What's the fuss about the IRC and USENET these days? does anyone still use this kind of technology?

aint those 80s stuff? or at least early 90s? ever since the world wide web becomes standard, i doubt anybody is still retrieving information from the usenet, but I'd be surprised when I accidently logged in to my almost 20 yr old usenet acct. and guess what? A LOTTA ACTIVITIES are still going on there. jee. when the chat room just died, usenet is still thriving...