on the topic of 2000s websites and the inspiration it gave me:
looking at websites now, there's a significant decrease in "fun-ness" and much less so, personalization.
take youtube for example. back then, the YouTube channel layout was much more customizable and more akin to a
social media profile page.
look at all the different colors you're able to use - albeit horrendous-looking,
there's a sense of homey-ness to be found in it. it wasn't about professionalism or minimalism, it wasn't
about "core aesthetics", it was about putting your personality on a webpage, down to the background image.
you were able to write what your hobbies were, favorite movies, music you like.
one of the more popular customizable websites of the time was myspace. it had the ability to deeply personalize
your page, which according to this codecademy article, was actually an accident!
the article says its developers failed to block users from
adding their own HTML and CSS to their profile pages. this came with security issues, but it also allowed inline
style attributes, which means you could style things within HTML elements instead of attaching a separate CSS file.
and lo and behold, many, MANY websites surfaced over time that assisted non-coding people to learn how to code,
or sites that sold/gave away myspace layouts for those who still wanted that self-expression without learning to code.
i myself experienced this secondhand through tumblr, which had its own theme editor that allowed you to edit the HTML
on your page and preview it alongside the source code. as a child at the time, i scoured the internet for free cursors,
music players at the top of my page that would annoyingly play automatically (beware having your computer on a high volume),
banners, and other methods of plastering my personality onto the web. it was loud, it was expressive, it was
very fitting for its generation.
but back to myspace and one of its core issues - security. as andrea apostolopoulos wrote in
this article,
"users began to question the safety of the site from the spam advertisements and malware issues they were experiencing."
people began flocking to facebook as THE next social media site. its style was simplistic and nowhere near as
expressive, but it brought in many people, young and old alike.
now we have instagram, tiktok, and more social media sites - but none that follow myspace's legacy in its height, width,
and depth in teaching an entire generation how to code. and as for this generation, where so many "new" movies are
just sequels upon sequels or live action "remakes" of the originals, nostalgia bait is used everywhere.
for me, it just so happens that my nostalgia is on the websites of my childhood.