#the old web

[thefloatingstone]

I found a website that accurate portrays to the kids these days what it was like being a Sailor Moon fan in the late 90s on the internet and how we got ANY of our pictures and scans

[bottlesforbeasts]

The Old Web pt. 2: what's in a personal website?

The internet is full of possibilities.

This sticks out to you much more than usual when you start exploring the community of personal websites, many of which are hosted by neocities. With most social media, you have very limited customization of what your page looks like, what format of content you can post, and how users may interact with your posts. Personal websites change all of that and allow you to create something completely outside the box. You get to control every minute detail of how your website is viewed, from the fonts to the way the user's cursor looks.

For the sake of this post, a "personal website" is a website that someone created for their own personal use, not to promote a brand or sell a product. These websites are often made almost entirely from scratch using HTML and other coding languages. You can find many examples of these websites at this link. Warning: most of these websites are not meant to be viewed on mobile and might malfunction.

https://href.li/?https://neocities.org/browse

Personal websites are often a mishmash of different things the webmaster (the person who made the site) likes or finds important. Sometimes they focus on a single topic, a topic or fandom the webmaster is really into, or something they want to teach others about. While I browsed these websites I noticed a few tabs that often appear in the sidebars of these websites.

⋆｡°✩₊ °✦ ‧ ‧ ₊ ˚✧₊ °✦Blinkies!⋆｡°✩₊ °✦ ‧ ‧ ₊ ˚✧₊ °✦

Blinkies are little flashing images, usually with text, that are displayed on a website. There's a popular blinkie generator website called blinkies.cafe where you can make your own. Many personal websites have an entire page dedicated to listing all of the blinkies they've collected. It's hard to trace the origins of many because they can easily be downloaded and used without permission. Here are a few links to see some examples.

●○●○●○●○●○●○●○Webrings●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●

Webrings are described by webmaster neonaut as "curated link chains, or tiny community-shared directories where links are shared one at a time by clicking through to the next website." So rather than using google to find old web websites (impossible) many will link to other similar websites, so you can discover new websites by clicking on links, kind of like if you've ever fallen into a wikipedia rabbit hole.

Webrings are like little virtual clubs, and can have any theme from queer people who code to the art of being funky. Websites will link back to a centralized page, like the one shared above, or the websites will link directly to each other, having a buttons page with every other webring member's button.

●～●～●～●～●～Buttons●～●～●～●～●～●～

88x31 buttons are how a person gets from website to website on the old web. They look a lot like blinkies, something I eventually realized after frustratedly spam-clicking blinkies expecting them to link me somewhere. These are just as decorative, except they serve as a sort of advertisement to get someone interested in their website. They may have tiny images, colors, or fonts that match the aesthetic of their website. Buttons can have their own devoted section, or be a fixture on the side or bottom of a site.

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: Shrines / Collections :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧

A shrine is something you dedicate to something you love, perhaps a deity or ancestor you want to honor. A web shrine is a page or collection of pages dedicated to someone's interest, obsession, hyperfixation, or hobby. It tends to have lots of information about the topic, relevant pictures or videos, and the webmaster's own personal ties to the topic. A fandom blog could in a way be considered a shrine. There are tons of interesting, niche, and obscure shrines out there, such as this one about an old product called WebTV. There are also fairly common shrine topics like pokemon and hello kitty. Many shrines are combined with a collections page, where a webmaster shows off their collection of items. This can be a group of pictures of the actual items, or just pictures of ones that a person wishes they had.

⟡⋆⭒˚｡⋆✧˖°⁺˚Pets, dollz, and toyboxes˖°.✧˖°.⟡⋆⭒˚｡

Pets are little png images you put on your site because you like the way they look. They can be commissioned, pre-drawn and put up for paid "adoption" by artists, or just right-click-saved from directories like this one. A toybox is a page dedicated to storing all these pngs, many of which link back to where the webmaster found them. Dollz are sort of different. Dollz are kind of like a DIY dressup game, where artists create a base, clothing, hair, and other accessories, and you can mix and match in order to create your own unique look. This website goes into a bit more detail about the history of dollz.

📎📎📎📎📎📎📎📎📎📎📎📎📎📎📎📎📎📎📎📎📎📎

This is just a quick summary of all the things I've most commonly seen on personal websites, you can learn more by browsing the websites I've linked or browsing through all the different websites neocities has to offer. One of my favorite websites on neocities is called Lizzie Smithson, a webcomic detailing the adventures of a stylish cat thief who lives in the city.

Neocities is great because it offers a more intimate glimpse into someone's mind than you could ever find on mainstream social media. People who create personal websites do so just because they want to. They're not looking for likes and followers and validation. Maybe part of the reason personal websites have been on decline so much is that making content for the hell of it isn't all that common anymore. Capitalism tells us that we should try to monetize everything we do for enjoyment, it's not enough to just create something because we feel like it. And if you can't monetize it, you should seek some sort of validation through interactions, numbers created to hack our brains into churning out content that people want to see, regardless of if it's something WE want to make. This system, this Web 2.0, is what spawned the Old Web Movement, which is dedicated to creating an online space free from monetization, free from algorithms, where people can be truly creative and make great things. The Old Web movement and manifesto is what part 3 will be all about.

[antheraea]

Flash Was Killed Because It Was Objectively Dangerous

I get it, I get the Flash nostalgia and the fondness for old Flash games. I was big on Neopets before they decided to ruin the art and make all the pets samey paper dolls to play dressup with (completely ruining the point of the far more expensive "redraw" colors like Mutant and Faerie and Desert). I have fond memories of Newgrounds games and I even managed to take a class for a semester in high school where I could learn flash.

But I also remember how terrible it was. And you should too.

Leaving aside all of the issues involving performance and inaccessibility (such as being easily broken by bog-standard browser actions like the back button, and its ability to modify web code AND OS code in real time likely broke a lot of accessibility tech too), Flash was legitimately one of the most dangerous web technologies for the end user. An end-user is you, or more specifically back then, child-you.

According to Wikipedia and its sources, Flash Player has over a thousand vulnerabilities known and listed and over 800 of these lead to arbitrary code execution.

What is arbitrary code execution? That's when someone can just run any commands they want on a machine or program that didn't intend it. A fun way to see this is in this infamous Pokemon tool-assisted speedrun where they manage to get an SNES to show the host's twitch chat in real time. It's not so fun though when it's someone stealing all the files on your computer, grabbing your credentials so they could clean out your Neopets account (yes, really, it was a pretty common concern at the time), and other nefarious works. Also, there was a time where it allowed people to spy on you with your webcam and microphone.

Oh and on top of all of this, Flash had its own "flash cookies", which could not be cleared by ordinary means and thus could be used to track users indefinitely, at least until Adobe slapped a bandaid over it by introducing yet another screen an ordinary person wouldn't know to use. (I assume this is how the infamous neopets "cookie grabbers" worked, so they could get into your account. This is mainly what I remember about using Flash back in the early 2000s lol) So it not only was a "stranger taking over your machine" concern, but a bog-standard privacy concern too, arguably a precursor to our current panopticon internet landscape, where greedy websites would track you because they could and maybe get some money out of it, facilitated by this technology.

When Apple decided to block it, it wasn't out of greed; Steve Jobs cited its abysmal performance and security record, among other issues such as an inherent lack of touchscreen support, and Apple cited specific vulnerability use-cases when blocking specific versions before they nuked it entirely. When Mozilla, who makes Firefox, decided to block it, it's not like they would've gotten money out of doing so, or by offering an alternative; they did so because it is fucking dangerous.

Your ire and nostalgia is misplaced. Flash was not killed by our current shitty web practices that ruin unique spaces and fun games. Flash was killed because both Macromedia (its original developers) and Adobe were incapable of making it safe, if that was even possible, and it was killed after third-parties, in an unprecedented gesture, collectively threw their hands up and said enough.

Well, that and HTML5 being developed and becoming more widespread, being able to do everything Flash can do without being a pox on technology. One could argue that you should bemoan the lack of Flash-to-HTML5 conversion efforts, but that requires asking a lot of effort of people who would have to do that shit for free...and if they have to run Flash to do so, opening themselves up to some of the nastiest exploits on the internet.

Nostalgia is a fucking liar. The games themselves I think are worth having nostalgia over (look, I still find myself pining for that one bullet hell Neopets made and Hannah and the Pirate Caves), but Flash itself deserves none of that, and absolutely deserved to be put in the fucking ground. You're blaming the wrong causes. It was terrible.

(specifics and sources found via its wikipedia page, which has a lot more than is mentioned here. and also my own opinions and experiences back then. lol)

[y2k-internetexplorer]

[faysayk]

this is so metal

[youre-dreaming-302]

Bandai Digirobo Tokima

Robot Watch 1998.

[hopelessvalentines]

“you’re my best friend, now i’ve got no one to tell i’ve lost my best friend.”

….

[sailorgl0om]

[lowpolyparrot]

me on the puter

[agentromanoffsir]

neocities guide - why you should build your own html website

do you miss the charm of the 90s/00s web where sites had actual personality instead of the same minimalistic theme? are you feeling drained by social media and the constant corporate monopoly of your data and time? do you want to be excited about the internet again? try neocities!!

what is neocities?

neocities is a free hosting website that lets you build your own html website from scratch, with total creative control. in their own words: "we are tired of living in an online world where people are isolated from each other on boring, generic social networks that don't let us truly express ourselves. it's time we took back our personalities from these sterilized, lifeless, monetized, data mined, monitored addiction machines and let our creativity flourish again."

why should I make my own website?

web3 has been overtaken by capitalism & conformity. websites that once were meant to be fun online social spaces now exist solely to steal your data and sell you things. it sucks!! building a personal site is a great way to express yourself and take control of your online experience.

what would I even put on a website?

the best part about making your own site is that you can do literally whatever the hell you want! focus on a specific subject or make it a wild collection of all your interests. share your art! make a shrine for one of your interests! post a picture of every bird you see when you step outside! make a collection of your favorite blinkies! the world is your oyster !! here are some cool example sites to inspire you: recently updated neocities sites | it can be fun to just look through these and browse people's content! space bar | local interstellar dive bar creature feature | halloween & monsters big gulp supreme peanutbuttaz | personal site dragodiluna linwood | personal site patho grove | personal site

getting started: neocities/html guide

sound interesting? here are some guides to help you get started, especially if you aren't familiar with html/css sadgrl.online webmastery | a fantastic resource for getting started with html & web revival. also has a layout builder that you can use to start with in case starting from scratch is too intimidating web design in 4 minutes | good for learning coding basics w3schools | html tutorials templaterr | demo & html for basic web elements eggramen test pages | css page templates to get started with sadgrl background tiles | bg tiles rivendell background tiles | more free bg tiles

fun stuff to add to your site

want your site to be cool? here's some fun stuff that i've found blinkies-cafe | fantastic blinkie maker! (run by @transbro & @graphics-cafe) gificities | internet archive of 90s/00s web gifs internet bumper stickers | web bumper stickers momg | gif gallery 99 gif shop | 3d gifs 123 guestbook | add a guestbook for people to leave messages cbox | add a live chat box moon phases | track the phases of the moon gifypet | a little clickable page pet adopt a shroom | mushroom page pet tamaNOTchi | virtual pet crossword puzzle | daily crossword imood | track your mood neko | cute cat that chases your mouse pollcode | custom poll maker website hit counter | track how many visitors you have

web revival manifestos & communities

also, there's actually a pretty cool community of people out there who want to bring joy back to the web! melonland project | web project/community celebrating individual & joyful online experiences. Also has an online forum melonland intro to web revival | what is web revival? melonking manifesto | status cafe | share your current status nightfall city | online community onio.cafe | leave a message and enjoy the ambiance sadgrl internet manifesto | yesterweb internet manifesto | sadly defunct, still a great resource reclaiming online social spaces | great manifesto on cultivating your online experience

in conclusion

i want everyone to make a neocities site because it's fun af and i love seeing everyone's weird personal sites that they made outside of the control of capitalism :) say hi to me on neocities

[lucidloving]

Girlpool—Before the World Was Big // memorial bench quoting Toni Morrison's Sula // @inanotherunivrse // Iain S. Thomas, I Wrote This For You // Zadie Smith, Swing Time // Fall Out Boy—The Kids Aren't Alright // Audrey Emmett // Mikko Harvey, "For M" // Mahmoud Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982 (tr. Ibrahim Muhawi) // Langston Hughes, "Poem"

[jade-harley-yuri]

[bottlesforbeasts]

bottles-for-beasts post masterlist

Intro

.・。✭・.・✫・The Old Web.・。.・゜✭・.・✫

Neocities and geocities

What's in a personal website?

Coming next: The Old Web Manifesto

Some things I'd love to see in my askbox:

websites I should explore

topics you want me to write a post about

your favourite youtubers or online celebrities

fanfictions I should read and review

your favorite social media accounts, especially on tumblr

youtube videos or playlists I should watch

your own personal internet experiences

[cheezitofthevalley]

MORE ocean/fish graphics

because why not.

let me know if you made any of these and want credit/removal.

animated fish divider by @animatedglittergraphics-n-more!

[star01007]

credit: @chloairy on pinterest

[never-obsolete]

tumblr.com - October 2007