Scotto Moore

Leri - I was the founder of an online community ostensibly formed around the discussion of psychedelic drugs, which launched in 1992 while I was still in college. The earliest snapshot of Leriweb on archive.org pops up around 1997. We originally formed as a group of very disparate individuals scattered across the country and the globe, who connected via alt.drugs on Usenet (pre-WWW era) and then went semi-private; holed up on a mailing list where we got to know each other; used IRC heavily to communicate in real time; began throwing "fleshmeets" in various locations around the country and rather legendary NYE parties that brought the tribe together; organized "netrips"; formed nodes in cities like Chicago, Seattle, Austin, NYC (for instance, Sealeri was a scene for a while); and eventually local cultures swallowed us all up and we no longer needed the central node. We lasted a bit more than a decade before organically dissolving. Technically many of us have maintained life long friendships and networks that originated with Leri even though Leri.ITSELF is now defunct. (Technically, for all I know, someone out there is still using "Leri" as a moniker for a mailing list that descended from the original mailing list, but all of the original cast of characters are long gone from that world.)

I think Leriweb will give you a place to start to understand what it was like - specifically the narrative we constructed in the Leri FAQ section. I have a local copy saved of Leriweb in case the archive.org experience is spotty in significant ways. I let the domain expire eventually when no one was paying attention.

As the founder, I had a singular experience that was perhaps unique in that I was treated with a level of respect that I undoubtedly hadn't earned at my young age.

I will perhaps return to this survey and add more color, or if you have questions that might be more specific after you've read through the Leri FAQ, I would be up for more surveying. This was a huge part of my life for an intense decade or so and I don't know that it can be super easily summarized without more granular prompting.