Don't forget the Geocities... This was supposed to be the new world
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Back in the late 90s and the early whatever-we're-calling-this-decade*, Geocities was the place where a lot of us first got to know the internet. Ranting manifestos, pages listing every item in some shut-in's collection of He-Man action figures, obsessive fan sites dedicated to some band that broke up in 1980 without ever getting within shouting distance of the top 40, galleries of furry giantess jpegs... Geocities offered all of that, and oh, so much more. All of a sudden, being a misfit became a lot less lonely. No matter what wacky crap you were into, all you had to do was click around on Geocities for a while, and eventually you would find people who shared your obsessions.
If you're enough of a geek to be reading this and you're over the age of 25 or so, I'm willing to bet that Geocities has touched your life. Before Geocities, America's misfits had pen pals and they published 'zines (and raged against machines), and that was all very well... But it just wasn't enough. The internet changed everything, in ways tiny and beyond measuring, for good and ill. And for a lot of us, the internet began with a visit to those dorky little virtual "neighborhoods": Area51, TimeSquare, SiliconValley, SoHo...
You might think it's silly to get nostalgic about virtual places you haven't visited since 2001 or so. Or you might feel like they're bulldozing the streets where you grew up.
*Isn't it ridiculous that we still haven't figured out what to call the years 2000-2009, even now that they're almost over?
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2 comments:
The Naughts! The Naughts! All hail The Naughts!
I've heard people call them that, but they're also called the Aughts and the Naughties and I don't know what all else. I don't think anything has stuck. I suspect that 20 from now, people will still say stuff like, "In the early years of the 21st century."
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