I’m curious — where did the expression “surfing the Web” come from?
Over time, the word “surfing” became less tied to surfboarding and took on a more general meaning that alluded to moving easily and smoothly from one place to another. In 1986, The Wall Street Journal used the term “channel surfing” to describe the use of remote controls to effortlessly switch from channel to channel on a TV. In 1989, the phrase “crowd surfing” emerged in reference to the act of a crowd carrying a person overhead, often at a rock concert. The first recorded use of “surfing the Web” was in November 1993 in a Usenet newsgroup posting. “Surfing the Web” is similar to “channel surfing” in that both expressions refer to flowing movement.
