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You folks shared a game I made (Arm Wrestling With Sigmund Freud) and it pretty much launched my career. Thank you, B3tans! 24 years and 3 days as a member for me.

fucksocks! 24.5 years and still can't hummus (gub~gub) b3ta is the longest running sausage-based newsletter in internet history. it also taught be the best way to poach eggs

Been reading from the start. God I’m old. Great stuff though!

Well, thank you for the laughs. I didn’t get an account until I’d left home (home internet ban), so my account is a mere 21 years old - but you are why our school network banned all google cache links (oops).

Early lurker… I remember a gal in the office in Bristol giving us BBS updates on the day in question; then the next day b3ta popped up and I was an early member with what is almost certainly a proscribed email now that had to be *ahem* abandoned…

Insta-follow, didn't realise b3ta was on blue sky. Happy birthday My profile still works, and it's old enough to have a proper job, "a member for 23 years, 3 months and 28 days"

Aww, missed this, Happy Birthday B3ta. Spent many a long night posting rubbish, met people that are still in my life now, & weirdly developed skills as a result that have helped me make a living for the last 20-odd years. Good job.

I've been getting the newsletter since almost the very beginning, although only joined the board in 2005. Along with PopBitch it just be the email I've read the most for pretty much all my adult life 😅

There was a time between 2007 and 2009 when I would keep a b3ta tab open constantly and refreshing it every 20 seconds or so. Very happy memories! Happy b3taday, B3ta! 😃

i got 4th in a weekly challenge. struggled to get my head through the door! told my mrs and she said " what the hell is b3ta?". back down to earth!

Don't tell Beattie.

Happy birthday b3ta! Remember discovering it sometime 2002 and finding it delightfully creative. Also enjoyed the Britishness (I’m not). Posted a bunch of images over the years. Mostly rubbish but was nice to have a place for posting them. Besides that, mostly lurked. But always enjoyed the site!

bsky.app/profile/dant...

I was a lurker for a long while. well done to everyone involved!

A web thing that has existed for 25 years and somehow not gone nazi is impressive in itself tbf

Apparently I'm user number 356

Had a couple of FPs over 15 years ago and it still holds a place in my heart.

Many happy returns! I have always been a lurker and loved the QOTW. Two responses will remain in my head forever - a button mushroom coming out of someone's nose after a theme park ride, and parents playing with sparklers in the kitchen and getting caught by their daughter!

i swear that b3ta party in the pub in north london was before this... 🤔

So hugely

Funny that he went from the B3ta board to Flickr! :) Always loved his work with oEmbed. But never forgave him for not supporting the audio type in the spec! I used to do a few WWWBoards etc. around the time of the old NMEdotcom Angst board, where I met Pauly. (I worked with him at IPC for a bit)

Very grateful for @b3ta.com ’s community and genius.

Still haven't received an email, so can't log in, but was able to access my user details. 85 FPs!

Big part of my time at university messing about as a student union officer in 2001-2003. Went to a couple of IRL parties in that London in 2004-5 (?) including dressed as evil doctors for Halloween. That trip on the tube was interesting...

Prett' near 22 years... good times, good times...

Happy birth anniversary b3ta! \o/

I've just checked my profile - I've been a member for 19 years, 11 months, and 6 days. And in all honesty without B3ta I wouldn't be an academic, wouldn't have a PhD, and wouldn't have @pjm1974.bsky.social In fact, I even put an acknowledgement in my doctoral thesis to the people of B3ta.

My brain is so B3ta-wired that the letters ‘GC’ mean glass cock and nothing else. Five front pages. FIVE, yeah.

Mine also, though divorced 5 years later (thank god).

And Rachelswipe and Pavlov's Frog.

(PJM and ChickenLady since confirmed). TopUpTheTea has probably had at least 217 proposals of marriage from creepy internet weirdo men (half of them PaulyPops) but she has resisted thus far.

Well I completely don't remember that - or never saw it - glad it worked out for you

Same, posted only 39 messages on the board. I was never very good at photo editing but I had a few attempts and posted them.

RIS is don't get it?

I was so excited when my suggestion of a baby sock as an iPod sleeve/protector made the newsletter.

I was in a small web company around then and we used to get pissed Friday lunchtime and come up with batshit websites... We did a couple about marmite and b3ta pushed them out in 2003... and ended being picked up by BBC news

I have a suspicion that I might have deleted my account. You know, some years ago. *Cough*

That has just made me laugh out loud on the Elizabeth line. @macalbatross.bsky.social are your ears burning?

23 years - I joined late 🤣 Lost my login details a while ago, and the linked email no longer exists. Sad times. Once made a GROUNDBREAKING pun about St. Vitus’ Dance that I still think of to this day.

Love b3ta. It was a great community, back when connecting to the internet required more knowledge and effort to use than most idiots could muster. Very influential to the nascent internet. Lots of people found their audience and went on to do great things.

I'm so damn happy that it continues to exist. One of the few remaining reminders of how the internet used to be. And also the place that introduced me to the sheer volume of Brian blessed.

Happy bloomin' badgery birthday to B3ta. It has brought me a lot of joy and connected me to the work of so many talented and, frankly, crazy people.

Twenty five years? Good god! I would spend endless hours in the early naughties making and posting stuff, but it never felt like time wasted. And, despite an illustrious career since, I still consider winning a weekly image challenge one of my greatest accomplishments. Long live b3ta!

Not teh Quo! We're doomed!

I discovered Elbow through your Northern kittens singing Independent Woman and I've loved them since. Thanks Joel.

Haha! Phone autocorrect and not wearing my reading glasses (dammit I am so OLD now) bringing serendipitous typos.

We had SO MUCH FUN!

Forums... forae.. whatever. Still the best sort of social media.

Amazing! Enormous congratulations. I read about Buffy's Swearing Keyboard in Kerrang I think - I'm guessong Octoberish of that year - and then wee-weed thousands of hours away on nonsense.

Wow. 24 years, 9 months and 5 days. Didn’t realise I was so aged of the curve. Think I only posted one image though.

ooh! i was quite early on the bandwagon then...may 2003 ish always a great place full of people who didnt destroy me over my amateurish photoshop efforts😅

I used to be a daily visitor back in the day, I was about 16 years old at the time and the humour hit perfectly. Rathergood songs still live in my head rent-free.

Long live b3ta! 18y 10m under current profile, but I had another username from the early days which I forgot after taking a few years' break when I first became a dad. And also because I was constantly stoned back then. Probably for the best, as those early posts would no doubt get me cancelled now.

Exactly the same here although since you posted this 3 days ago my account must be 3 days younger than yours 🩷

We demand shirts! (add it to the list Rob)

There is a direct through-line from me pirating a copy of Photoshop so I could make and post silly images, to the career I've had in webby design stuff. I owe it all to b3ta. My avatar on here is from a b3ta comp a couple of decades ago.

Only 25 years!?..

This is the most perfect time for me to share one of my b3ta images!

I joined B3ta in late 2001, bored out of my skull in a job at Teletext and nursing a broken ankle. I completely lacked any photoshop skills (and still do) but it kept me sane and became a core part of my cultural identity. 25 years on I remain deeply grateful to our ginger overlord. woo yay etc…

From me to you:

The only reason worth having a website is if it sells subscriptions. B3ta was dead before it started, yet we working on it, could feel it had a bit of life in it, people were coming, people were interested. Then a stroke of the kindest bit of corporate luck, the publisher said, it's yours for £1.