“The Internet” today is as large as it has ever been. It is also as small as it will ever be. Yet it feels as if it is getting smaller as more and more things become centralized. I miss the magic and closer knit communities of the earlier era. I miss “The Small Web”.
I consider myself a Netizen. By that I mean I have been surfing online for about as long as I can remember. From times well before Loss or Pepe the Frog; before Rickrolling or the creation of MySpace. Not quite so old as to fondly remember bulletin boards but old enough to know the dial-up tone by heart. I remember an internet without 4chan, without Wikipedia, without Google. No Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Twitch, Tumblr, or YouTube. When you were a single popular GameFAQs Guide away from becoming a second generation e-celeb and video game speedrunning records worked entirely off of a trust system because sharing videos was still too difficult. You just heard about this awesome game on Miniclip called RuneScape and decided to start playing it at the public library.
The late 90’s to me were the days of GeoCities, personal websites, and “random” websites. Everything that now has its own subreddit once had its own forum (well - dozens of forums actually). Each forum had its own niche communities. Communities were still small enough that all of the regulars would know one another by name or by avatar. You’d discover new communities because you saw a 88x31 .gif advertising the website on someone’s blogring. Photoshop pirates would practice by creating you a “sig” or a “tag”. You’d see a geek code in the wild and understand it without having to cross-reference everything. GED/J d– s:++>: a– C++(++++) ULU++ P+ L++ E—- W+(-) N+++ o+ K+++ w— O- M+ V– PS++>$ PE++>$ Y++ PGP++ t- 5+++ X++ R+++>$ tv+ b+ DI+++ D+++ G+++++ e++ h r– y++**. Yeah, remember any of that? Sure you do, Boomer.
There’s a unique fondness for the 90s. When the whole world started becoming connected. Instant communication. Worldwide. How beautiful is it that so many countries cooperate to keep something like that working? Your great grandparents could not have imagined a world where you could communicate with someone on the other side of the world in a matter of seconds. That even in countries that try to avoid being connected with the Internet at large still have tunnels where data creeps in and out? Where you were told to be home before dark or call from a friend’s landline and now Mom can track your location live via your cellphone and call you no matter where you are? Memories are divided into two distinct periods: “Before Technology” and “After Technology”. A time when the average person didn’t have the entirity of mankind’s knowledge in a small device carried in their back pocket. Name a more empowering invention than a modern smartphone with an internet connection. I bet you can’t.
The internet in the early 00’s felt magical. Every now and again I stumble across something that reminds me of that magic but I really have to go looking for it where as it was once seemingly impossible to avoid. “The Algorithm” does not promote such content as often anymore.
If you are a creator who creates something that you would describe as being a part of “the small web” please reach out and show me what you’ve made. I’d love to see it and maybe ask you some questions about it.