I've never seen this thread before, but it was a nice little read of people's memories and pasts with MK and forums etc. I'll throw my own little history in there, briefly.
I am only 21, so obviously my time with MK was much different. The first time I experienced MK, that I can visually recall to this day, was at a neighbors house when I was 3. I have 2 older brothers, the oldest who is 8 years older, so you can see why MK was an option. I know it was either when I was 3, or just turned 4, because by the end of that year, we had moved to a different city, thus playing at the neighbors house wasn't an option. Later we also owned MK2 for the SNES, and a kid I became friends with had UMK3 on his Sega. We played those for hours upon hours, mindlessly just having fun with the games, beating the crap out of each other.
That's not to say I didn't play in the arcades at all. I have fond memories playing MK1, spending tons of quarters trying to get to and beat Shang Tsung. I distinctly remember seeing Baraka's fatality in the arcades for the first time at a local mall arcade back when it was first released. I also remember seeing the promotional advertisments in the game stores for either MK3 or MK4, of Sub-Zero doing an ice clone. I can't recall wether I saw the 1st MK movie in theatres or not, but I know for sure I saw the 2nd one when it was first released. I was extremely excited.
I later rented MK4, and a year before Deadly Alliance hit, is when I started coming to forums. In 2001 I had come across the old MK5.org board and joined the anticipation of MK

A. I was there every night after school, waiting for more information on the game, or a character reveal or bio to be released on the site. I went to other forums as well over that span of time between then and now.
So yeah, my journey and experience with MK has definitely been unique. It's hard for me to imagine a time before MK(literally, it's one of the first visual memories I can recall), and it's hard for me to imagine never liking MK unless it's just not there. It's something that has always been an interest in my life, especially in my middle school and high school days, coming to forums and anticipating the next release. It's always great to see familiar faces floating about as the thread was originally started for. My time may not go back to 1995, but 2001 is quite a long time as well, or at least it's felt like it. It's been good.