Hey, look, this thread I posted in is back. I see I spent a fair amount of time reminiscing about the old internet just for kicks. These days, I see a LOT of people my age (30ish) lamenting the death of creativity on the internet. Essentially the same concept as this thread. Here’s my problem with this concept, though. Nobody’s stopping you from going out and recreating any of that. It’s the same as it was before, though I guess the amount of free hosts is down. Nobody is stopping you from going out and creating your own wild and wacky old-style, “Jen’s Hen Farm” website or whatever! I’m honestly sick and tired of people bemoaning how the old internet has gone away at this point. You’re tired of not having small, close-knit communities anymore? Make your own email newsgroup. Make your own forum. Make your own info webpage. Make your own fanfiction. Make your own discord chat, or IRC chat, or whatever chat you want. Make your own comic page. Nobody is stopping you. You can have the old internet stuff back whenever you want. Maybe the problem is that nobody else is sad with you! The only major change that might get in your way at this point is not being able to rank high on google search results just by existing, the way you could back in the day when search engine results sucked. But I guarantee you, you write interesting things on your website, and people will visit. You can have all the old-style internet you want, but you have to put the work in. That’s the point. I’m tired of everyone whining without stepping up to the plate of making what they’re looking for. Back in the day you had to make your own website from scratch, and it’s no different now. So get out there and get cracking. If you’re sad that you can no longer find wacky Star Trek fan sites anymore, make your own.
Anyway, my recommendation for an old-style site that is still relevant, still fun, still ranks high in search results, and still brings me back year after year when I get an itch: Ian’s Shoelace Site.