--- description: People on Twitter had jokes about their inability to handle the widespread internet issues Friday morning. title: People Had a Total Meltdown Over the Internet Outage image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt90a19e1d7f8c1089/6988ab08428a9ebeb2cd4b8b/gettyimages-590028494.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Newsfeed](/tag/time-section-newsfeed/) ## Newsfeed Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # People Had a Total Meltdown Over the Internet Outage by [Ashley Hoffman](/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oct 21, 2016 3:34 PM CUT  A collection of red, white, pink, green and orange data cables feed into a computer inside the Bynder headquarters in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2016\. Chris Hall, whose startup Bynder announced it has raised 20 million euros from U.S. investor Insight Venture Partners, is betting Amsterdam will steal some of London's thunder as the go-to for technology investments in Europe -- but not because of Brexit. Photographer: Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg via Getty Images A collection of red, white, pink, green and orange data cables feed into a computer inside the Bynder headquarters in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2016\. Chris Hall, whose startup Bynder announced it has raised 20 million euros from U.S. investor Insight Venture Partners, is betting Amsterdam will steal some of London's thunder as the go-to for technology investments in Europe -- but not because of Brexit. Photographer: Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesBloomberg-Bloomberg via Getty Images by [Ashley Hoffman](/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oct 21, 2016 3:34 PM CUT Internet users collectively lost it when they reported [widespread problems across some popular sites](http://time.com/4540265/internet-outages-ddos-dns/ "undefined") on Friday morning. The outage, mainly affecting the northeast U.S., seems to have been brought on by a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on [Dyn](http://dyn.com/ "undefined"), an [Internet](http://time.com/4457110/internet-trolls/ "undefined") company that hosts a variety of widely used platforms, though it is currently unclear why this happened. Writing on its website Friday morning, Dyn said it had been the subject of an attack, [adding](http://time.com/4540265/internet-outages-ddos-dns/ "undefined") that “some customers may experience increased DNS query latency and delayed zone propagation during this time.” Service has since been restored, according to DNS status reports. > [](https://twitter.com/Dyn/status/789462510562836480) But even though it was just one morning, Internet-reliant people struggled with “that feeling when” they were cut off from the world. As users woke up to find that sites like Twitter, Reddit, Spotify, Paypal, SoudCloud, and several other platforms appeared to go dark or experience problems, several were able to take to Twitter to express a rainbow of emotions on Friday’s access issues. **The consequences were dire for several people, as the information age took a major hit:** > [](https://twitter.com/NJHighlands/status/789445879006658560) > [](https://twitter.com/raqueldotnyc/status/789461600122044416) > [](https://twitter.com/BenjaminduPont/status/789443435690332160) > [](https://twitter.com/PhilaBCoulter/status/789447514856493056) > [](https://twitter.com/interzonejunkie/status/789460977423032323) > [](https://twitter.com/starsabove0oru/status/789448729409548292) > [](https://twitter.com/MichellCClark/status/789450248838082560) **Some put forth theories, or criticized the system’s wind preparedness.** > [](https://twitter.com/Kurt%5FBSH/status/789455833411231744) > [](https://twitter.com/cbo%5Fmb/status/785140312045871105) > [](https://twitter.com/CognitiveOne/status/789457746890330113) **Others saw the humor in the situation.** > [](https://twitter.com/youneverstudied/status/789467785957089281) > [](https://twitter.com/Briligerent/status/789461584607186944) > [](https://twitter.com/santosomar/status/789474852797198336) > [](https://twitter.com/innersolo/status/789460985144717312) **At least one kind soul offered comfort to those affected:** > [](https://twitter.com/solarce/status/789474156010205184) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4540360/internet-outage-twitter-reactions/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4540360/internet-outage-twitter-reactions/"},"headline":"People Had a Total Meltdown Over the Internet Outage","datePublished":"2016-10-21T15:34:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:37:52.189Z","description":"See the emotional responses to the DDoS attack that caused widespread Internet problems","url":"https://time.com/4540360/internet-outage-twitter-reactions/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Internet","Technology","Data topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt90a19e1d7f8c1089/6988ab08428a9ebeb2cd4b8b/gettyimages-590028494.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ashley Hoffman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt90a19e1d7f8c1089/6988ab08428a9ebeb2cd4b8b/gettyimages-590028494.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Bynder Software Startup Offices And Founder Chris Hall As Amsterdam Wins Technology Investments","caption":"Bynder Software Startup Offices And Founder Chris Hall As Amsterdam Wins Technology Investments","creditText":"Bloomberg-Bloomberg via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4540360/internet-outage-twitter-reactions/","name":"People Had a Total Meltdown Over the Internet Outage"}}]}] ```