Being from a younger generation I have had a lot of chances to experience social networking beginning at a very young age. My first experience came in the form of a email list related to a singer I really enjoy. When I was in Jr. High School I started listening to Tori Amos. She was getting ready to come out with a new album and I wanted to stay as up-to-date as I could on all of the gossip related to her new album. I came across this mailing list for Toriphiles (what the fans of Tori Amos call themselves).
I had no idea what I was getting myself into at the time, but I became engrossed in the list communicating at least daily with my fellow fans. That was back in probably 1997 or 1998 and to this day I still receive my semi-daily digest of Tori Amos related news from the Precious Things Mailing List. It amazing for me to see how long some of these people have been actively posting to the list. It was an extremely self-moderated list. If anyone posted something obscene or off topic a stream of messages would come pouring in chastising them and you would never hear from them again. It was fun to go back through the list archives to see just how it all started and to see that the list has been going strong for more than 10 years now.
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