It's been used on UseNet since at least the early 1990s [0].

I think it comes from a Perry Barlow-esque feeling that Cyberspace is an improvement on the "merely" meat real world (perhaps even a proxy heaven on earth, cf. Platonism). Sometimes it is tongue-in-cheek, other times earnest (I assume for people who have found the real world (and their real bodies) a disappointment.)

[0]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/what-is-meatspace.

It's an old term. Here's a reference from the New York Times in 2000.

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/...

Your parent comments needless disdain aside, it was just a silly term used to refer to offline.

I've known the phrase "meatspace" for decades now as an "opposite" of "cyberspace" from some of the CyberPunk Sci-Fi of my childhood, though I cannot at this moment name any specific novels it might originate from. It's not a terribly new term, although it may have only recently gained common enough usage as to seem new to those who hadn't heard it before.

This sounded off so I looked into it, apparently 'meatspace' has been around since the early '90s as a derivative of 'cyberspace'.

That one's ancient, for what it's worth. I'd be amazed if it wasn't coined by one of the first gen cyberpunk authors.

(Although I'm starting to have my doubts. Furthest I can get back is 1993 (usenet post). I'm curious to know if anyone can get further back).

https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/what-is-meatspace

It's been a term used on the internet for as long as I've been online.

I've been using the term meatspace since at least the 90s, and would be semi-shocked if it didn't exist in either 80s sci-fi or posthumanist manifestos or whatever in some form or another.

Here are some concrete examples courtesy of an etymology site: https://wordspy.com/words/meatspace/

The use of "meat" to characterize the physical, analog, arbitrary, biological (as opposed to the logical, digital, formal) pre-dates the 80s/90s deliberate apposition with "cyberspace" afaik, but I don't have time to fish up concrete examples from my library atm.

Others have already provided links as proof, but anecdotally I've heard "meatspace" since at least the 1990s (I have been online since the 1980s).

"Meat proxy" OTOH is a newer term for people who when you communicate with them online just run everything through LLMs and respond with voluminous and mostly unedited slop. Hadn't heard that one until about a year ago.