headmelted

I’ve been thinking for a long time about the web that I came of age with, which I’m sure will likely be different from the web that many of you came of age with, given how wide the community is here.

My first introduction to the Internet was circa 1998, by way of an Acer Aspire very similar (if not identical, it’s been 25 years and the memory has faded) to this: https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-a1x7hg2jgk/images/stencil/1280x1280/products/22921/129379/acer-aspire-7121-pentium-2-400mhz-256-mb-8.6gb-cd-rw-desktop-com-1.27__54621.1490192556.jpg?c=2

When I first got to spend time on that machine (it was shared with the rest of the family, so time was limited) I was immediately drawn to the open web and how I could (in my own small way) be a part of something very new and incredibly big.

I created a website, several actually, hosted on members.xoom.com (I don’t remember why not geocities, I just remember that there was a reason at the time). I met (and made friends) with people in countries around the world, and I was fascinated that in any direction I turned to look for anything, there seemed to be a niche community fervently dedicated to that special interest and each other.

It felt like one huge counter-culture (containing a million smaller ones) all at once.

That Internet had jarring ads. Google was just starting out, and the computers had a small fraction of the power of a modern phone today.

But it felt free. You could just make a thing, and put it up for the whole world or no-one to find, and it felt like the future was condensing rapidly in front of the whole world. Like everything would accelerate from here and that we were going somewhere incredibly exciting, and then we went somewhere.. else.

I’ve watched documentaries of the 60’s and I inherently get what people were saying in terms of one needing to have been there, then.

I don’t think anyone here needs me to explain what happened next in terms of the open web and open communities, but what I wanted to ask is if it’s just me? Did anyone else even care about the Internet of the 90’s like I did? Was it all in my head? Is it a case of rose-tinted glasses?

More importantly, if it wasn’t just me, can we get it back? Is there a way to recapture the freedom and magic that existed then?

I try to explain to my kids now what the Internet used to be but all they know is YouTube, TikTok and a few other silos. The sense of loss is very real, at least to me, and it makes me sad that my kids will never experience the web and the culture that I grew up with.