)

So... pretty much the same thing it is now. I don't remember as many furries though. Furry was something I only started seeing a lot of from 2006+ onward. Before that most of the weirdos I knew online were goths.

Due to slow speeds there was not a lot in the way of fanart, fan videos or anything like that. Mostly it was contained to crappy fangames made in RPG Maker or Klik n' Play, chatroom roleplays and a few really dedicated fansites.