the Bulletin Board System, or BBS. A staple of the tech-literate in the 1980s and 1990s. Functionally, BBSes acted as servers individuals could dial into via modem, offering access to a variety of features, including messaging and synchronous chat, libraries of documents and files, and multiplayer games. they represent some of the earliest examples of how digital communications was uniquely suited to serve the needs of LGBT individuals. Both the BBS and the Usenet newsgroup allowed users to asynchronously communicate in relative anonymity across wide geographic distances.