--- title: The History of Social Networking: An Odd Todd Cartoon | TIME description: From cavemen to the ancient nerds of yore to Facebook, Odd Todd takes You on a journey through the history of social networking canonical: https://time.com/video/At3dnim5/ og:title: The History of Social Networking: An Odd Todd Cartoon og:description: From cavemen to the ancient nerds of yore to Facebook, Odd Todd takes You on a journey through the history of social networking og:url: https://time.com/video/At3dnim5/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/At3dnim5/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The History of Social Networking: An Odd Todd Cartoon twitter:description: From cavemen to the ancient nerds of yore to Facebook, Odd Todd takes You on a journey through the history of social networking twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/At3dnim5/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # The History of Social Networking: An Odd Todd Cartoon > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: The History of Social Networking: An Odd Todd Cartoon [Watch (HLS stream): The History of Social Networking: An Odd Todd Cartoon](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/At3dnim5.m3u8) (3:25)  _Published 2010-12-15. From cavemen to the ancient nerds of yore to Facebook, Odd Todd takes You on a journey through the history of social networking_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:08 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Income Tax and You: An Odd Todd Cartoon](/video/R3RAo99Q/) ### Income Tax and You: An Odd Todd Cartoon [Lost and You: An Odd Todd Cartoon](/video/W8eYxtBn/) ### _Lost_ and You: An Odd Todd Cartoon [The Filibuster and You: An Odd Todd Cartoon](/video/M4E9o5Bz/) ### The Filibuster and You: An Odd Todd Cartoon --- ## Transcript >> F A C E B O O K. F A C E B O O K-- >> Hey, you're looking busy? >> Uh huh, got to make your facebook project. Scanning all my elementary school photos, now I'm tagging them all. >> With all the issues in the world, that's a great way to spend your time. >> Wow. Brian Dingleberry got fat. He was skinny and now he's f-- I'm gonna poke him. I'm gonna poke him and his fat. I love social networking. I love social networking. >> Well, since you love it so much, we might as well go over the history. >> According to historians, the very first social network was created over a hundred thousand years ago. Legend has it that this rock was thrown by a cave man at another cave man. That cave man then picked it up and threw it at a 3 rd cave man, thus the birth of social networking. And from that time, there were no advancement in social networking, until February 16 th, 1978. That's when the ancient nerds of Yore, started Bulletin Board Systems or as they call it BBS. These bulletin boards exchange data over phone lines. And eventually, the ancient nerds learn to exchange graphics as well. Gaze upon the historic very first photo ever shared over BBS. >> Awesome. >> Awesome? >> Awesome indeed. But, that was just the beginning for social networking. In the early 1990s, companies like CompuServe and AOL were very successful in building communities and chat rooms, and actually charging people of subscription fee. Just back in those hetty days, people still believe the internet would one day be profitable. But, those companies paved the way for the future of social networking, and the first out of the gate was " Theglobe. com ." Back in 1995, theglobe. com captured the ancient spirit of social networking, and their IPL opened with one of the largest games in stock market history, starting a trend that would eventually cripple the entire US economy. After the globe, a bunch of smaller social networking companies came around without much band fare, until the arrival of " Friendster ." >> Oh yeah. I remember friendster. What happened to those guys? >> I heard they went Asian or something. >> Asian indeed. And, as friendster moved to the Far East, a new social networking king moved right in, " Myspace ." But overtime, the once proud king went from looking like this, to looking like this, and that cyber fiasco leads us to " Facebook ", the current social networking champion, which is here to stay for now. >> But we have to start to wonder if expanding our social networks have caused us to care a little less about the people we care about the most. Is it all one big waste of time? >> Poking him-- poking him and his fat. >> Signs are [ unk ] yes. >> F A C E B O O K. 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