Lost Stories of 90s Kids: Do You Still Use Your First Email ID?

Did you too have a super-embarrassing email ID in the 90s?

TL;DR: Our email IDs from yesteryear will remind you of the man who dressed like a brinjal and went viral.

You don’t count as a 90s crusader if you didn’t have an email ID that sounded like a greeting card personally designed by Taher Shah and his ilk.

[e-mail]

[e-mail]

[e-mail]

[e-mail]

wetandcool_ [e-mail]

But don’t, by any means, beat yourself up over this. Even Taher Shah must be stuck in a rite of passage. The road to self-reflexivity is ridden with awkward moments, splattered with actions that make you want to dig a deep hole and bury yourself in it, along with the forlorn weight of cringy self-examination.

Aah, the 2000s- the merry confluence of the World Wide Web and hot-blooded adolescence.

While the 90s was neo-liberalism’s wet dream, the 2000s marked the very inception of our most awkward digital footprints.

If you go back in time, you will find hairstyles that make Avril Lavigne look less rebellious; clothes that make Ranveer Singh’s ‘sperm outfit’ seem less outlandish; photographs that make you scowl in pain; and, finally, a culmination of all of the above— a perfect bouquet of out scattered pre-pubescent tales, the Yahoo, Rediff and MSN email IDs.

I have a recurring nightmare that haunts me on my sticky days. I walk into a potential employer’s office. There’s a spring in my step, a glint in my eye, my shoulders are squared, back straight, and chin up. They greet me warmly, shower me with pleasantries, tell me my CV looks commendable, until...

There is a sudden withdrawal of spirit.

A retreat.

A back-pedaling.

A double-take...

So abrupt that I am left utterly bewildered.

“Your, ahem, um... email ID, Miss,” whispers a particularly stricken voice. It takes me a minute to realise that the boss lady, whose voice, which sounded like sparkly water tinkling in stone fountains up until now, has devolved into a raspy croak.

I peer into her eyes. I see myself there, the 90s and its after-effects, descending on me with a threatening gloom...

My corny Orkut profile,

My angsty playlist with more than ten Bobby Deol songs,

My pre-emoji gamut of reactions on social media (read: ‘Lolz’).

Could this boss lady possibly be reading my mind right now?

Before I can say anything, all three interviewers let out a collective snort and start guffawing. They lapse into peals of laughter, clutching their sides, tears rolling down their eyes.

True to a climax one expects in a nightmare, all three get off their chairs, start fist-pumping each other, then turn towards me and blurt out,  “Miss, excuse the language, but your email ID is... F**KALL! Disqualifier, Disqualifier, Disqualifier!”

At this point, I wake up with a start, beads of sweat on my forehead.

(P.S. : I am not telling you guys what my first email ID was, nope!)

I will never know why I am plagued by this nightmare every now and then.

But it is frightening to know that the internet has been nursing the jittery vestiges of my gangly youth — a simple search will whip up results that just might have my first email ID, possibly cloaked in other grimy details from my past.   

For the 90s kid, the internet and the world it had opened up was like a leprechaun waiting with a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The world was their oyster and the 90s, a crucial juncture when they mined through the best and worst of popular culture, only to skillfully excavate the worst of it!

Complete sentences were a fad, so were entire words. Somehow, it made more sense to replace an ‘s’ with a ‘z’. It added a certain brand of kitschy glamour and a tinge of rebellion to the way things were.

mylyf_ [e-mail]

[e-mail]

[e-mail]

Why did Puja have to be “naughty”? Was her mischievous instinct, if I may, important enough for her to use it as an identifier? Why did “lyf” need a disclaimer in an email ID?

And why, oh why, did Kinkinee Ray have to shorten her name to ‘kinki’, and expect the rest of us to be drawn to her tales?

We were just buffering, I guess. Though we came across as plucky teens, passions running deep, waiting to find an unlikely anchor in yesterday’s definition of “kewl’’.

Bottom Line: I am only hoping that today’s Twitter handles don’t turn out to be tomorrow’s cringe-fest.

(The above is a part of TLDR (Too Long. Didn't Read), a weekly blog that aims to crunch things down for you. I will give you the long and short of most things that need to be taken extremely seriously like your bookshelf, beer, existential dread, aimless conversations, rainy days and bubble-wrap. I promise to cater to all readers, but I brazenly harbour a soft-spot for skimmers, bathroom-readers and infinite scrollers. Now, let's bring the written word back!

P.S: Follow me @medhac1)