My first internet community was actually MTV, way back in the late 90s to early 2000s. It was pretty cool. A few years later, I went to gamespot, but it was full of trolls and jerks, so I didn’t stay long. Same with the IGN boards. After that, in late ‘06, I went home to the ASMB for nearly 5 years. I’ve now been a UEMBer for about 1.5 years and counting.
Honestly, everything before the ASMB was pretty meaningless. I might’ve had a very small group of friends on one of those message boards, but nothing like this community.