How it was like to be a Sonic fan in the 90s?

[GeAr-DX]

1 hour ago, Solister said:

That's aweeeeeeesome!

I never, even thought the Dreamcast was popular here, and stopping to think about it, I don't think I've ever seen a SEGA console in real life . I used to access the Power Sonic Forum in one of its recent iterations (2014-2018, I think?) so if you were there around that time, we may have crossed paths :)

And wow, Revista Recreio... now that's a memory buried deep down in my memories. I also have vague memories of Jetix and Sonic X as I mentioned before too, but all too distant for me. I do have a Sonic X DVD and a "Sonic O Fantástico" DVD (which if I'm not mistaken is Sonic Christmas Blast + a few Sonic Underground episodes) but I have no idea how they came to me. I also have a few Sonic X comics buried somewhere in my house that should be from the same time.

We possibly didn't meet at the forum then :( , I stopped from using it around 2013, around that time the fandom was extremely toxic and  I'm the kind of person that don't try to use words when things become personal, I go direct to the brawling when someone tries to be passive aggressive, and that's impossible in the net. So I decided to only use Facebook at the time and even then I stopped from accessing Sonic groups and only got back here in around 2019 or so. But, my nick was Art-DX, I don't know if we meet at some point in some website.

I got some of those DVDs too, I even gave this Fantástico one to my younger brother, he's way younger than me, he's 9 years old and loves Sonic too.

[Solister]

@GeAr-DXand cc. @Shiny Gemssince you both were talking about the same subject.

Yeah, I also have some great and other not-so-great memories of accessing Forums back then. I mostly relate with what you guys said, it was a nice experience that grew me a lot as a person, especially when it comes to my moral views and discovering my personality, but oh boy, did I feel like a wimpy kid who suffered lots of cyberbullying... Like, I don't even blame them, but I kinda of recognize that was (not solely) one of the responsible for lots of mental health struggles I had during early adolescence and probably even skipping important steps when it comes to adulthood.

A (not so) fun fact, my SSMB* account was created in one of those moments I felt I'd outgrown the maturity of those forums and was probably pissed at something people told me (I won't deny it probably was something equally stupid, but anyway).

*Side note: I just realized SSMB as in Sonic Stadium Message Board is not even the current correct name to refer to here.

[Shiny Gems]

25 minutes ago, Solister said:

@GeAr-DXand cc. @Shiny Gemssince you both were talking about the same subject.

Yeah, I also have some great and other not-so-great memories of accessing Forums back then. I mostly relate with what you guys said, it was a nice experience that grew me a lot as a person, especially when it comes to my moral views and discovering my personality, but oh boy, did I feel like a wimpy kid who suffered lots of cyberbullying... Like, I don't even blame them, but I kinda of recognize that was (not solely) one of the responsible for lots of mental health struggles I had during early adolescence and probably even skipping important steps when it comes to adulthood.

A (not so) fun fact, my SSMB* account was created in one of those moments I felt I'd outgrown the maturity of those forums and was probably pissed at something people told me (I won't deny it probably was something equally stupid, but anyway).

*Side note: I just realized SSMB as in Sonic Stadium Message Board is not even the current correct name to refer to here.

I wasn’t exactly cyverbullied myself. Rather, I was kind of the bully. But my willingness to adapt, change and improve helped me become a better person. Learning and friendship had helped me a lot in improving myself.

[SpeedyChilidogs]

On 4/10/2024 at 5:58 AM, Dreadknux said:

Haha, I just found an old advert promoting the Milky Way / Sonic & Knuckles competition that I was addicted to as a kid!

That Milky Way wrapper is forever burned into my brain, lol!

Oh, also another fond memory I forgot to mention; SEGA was pretty big on marketing their games back in the day (as they had a console to sell back then). During the lead-up to Sonic & Knuckles, this came in the form of a 'SEGA Bus' that had Sonic imagery painted onto it. I remember going to a video game show in London that year and seeing this massive bus with Sonic on it. It was a double-decker that had loads of Mega Drives and TVs installed on the upper floor (and Game Gears loaded with Sonic Triple Trouble on the bottom floor). They held contests on the upper deck, where kids would have 10 minutes to get as high a score as possible on S&K, starting from Mushroom Hill. I took part, but because I hadn't played Sonic 3 at the time the Special Stages concept was new to me so I didn't get very far, lol. But it was a cool way to let people play S&K ahead of release.

I took home a really cool poster from that event, which was black and simply had a white S&K logo and the release date underneath it. Sadly, I don't have it anymore (it suffered irreparable damage over time due to... well, me being a kid) and can't find images of it online. :(

Whattt, That's so cool!! Mann, I feel like the 90's were amazing and it's funny cuz my mom was just talking about this the other day, she constantly talks about how the 2000s is when everything went bad and all with it's not entirely true, but I couldn't imagine how cool that would be lol! I'm just reading how cool y'all experiences are cuz it's so interesting to me. XD

[batson]

I was born in 86, and experienced the height of the Sonic craze from 1991 to 1995 (people sometimes talk as if Sonic somehow went from being huge in 94 to being immediately obscure by 95 just because no new major game was released that year, but in actuality I'd say it was more around 96 that people were staring to notice that Sonic as well as Sega in general were laggning behind the times).

The biggest difference between being a Sonic fan then and being one now I'd say was that Sonic at the time was THE big video game mega fad back then. Sonic has come and gone in populariy since the mid 90's but it has never again become the single biggest thing in the industry, not even close. So as big as Sonic was in say 2004 when Sonic X was making waves and the fanbase was everywhere on the internet, or right now with the movies and the resurgence of tons of merchandise and all, it was only during the first half of the 90's that saying that you were a fan of Sonic was treated like "well duh, OF COURSE you're a fan of Sonic, who isn't?". Well, if you were into video games in the first place that is. I think it deserves to be mentioned in any discussion on being a gamer in the 90's (especially in pre-Playstation times) that the entire video game medium was heavily skewed towards young males. If you were of female gender or already of adult age, nobody asumed you had any interest in video games at all.

But if you were a little boy like I was at the time, liking Sonic was the norm, not the exception. It was what Pokémon would become in the late 90's/early 00's, with the notable expection that the Pokémon craze was something that fully captured both genders instead of just boys.