Mega Man Posted July 3, 2019 Share Posted July 3, 2019 For the thousands of visitors between 1995 and 1997, you may remember the first incarnation of GreenDay.com, which was built by Adam Rifkin and Jason Miller. And it was honestly a mystery to me, even now, whether this was official or not. For 1995, the site had all the bells and whistles, and was pretty comprehensive for the time. The site even boasted the first incarnation of the Idiot Club (which is still baffling to me it existed almost a decade before American Idiot). But there were some telltale signs that the site wasn't officially endorsed. Music downloads were one, although this was years before file sharing entered the public's consciousness. There was also a bootleg section, which would definitely seem odd for a band to endorse. And finally, they also hosted pictures of Billie's penis. So I guess you could say it was a pretty lawless era. The site's first overhaul came in 1997. The site was cleaned up a lot, but it was clear that it was still essentially a fan site, but an official correspondence section with Billie actually suggested that the site had some legitimacy. 1999 was when the site was hosted by Reprise Records and we can deduce that it became "official." It's very much professional for the time. I suppose enough traffic was being generated online that Warner thought it was time for official representation. The fan site elements are gone with no commentary from the site creators whatsoever. From here on out, the official site would go through numerous overhauls based on the current release they were promoting. If you have time, it's fun to look at the archives. There exists the mystery of when the site became "official" and how. Turns out, Adam Rifkin is still around and gave us an answer to the question last year: https://medium.com/do-breakthrough/life-is-about-giving-how-much-will-you-actually-give-c0cf96748064 Adam's site was adopted as the official Green Day site in 1997, which coincides with the first redesign. Adam freely handed over the site to Green Day's management, just being a fan and wanting nothing out of it. Though from here on out, it looks like Warner enlisted different coders to design the webpage. Though amazingly, the Idiot Club persisted. What started as a fan trying to drum up support for his favorite band out of his own home still exists as the official fan club of said band. I'm guessing Green Day's management took over around the same time the site was handed over. This is just a minor footnote in Green Day history, but I hope you found it as interesting as I did. Turns out there's been a strong Green Day fan presence on the web since day 1, and sites like Green Day Community are just continuing the tradition. I'll leave you with an archive of Rifkin's original site as it was in 1996. http://web.archive.org/web/19961105142512/http://www.greenday.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hermione Posted July 3, 2019 Share Posted July 3, 2019 20 minutes ago, Mega Man said: And finally, they also hosted pictures of Billie's penis. So I guess you could say it was a pretty lawless era. This was all I remembered about viewing the old site on the Wayback Machine lol, definitely a give away Interesting to know when it became official! The Idiot Club thing is kind of cool, from what I've heard it was originally called that as snarky name, but I think at some point after that it was just the Green Day Fanclub for a while (I think so anyway, would like to know if this is confirmed or not or if it was more than one fanclub etc, not sure). Then when they happened to release an album called American Idiot they decided to make use of the old name to relaunch the fan club since it was appropriate. And then they spoiled it by renaming it Idiot Nation (so lame compared to Idiot Club ) just so they could act like it was "new" and get more people to join. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mega Man Posted July 3, 2019 Author Share Posted July 3, 2019 @Hermione It's possible that the fan club was called something else from 1994-1995, though I have no record of that. To confirm, the earliest instance of the Idiot Club was from 1996, and the club was ran consistently up to American Idiot. Call that a happy accident. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beerjeezus Posted July 3, 2019 Share Posted July 3, 2019 Where are the dick pics please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Squashie Posted July 3, 2019 Share Posted July 3, 2019 8 minutes ago, Beerjeezus said: Where are the dick pics please? You would ask for those. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beerjeezus Posted July 3, 2019 Share Posted July 3, 2019 6 minutes ago, DadBod said: You would ask for those. I can't let that be forgotten Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montclare Posted July 3, 2019 Share Posted July 3, 2019 Wasn't it greenday.net at first? I know that Jason runs the Green Day reddit sub. Cool post of stuff he has from the old days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beerjeezus Posted July 3, 2019 Share Posted July 3, 2019 This is awesome. Love the hello kitty note Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mega Man Posted July 3, 2019 Author Share Posted July 3, 2019 38 minutes ago, Montclare said: Wasn't it greenday.net at first? I know that Jason runs the Green Day reddit sub. Cool post of stuff he has from the old days. You might be right (I certainly wasn't around for that era). But I did dig up this interesting disclaimer. Quote So you all probably have the same question going through your minds: What happened to greenday.com? To be perfectly honest, we don't know. But in the mean time Adam, Cara and I (with some help from friends of mine in Glazed) are putting back up the original site. For you hardcore fans, you will without a doubt notice that this is the exact same site that was up before it was moved to www.greenday.com. There is a reason for this: we don't have access to .com as it was before it disappeared. This is purely temporary. There are immediate plans to update the look and feel, along with updating as much content as humanly possible. And since you all seemed to like the message board, I put one up (<--------- message board) This is not by any means an insult against www.greenday.com or Jason Miller. However, there is a void right now and we are trying to fix it as best as possible. Once things get squared away with Jason and .com. we'll see what we can do then. In the mean time, enjoy. Feel like throwing us a comment about the whole shindig, go ahead. Was there ever a schism of sorts between the two originators of the original Green Day site? Unfortunately it looks like greenday.net is defunct now with plenty of broken images and obsolete layout - not updated since '13. Shame that this is what became of the only "official" fan site. Seems like this is where they split off once Warner took over the main site in the late 90s. Though it's good to see Jason is still active and still keeping up to date on effectively promoting Green Day and providing a forum for fans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Todd Posted July 4, 2019 Share Posted July 4, 2019 8 hours ago, Mega Man said: @Hermione It's possible that the fan club was called something else from 1994-1995, though I have no record of that. To confirm, the earliest instance of the Idiot Club was from 1996, and the club was ran consistently up to American Idiot. Call that a happy accident. I have Idiot Club newsletters from Spring and Fall 1994 6 hours ago, Mega Man said: You might be right (I certainly wasn't around for that era). But I did dig up this interesting disclaimer. Was there ever a schism of sorts between the two originators of the original Green Day site? Unfortunately it looks like greenday.net is defunct now with plenty of broken images and obsolete layout - not updated since '13. Shame that this is what became of the only "official" fan site. Seems like this is where they split off once Warner took over the main site in the late 90s. Though it's good to see Jason is still active and still keeping up to date on effectively promoting Green Day and providing a forum for fans. Coincidentally, last night I was digging through the Greenday.net archives, and from what I could tell, when Green Day's management started working with Jason Miller, it took them a while to send him the money to host the site, so that's why Greenday.com was dead for a while. Jason was couldn't afford to keep it running out of pocket, and he was waiting for management to cough up the check. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hermione Posted July 4, 2019 Share Posted July 4, 2019 49 minutes ago, Todd said: I have Idiot Club newsletters from Spring and Fall 1994 Yeah I've seen that! It's the only pre-American Idiot "Idiot Club" thing I've seen so I didn't think it was used for long. Can you post them? I thought I remembered seeing "Green Day Fanclub" on a CD or something, and also hearing that Idiot Club was "brought back" when the new fanclub was launched with American Idiot. It could just be that more than one club existed though (like official/unofficial ones). Don't know how to find out for sure. 8 hours ago, Beerjeezus said: Where are the dick pics please? There's a link to the old version of the site in the OP, check out the pictures section . It's just the usual ones that are easy to google though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Todd Posted July 4, 2019 Share Posted July 4, 2019 9 minutes ago, Hermione said: Yeah I've seen that! It's the only pre-American Idiot "Idiot Club" thing I've seen so I didn't think it was used for long. Can you post them? I thought I remembered seeing "Green Day Fanclub" on a CD or something, and also hearing that Idiot Club was "brought back" when the new fanclub was launched with American Idiot. It could just be that more than one club existed though (like official/unofficial ones). Don't know how to find out for sure. There's a link to the old version of the site in the OP, check out the pictures section . It's just the usual ones that are easy to google though. Let's see if I can figure out how to embed instagram posts. Hopefully it just works automatically Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hermione Posted July 4, 2019 Share Posted July 4, 2019 Awesome, I hadn't seen the whole lot. I love the "Really big idiot", "Idiot" and "Poor idiot" options Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doggins Posted July 4, 2019 Share Posted July 4, 2019 I'm just going by memory here but didn't Jason startup greenday.net after greenday.com was taken by Warner/Reprise? From memory Jason was not that happy about the change but greenday.net ended up becoming much better than the .com site and Green Day themselves even contributed info to Jason to share on greenday.net so it was actually more up to date than the official. It then also became the 'Official Unofficial Green Day Page' or something like that. P.S I used to buy VHS bootlegs off the greenday.com site thats how my collecting started.. haha. P.P.S I was also Idiot of the month in the old Idiot club from the late 90s, I got sent an autographed photo and everything so was definitely official in like 1997-1999 P.P.P.S I met my wife on the old greenday.net chat room. Jason if you ever read this - if it weren't for you my life would not be the same and my kids wouldn't be here today Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hermione Posted July 4, 2019 Share Posted July 4, 2019 ALLOW 4-8 WEEKS FOR DELIVERY IF YOUR LUCKY Unforgivable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeJennsitized Posted July 4, 2019 Share Posted July 4, 2019 1 hour ago, Hermione said: ALLOW 4-8 WEEKS FOR DELIVERY IF YOUR LUCKY Unforgivable That wrong Your, it hurts Also reminds me of the date they gave for Cuatro on the Trilogy boxset: "When it's fuckin' ready!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hermione Posted July 4, 2019 Share Posted July 4, 2019 1 minute ago, DeJennsitized said: That wrong Your, it hurts Also reminds me of the date they gave for Cuatro on the Trilogy boxset: "When it's fuckin' ready!" Even worse when they're already originally spelled it Quatro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HAPPY ZOMBIE UNICORN Posted July 4, 2019 Share Posted July 4, 2019 8 minutes ago, Hermione said: Even worse when they're already originally spelled it Quatro I liked the Quatro variant, a nice mix between Spanish and Italian 😄 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mega Man Posted July 4, 2019 Author Share Posted July 4, 2019 11 hours ago, Doggins said: I'm just going by memory here but didn't Jason startup greenday.net after greenday.com was taken by Warner/Reprise? From memory Jason was not that happy about the change but greenday.net ended up becoming much better than the .com site and Green Day themselves even contributed info to Jason to share on greenday.net so it was actually more up to date than the official. It then also became the 'Official Unofficial Green Day Page' or something like that. Again, Adam gave Warner free reign to the .com site, so the transition to .net seemed to be more amicable the way he explained it. But that's only one webmaster's side of the story, maybe Jason wasn't onboard with the idea to begin with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lenny Posted July 5, 2019 Share Posted July 5, 2019 Back in around the mid 2000's I took a look at the old Green Day sites. I love how simple the old internet was. I remember seeing some old fan pages as well that had videos and recordings and stuff. The old internet was really built for fan bases around the world. I liked the American Idiot era site too because it had all the old music videos. I haven't enjoyed the official site since they changed it in May of 09. The site right now literally has nothing going on. I had internet in '95 but I was busy with my Sega Genesis and didn't really get into it until about '98. I just remember checking out some of the groups I was into at the time online with my friends. Some of the pages were interactive and fun especially if the target audience were kids. 98-2003 was my favourite era of the internet. Before social media became everything. Now websites are just links for embedding YouTube videos and Facebook and Instagram posts. The Static Age always makes go back and think of this time. A time where everything was at our fingertips with no video to watch first! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey Posted July 5, 2019 Share Posted July 5, 2019 On 7/3/2019 at 7:09 PM, Hermione said: This was all I remembered about viewing the old site on the Wayback Machine lol, definitely a give away Interesting to know when it became official! The Idiot Club thing is kind of cool, from what I've heard it was originally called that as snarky name, but I think at some point after that it was just the Green Day Fanclub for a while (I think so anyway, would like to know if this is confirmed or not or if it was more than one fanclub etc, not sure). Then when they happened to release an album called American Idiot they decided to make use of the old name to relaunch the fan club since it was appropriate. And then they spoiled it by renaming it Idiot Nation (so lame compared to Idiot Club ) just so they could act like it was "new" and get more people to join. I remember the name changes of the fan club, was a weird one. Anyway, the Idiot Club became the All Ages Fan Club in 03 and then became the Idiot Club again. Corporate efficiency. https://web.archive.org/web/20030724115721/http://www.greenday.com:80/allAges/ Blame Doug Wasselman for the terrible name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lenny Posted July 5, 2019 Share Posted July 5, 2019 5 minutes ago, Joey said: I remember the name changes of the fan club, was a weird one. Anyway, the Idiot Club became the All Ages Fan Club in 03 and then became the Idiot Club again. Corporate efficiency. https://web.archive.org/web/20030724115721/http://www.greenday.com:80/allAges/ Blame Doug Wasselman for the terrible name. "Idiot Club Members All Idiot members can update their membership cards for $5.00 (USD). You will receive a new card and membership number only (no fan club merchandise!). You will need an All Ages Fan Club number to participate in any future contests or promotions. So, if you just want to renew your membership, but not get all of the new stuff, this option is your boy." Man Idiot Club members got hustled hahaha I wonder, did they have to pay another $5 to move back to the Idiot Club? I think it's pretty cool finding out the Idiot Club existed prior to American Idiot. I wonder if having the Idiot Club and us fans being known as the "Idiots" inspired them to use that wording for the album. Maybe they had that song already at the time and had plans to use it later in the future? Billie always had mentioned how the song was created but never really mentioned when... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beerjeezus Posted July 5, 2019 Share Posted July 5, 2019 To thicken the plot, there's an interview where Mike says their next album will be a rock opera and I the main character's name will be Jimmy. It's from 1994. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alf Posted July 5, 2019 Share Posted July 5, 2019 I don't think that the original idea of the 'Idiot Club' name is a compliment, or a good adjective, to the fans. It always looked like to me that the name was given to the club because they thought that was idiotic to have an official fanclub back in the day Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beerjeezus Posted July 5, 2019 Share Posted July 5, 2019 To be fair, it's idiotic to pay $20 for nothing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.