This week marked the end of an era when Gay.com announced it was permanently deleting all chatrooms, along with all profiles, photos and chat histories effective August 1.
Related: End Of An Era: Gay.Com Chat Rooms Are No More As Of Today
The site was a defining part of our lives in the late ’90s and early ’00s, and even though we hadn’t visited it in over a decade, we were still flooded with nostalgia.
Related: Queerty Readers Relive The Gay.com Chatroom Glory Days
The whole thing got us thinking about other pieces of gay culture that have been lost to the ages. Scroll down to join us for a jaunt down memory lane…
Online chatrooms
Before there was Grindr and Scruff there were online chatrooms. Gay.com and AOL were probably the most popular ones. Guys would hang out late at night in their underpants chatting with complete strangers over dial-up internet, swapping pics, engaging in “cybersex,” and arranging hook ups. It was all very exciting at the time.
Fag hags
Just as the term “fag hag” has fallen out of fashion, so have fag hags, in general. Sure, there are still a handful of hangers on who relish in surrounding themselves exclusively with homosexual men, but for the most part, everyone just hangs out with everyone these days.
Structure
Before becoming Express Men, then just Express, and then finally being sold to SEARS, this men’s fashion line was all the rage in shopping malls across the nation in the late ’90s and early ’00s. It specialized in modern everyday basics–jeans, polo shirts, hoodies, button-downs. Unfortunately, the basics were a little too basic and the brand vanished seemingly into thin air.
Streaky hair highlights…
…gelled, spiked and sprayed to resemble the look and texture of a porcupine.
Edgy gay-themed cable television dramas
Queer as Folk. Noah’s Ark. The L Word. These were just a few of the edgy gay-themed dramas that dominated cable television channels. The shows generally dealt with timely topics such as coming out, dating, drugging, clubbing, cruising, and workplace discrimination, with a little autoerotic asphyxiation and underage prostitution thrown in for good measure. You now, typical “gay” stuff.
Baitbus
Though nobody’s fooled by Baitbus anymore, back in the day the site had us totally mesmerized. Heterosexual men were picked up on the street and tricked into having gay sex in a van with a complete stranger all while being filmed. Then afterwards they were abandoned on the side of the road butt naked and angry at having been duped. It was truly amazing just how many straight guys fell for the scheme. Almost as amazing as how many gay guys actually believed the whole setup was real.
Dance vault remixes
Remember dance vault remixes? Female pop artists with strong gay followings would remix their non-dance tracks into upbeat club bangers often to mixed results. The musical trend helped turn guys like Felix da Housecat and Paul Oakenfold into same-sex household names.
Original iPods
And we listened to these remixes on iPods so large and so bulky that they barely fit into our bootcut jeans pockets.
Kelly
Remember her?
Blackberries
Before the iPhone, anyone who was anyone had a Blackberry, including “It” girls like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, who were both famously snapped by paparazzi stumbling out of bars looking glossy eyed and clutching their bedazzled devices. Even President Obama famously pleaded with the Secret Service to keep his Blackberry after being sworn into office in 2009.
The novelty of being gay
It wasn’t all that long ago that simply “being gay” gave a person an edge or made them more interesting. But with more and more folks embracing sexual fluidity or coming out as bisexual or heteroflexible, paired with the advancements in LGBTQ rights in recent years, just “being gay” isn’t enough anymore. And, honestly, that’s probably for the best. Though we’d be lying if we said there wasn’t a small part of us that didn’t miss using our sexualities as a crutch to seem more cool at parties.
Related: Don’t Be That Gay: The 10 Most Obnoxious Types Of Homosexual Men
Brian
Baitbus was real most of the time. The guys were genuinely shocked to find a man performing oral on them. The vast majority of guys picked up off the street were straight-identifying but, in the presence of a half-naked woman, were sufficiently turned on to get aroused by male mouth.
This is why straight-identifying guys are so much more fun than gay-identifying guys: straight-identifiers have an angst that sizzles with arousal. On the other hand, gay-identifying guys are predictable and there’s rarely any anger there.
ingyaom
Can we get a comment from the producers of BaitBus?
surreal33
We desperately need a show half as good as Queer as folk
jcecce
Indeed! I occasionally will binge watch a series of episodes. I’ve watched the whole series 3 times so far, and have new perspectives each time re-watch.
Dave Downunder
Did anyone ever believe those guys on Baitbus were straight. They’ve all ended up on other gay sites since then.
Dave Downunder
@surreal33: Agreed but I much preferred the UK version.
Stache
@Brian: I’m sure closeted gay guys is your idea of a Utopia but luckily there becoming less and less.
Btw. They have to sign a release from their models before they film dumbass.
ErikO
@Brian: No it was not real. People have to sign contracts, etc. before they are filmed.
Brian
@Stache: To be gay, you have to identify as gay. “Gay” is a subjective term – it’s a subjective term of identity politics.
Did the guys of baitbus sign a release with the knowledge that they were going to have sex with a man? Or did they think they were going to have sex with a woman? I don’t know the answers.
In any case, I would bet London to a brick that 90% of the baitbus guys were not gay-identifying.
Dave Downunder
It must be nice living in that fantasy world he lives in^^.
DMRX
@Dave Downunder: All I can do anymore is laugh at that fool’s comments.
jcecce
I just discovered this little gem of an article. I’d actually like to see a more thorough look back at that time. I think there could be so much to write on: the explosion of people coming out to family and friends, the last gasp of many big gay clubs in cities and towns, reaction by GLBT writers to Will and Grace, Queer as Folk, etc., the gay marriag debate at the time and its impact on the Supreme Court decision, etc.
For me, gay.com was an important aspect of coming out. I met one of my oldest and dearest friends there, not to mention the many others who I would chat with till the wee hours of the morning, fulfilling the need I had at the time just to emotionally connect with other gay men, for the first time in my life.
Great job Queerty! Looking forward to a retrospective of the 2010s!