Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/05/04/a-search-engine-for-old-geocit.html
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Proof that the internet hasn’t improved much.
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well it looks nicer, but a polished turd is still a turd.
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Roger That!
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Can I burn mine to the ground instead?
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This makes me smile.
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This is interesting. I was able to get access to the full content of one of my old sites (not telling). For another of my sites I could only get access to some of the individual pages. My oldest site I couldn’t find but I found an interview someone did with me about one of my sites where I actually link to my oldest site (with the classic geocities url naming convention) and when I click on that link I get a yahoo small business redirect. So in a span of a few minutes I found out that 1) One of my old sites is still fully accessible 2) Another is partially accessible and 3) Another is gone. Still better than what I had previously assumed which is that they were all gone and only the bits and pieces left on the Wayback Machine were available.
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It looks more professional, but I miss the quirkiness of the hand-tooled web. Maybe it’s because I do this stuff day in, day out, but I kind of miss the days when people would just sign up for Geocities, and do whatever they wanted, however they wanted. One of the many things we’ve lost from those days is the “soul” for lack of a better word. Everything is just so samey, with giant banners, three smaller images, and Unsplash out the bum.
Guh, I sound like some artisinal handcrafted web hipster, but the life just seems to have totally gone from the web.
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We still have BoingBoing… and this nifty comments/BBS thing so that is a plus.
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I agree with you about web design these days – the range of designs has narrowed to the point where most of the web has all the aesthetic flair of an in-flight magazine.
However! There is some indication that, left to their own designs, the young folks of today still go after the same bonkers, kitchen-sink style of ur-geocities webstuff. I tweeted a week ago about my experience seeing a web site built from scratch by a middle-schooler:
It gave me faith in humanity.
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That is true. And in fact I’m actually seeing some renewed life in old communities I used to frequent. And the renewed interest in mesh networks, and decentralised and federated networks is heartening.
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Thanks for sharing that thread, Clive. Normally I keep a close eye on what you post, but I missed that one.
The “remixing” approach to programming that Glitch and Scratch encourage is breathing life into this stuff as well. The “Shazam, but for album covers” thing that was going around is a great example of both the programming and the aesthetic.
So maybe the problem isn’t the web, but the overly corporate websites I make and interact with on a daily basis.
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I handroll all the websites for my organization, and hiss like a cat seeing a cloaked demon at vanilla-churning CMSs. To add even more relevance, we just launched our Discourse instance to connect professionals in our field!
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I was not able to locate mine, though there are many different caches still on the web, and I had a complete copy on my own computer. Now I have restored a 2004 version to the new Geocities, where I can continue to curate my small community of quirk for years to come. Theoretically, that is.
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I think I had a Geocities page in the early 1990ies (because who didn’t?) but I’m not going back there.
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I highly recommend Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder’s Silver Age Comics Web Site
http://www.geocities.ws/cheeksilver/index-2.html
Alas, all of the scans seem to be gone, but it’s still a fun read.
I’m proving that right now
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I was more of a Angelfire kind of guy back then…
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Same here (at Angelfire.) As far as I know, my old, ugly-as-sin, ridonkulous tv-show-fan-site is still out there somewhere. I won’t reclaim it-- I’d rather let that Old Shame fade into the digital ether-- but at the same time, I kind of don’t mind it being out there, a quiet (if your speakers are off) monument to a passionate (if misspent) youth. Besides, I learned a lot of HTML and image-editing skills in the process, and I’m glad to have them.
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Ditto
Some of mine are still up; I guess I really liked this GIF (as in gift) because it was tiled on a page paired with a long lost audio of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins I Put a Spell on You. I also liked “background-color:#000000” a lot. 
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