Internet Relay Chat

We just dropped what might be our most personal video yet – a deep dive into the history of Internet Relay Chat, or IRC. And honestly? Making this one hit different.

For those of you who weren’t around in the ’90s (or weren’t online yet), IRC might seem like ancient history. But here’s the thing: it was arguably the most “Internet” thing the Internet ever created. No corporate overlords, no algorithms, no terms of service written by lawyers. Just people, connecting in real-time across vast distances, making their own rules as they went along.

What the Video Covers

We trace IRC’s origins back to August 1988, when a Finnish student named Jarkko Oikarinen was working on a BBS called OuluBox and thought, “Hey, what if we could chat in real-time?” Taking inspiration from BITNET Relay Chat, he created something that would connect millions of people around the globe.

The video walks through:

• The BITNET days and a how store-and-forward chat network became the basis of IRC
• IRC’s explosive growth from a few Finnish servers to 100 servers worldwide by 1990
• The splits – aka the drama. We cover the Eris/EFnet split in 1990, the formation of Undernet and DALnet, and the epic “Great Split” of 1996 that created IRCnet
• The technical bits – channels, nicknames, netsplits, bots, and why running on port 6667 mattered
• Personal stories from people like Helen Rose (Trillian) who were there from the beginning

The perils of internet history, or a how a photo of Andy Richter fooled me

We did make a mistake in the video, though.

Finding photos, especially of people that are not-so-famous or well-known, can be tricky. There’s the whole issue of copyright and fair-use, but just finding high resolution photos that would look good in a 4K video is sometimes impossible.

There are photos of Jarkko Oikarinen, the inventor of IRC, scattered around, but none are particularly good. Early on in the script-writing process, I came across this photo which I thought looked great. The lighting was great and it looked more-or-less like the other photos of Jarkko I had seen, except he looked a bit younger. This was perfect, as I wanted a photo from his college years around the time he was actually coding IRC. And besides, it says “Jarkko Oikarinen” under the photo… it *had* to be him…. right?

I think this was the first section of video I edited, so I popped the photo in and didn’t think anything of it. When it came to review time, I simply credited the site where I got the photo and moved on.

Once the video was published, we started seeing comments that the photo was, in fact, of Andy Richter, an actor and comedian known for his role as Conan O’Brien’s sidekick. Surely this was wrong? It wasn’t… we quickly figured out that the supposed photo of Jarkko was actually sourced from a Getty Images shoot in the mid-2000s for a movie release.

We were able to blur the photo using the YouTube editor, and linked to Jarkko’s personal site instead where there is an authentic photo of him. In the end, no harm done, but slightly embarrassing and kind of funny.

Why This One’s Personal

For both Mark and I, IRC wasn’t just a chat platform – it was where we spent our teenage years. It’s where I met people who became actual, real-life friends (some I still talk to today). It’s where I learned about the world beyond my small town. It was the first place that made the Internet feel truly alive.

Reading through the early IRC documentation while making this video was kind of surreal. There are literally instructions telling people not to be afraid of embarrassing themselves and to remember to say goodbye properly. It was so wholesome and innocent. Seriously, where did we go wrong?!

The Legacy

IRC peaked around in the late 90s through the early aughts with hundreds of thousands of concurrent users, then slowly declined as instant messengers and social media took over. But its impact? That’s undeniable. It proved that decentralized, user-controlled platforms could work. It showed what happens when you give people the tools to connect without intermediaries.

And in our current era where everyone’s talking about decentralized platforms and federated social networks? We should remember and honor IRC’s trailblazing path.

We’ve Barely Scratched the Surface

Here’s the reality: we wanted to make a definitive history of IRC, but that’s basically impossible. There are so many stories we couldn’t fit in – countless IRC clients, bots, scripts, networks, and personal experiences that shaped what IRC became.

So we want to hear from you. 

What was IRC like for you? What channels did you hang out in? What network? Did you meet people who changed your life? Drop your memories in the comments – we’ve already got more IRC videos planned, and your stories might just make it into the next one.

If you enjoyed this deep dive into Internet history, consider supporting us on Patreon. We’ve got plenty more stories to tell, and your support helps us keep digging into the origins of the technology that shaped our digital world.