15 Things Only People Who Had Bebo Will Understand

For many of us, Bebo was our first experience of social media, and boy was it an excellent one! The addictive nature of the website served as a platform for our young selves to let loose. Imagine reading your Bebo bio NOW and thinking what was going through your head?! We were young, immature, with not a single care in the world and we loved it! Your profile was supposedly the personification of your teenage self, built with random flashboxes, an excellent bio, weird whiteboards, your vital "top 16", your other half and everything else! Sometimes, we wish Facebook was more like the Bebo of old!

Take a trip down memory lane - remember these things about Bebo?

15. Our potentially career-destroying photographs.

 

Bebo was where we chose to upload our earliest pictures of ourselves, and there were some belters! Posting photos of you and your friends on the sesh after tasting alcohol for the first time. Oh, if only we could see them now...

14. Our hilarious bios.

 

Everyone's Bebo bio should be used on their modern day CV. They were THAT good! Think of what YOURS said now! Happiest When? ... "Drinkin cans." Scared of? .... "Nuthin. Well, mayb3 spiders ha."

13. Writing Liik3 Thi5.

 

"H3y hUn, hoP3 u r @lri. Mi55 u. Luv from Amieee xxx." Bebo helped us develop our own language, and many of us used it as teens. It was almost as incomprehensible as hieroglyphics. There's such thing as taking the text typing TOO far, and it certainly happened on Bebo. Using numbers within words surely takes MORE effort than using letters no?

12. "Share the luv."

 

Similar to the Facebook addition of the emoticon into your status, Bebo introduced the "share the luv" scheme onto the site, which sent everyone into an internet frenzy. You simply HAD to receive as many of them as possible, to compete with your friends and somehow determine who was more popular?! You could only send one love per day which instantly made who you sent it to the most important decision in your young life! Then Bebo increased the number to 3 a day, which signalled the beginning of the end...

11. Your Bebo "other half" was a crucial decision.

 

If you didn't have a "girlfriend" when you were 13, who you chose to be your other half was a mammoth task. "Is it okay to choose my best friend? I don't want people to think I'm gay?" Or when you had to remove your friend as your other half in place of your new girlfriend? The sheer drama!!

10. Posting personal messages PUBLICLY on your friend's page.

 

In Bebo, we were so naive about other people reading our private messages to others. Either that or we just didn't seem to care. We would post personal and private messages on our friends' walls and think that other people wouldn't read them? "H3y brO, hop3 ur r@ah cl3ar3d up OK. Tinkin bOu U xxx." And you would scroll down your friend's pages to creep online and read other people's messages! Although, the majority of the time these messages were of absolute zero significance and could be as simple and mundane as "u cumin ou?"

9. Updating your cool Bebo Skin.

 

Are you a cool racing car type of guy or maybe a pink unicorn type of girl? The choices were endless, and you had to ensure that anyone who visited your page saw your skin and thought you were cool.

8. Bebo Quizzes!

 

Ohh you almost forget about them didn't you? Asking people to take your Bebo quiz. Some of the most important questions in your young life were answered here for the world to see.  Who is the first person I kissed? What's my favourite animal? What football team do I support?

7. The battle for the best mullet.

 

Do you remember that intense mullet craze for lads that came alongside the Bebo Stunnahs? That hairstyle should have never been allowed to respawn from the grave, and should have been left to rot in the 80s - we were 90s kids! There were even pages and groups dedicated to honouring the best mullets! People EVEN began to grow them down past their neck and... wait for it... DYE their mullet outrageous colours like red, blue and green!

6. The "Flashbox."

 

If you were a guy, how many drifting cars and the latest DJ Cammy song determined how cool and popular you were. Period! Teenage discos, your blokia mobile phone and Bebo flashboxes were the places that "Celebrate the Summer" and the likes were pumped out in such adolescent pride and delight. We had no shame!

5. Battling for profile views!

 

Constantly checking your friend's profile to see how much more profile views you needed to overtake them, in the hope of smugly bragging about it when you do. Then checking someone's page and seeing some unbelievable number like 80,954 views - "HOW the hell did they get that?! There must be a glitch! Refresh, refresh, refresh"

4. "Who's in your top 16?"

 

The place were many friends were won and lost! One of the most dangerous inventions on the internet, the bebo top 16 caused serious jealousy, arguments and fights among friends. Sneaky devils...

3. Drawing penises on your friend's whiteboard.

 

The Bebo whiteboard was a titan invention - it was where your initial artistic instincts came alive. Do you remember begging your one friend who's REALLY good at drawing to post on your whiteboard? These people could have made a fortune in those days if they thought to market their young talents! But, mostly the whiteboard was a podium for young lads to draw massive, delicate and detailed penises on their friend's page. There was a young Seth from Superbad in all of us!

2. Having 2,867 "friends" who you have never met.

 

Nobody, no matter how popular you claim to be, can have this much friends. Lots of people like this still exist on Facebook today, but it's so unnecessary. At least on Bebo you didn't have 2,867 people clogging up your newsfeed, you could simply pick and choose who to view on your profile.

1. The now infamous Bebo Stunnahs!

 

Yes, this was where the Bebo Stunnah and the Duck Face was created! Groups labelled "Bebo's Finest" or "Bebo's Next Top Model" were designed to market the best bebo Stunnahs and their endless mirror and selfie pitures.