💿 LimeWire: The Glorious, Virus-Filled Chaos We Called Music

Before Spotify. Before YouTube. Before anyone paid for music unless it was on CD from Woolies… there was LimeWire.

LimeWire wasn’t just a program. It was a lifestyle. A glitchy green portal where you could download your favourite songs… and also accidentally murder your computer.

🎧 The Vibe

All you wanted was to download Year 3000 by Busted. What you got was:

A song that cut out halfway through
A corrupted file labelled “BUSTED – YEAR 3000 (REAL OFFICIAL ACTUAL DEFINITELY NOT FAKE VERSION).exe”
Some poor remix where someone said “DJ SNAKEDOGG 2005” every 7 seconds
And probably seventeen viruses

And yet… we persisted.

🧠 The LimeWire Process

Type in the name of the song you’re obsessed with (wrong spelling and all).
Download the first thing that looks vaguely right.
Wait 2 hours because your dial-up internet is sobbing.
Open it… realise it’s either:
a) completely the wrong song
b) a live version recorded in someone’s kitchen
c) that terrifying Bill Clinton “I did not have sexual relations…” audio file
Cry. Repeat.

📁 Other Things We Definitely Downloaded:

A weirdly edited version of Oops I Did It Again with a techno beat
What we thought was S Club 7 – Never Had a Dream Come True but was actually 5 minutes of silence
Sims expansion packs (that never worked)
Fan videos of Jonas James with blurry hearts and Comic Sans lyrics
LimeWire PRO (that we definitely didn’t pay for)

☠️ The Viruses

The moment you clicked download, your computer basically went:
“Right, I’m off to die now.”

LimeWire was like playing Russian Roulette — but the bullet was a Trojan worm, and your family PC was the victim. You just hoped no one noticed the pop-up ads the next time they logged in.

🧯 Your Defence in Court Would Be:

“I didn’t know it was illegal.”
“I thought it was the real version!”
“It said it was by Usher, so???”
“I was 13 and had no idea what a zip file was.”

⚡ DAISY’S CORNER: I DOWNLOADED WHAT NOW??

Okay but LISTEN — I was just trying to get Jonas James’ underground mixtape remix acoustic emo ballad version of “Forever Yours” and the next thing I know the PC is making pinging noises and there’s a talking dog ad on the screen.

Also LimeWire said it was “MP3” but then the file ended in .EXE. I thought that meant “EXTREMELY GOOD.”

My mum still thinks she broke the computer. Sorry, Mum.

I regret nothing.

xo – Daisy 💾🔥💀