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Why the ‘Weird Internet’ of the GeoCities Era Had to Die
Simple and boring rules the day — for a pretty good reason. But there are still tools out there for the experimenters.
Ask any web developer how they first got interested in coding, and they’ll probably tell you something about hacking HTML and CSS together to build an Angelfire page, a GeoCities website, or a killer Myspace profile.
Not so long ago, websites would commonly allow users to add their own stylesheets (CSS) to make their pages look and behave exactly how they wanted. They felt way more personal than, say, your Facebook profile, which looks exactly the same as everyone else’s.
My own story in tech starts here: My earliest memories of web development were trying to get a custom font and an animated mouse cursor to show up when you visited my profile on Myspace.
I remember how thrilling it was when it worked — not just for me, but anyone that visited. CSS let me express myself fully in, well, Myspace. For many developers, figuring out how to do something cool on their Myspace page or building a GeoCities site full of animated “under construction” GIFs was the genesis of their tech careers.
