20 years of Orkut: 6 troubles you may have experienced on the social network

Considered the great first success of the social media universe, Orkut celebrates 20 years of launch this Wednesday (24). And two decades ago the internet was in a completely different context than it is today.

In 2004, around 6.3 million households in the country had access to the internet, which was equivalent to 12.2% of households, according to IBGE. Although it may seem low, only 3% of Brazilians had internet in 2000, to give you an idea.

Before the arrival of 2004, people used the internet in a very passive way, in the era called web 1.0. O Orkut helped usher in web 2.0, which was characterized as a more collaborative network, where content production and user participation was much greater.

Orkut was the first social network that took off in Brazil (Image: Reproduction/Wikipedia)

With the social network already established, the experience of spending hours online was confused with using Orkut itself. In mid-2004, being online basically meant using Orkut and/or MSN Messenger.

But things weren't just about talking to friends, stalking crushes and joining exotic communities, quite the opposite. There was a bad side too.

6 troubles you may have experienced on Orkut

Orkut ended its activities in September 2014, just over a decade after its launch. And there were many positive memories he left behind.

Couples were formed through the network, many people met people who were part of their niche subcultures, users met relatives they hadn't spoken to in a long time, etc.

On the other hand, part of the experience of being logged into Orkut came with several problems that gave many people the headaches caused by the internet.

To take advantage of Orkut's 20th anniversary, the TecMundo recalls some of the main problems that users experienced on the network.

1. Wait for an invitation to join

The first adversity with Orkut began before people even joined the social network. At its beginning, the platform only accepted those who had invitations.

In other words, soon after Brazilians started hearing about the site, a rush began to try to find who had an invitation available. At the time, there were reports of people even selling access.

Users presented with Orkut invitations even sold them on the internet (Image: Reproduction)

2. Photo limit

Those who are very young will not remember any of the troubles mentioned, including this one. Therefore, contextualization is in order.

In the early days of the internet, cloud computing technology had not yet become popular, and it was one of the main factors responsible for the increase in the scale of data on the world wide web.

Because of this, the scope of the servers was infinitely smaller than today, which brought inconveniences such as the possibility of publishing only 12 photos on the social network. And that's right: At first, Orkut only accepted the publication of a maximum of 12 photos per profile.

While for some the eight Orkut photos were a lot, for others the eight photos were not enough (Image: Reproduction)

3. DSTV Profile

The early 2000s presented a very particular aesthetic on the internet. At the time, it was common for online writing to be full of symbols and numbers instead of letters, the popular leet. In this sense, you wouldn't be so cool if you didn't use Nicks like <~^~Ca4l0s P4LMEiR4~^~>.

And this cheesiness was extended to conversations, where people abbreviated words. In addition to tc (keying), add (add), tdb (all good) and the popular DSTV (deactivated).

Deactivated Orkut profiles were a way for people to dedicate their time to other activities (or not) (Image: Reproduction)

Unlike nowadays, where people tend to delete all their photos on Instagram when they want to disappear, In ancient times, users wrote DSTV on their profile and gave up accessing the social network for a while.

This problem was quite common among teenagers, who, when they got low grades at school or had relationship problems with friends, or boyfriends/girlfriends, needed to resort to DSTV.

4. Communities owned

Orkut practically had a profession: community owners. Depending on the size and scope of a community, the environment needed to have very defined rules and a “steady hand” so that coexistence did not go sideways.

Many people took this post very seriously, behaving like a true legislator of virtual groups. Things got pretty bad, though, when someone with permission had access to community command.

In these moments, as “trolling”, the names and photos of the communities were changed and the group was completely mischaracterized. It was not uncommon for the names of communities to be changed to something pornographic or in bad taste.

The “Owned” signature was one of the signs that the community had been hacked (Image: Reproduction)

The problem was big and caused a lot of concern. After all, no one wanted to be seen within the “I love the smell of flatulence” community, when in fact, the original community was Guns N' Roses fans.

5. Testimonials accepted

The testimonials were a particular Orkut experience that has never been repeated by any other social network. For those who don't remember, some more context is in order. Testimonials were texts that you sent to a person that could be pinned to the “giftee’s” profile.

Along with reputations (as a fan, trustworthy and sexy), testimonials were also indicators of a person's popularity. The more you did, the cooler you were.

However, the statements could also bring some headaches. As they were exclusive to the person who received them, the testimonials were only listed on the person's page if they accepted.

As the scraps were public, many people saw Orkut testimonials as a way of talking more privately with people (Image: Reproduction)

What many people did (mistakenly or not) was accept statements with content that should not be revealed, including spicy messages. Even with the “not accepted” indicators, it was not uncommon to see a strange testimony posted on the profiles of your friends, co-workers or family members.

6. New Orkut

Part of Orkut's charm existed due to its unique aesthetic. The blue color layout and simple rectangular button design was what attracted a lot of people.

Things changed a little with the debut of “New Orkut”, a revamped version of the social network launched in 2010 by Google (which had taken control of the brand in 2008).

Among the new features, the social network's redesigned model had a more modern format, new colors, suggestions from friends, the ability to add more photos at once, video messages and more.

The New Orkut brought all of Google's technology, including Chrome (Image: Reproduction)

Despite seeming like a big leap, New Orkut bothered a lot of people. The most nostalgic people were even angry at the new logo that indicated that the person was using the newest version.

Because of this, it was not uncommon to have users returning to the old model, as the new features were not pleasing. The lesson that remains is that since that time people were already nostalgic and considered everything that was older to be better.