A Love Letter to Geocities Sites

Ok, this is a long shot, but if any forum is likely to know, it&#x27;s HN.<p>I first got my start in web development when I was around 8 (early 2000s) thanks to a very large (or at least it was to an 8 year old) purple book on HTML. There was one passing mention of how animated GIFs might be added to websites with an IMG tag. The example of the animated GIF they showed (they exploded the frames) reminded me of this image [0] on this wonderful site (although perhaps the seal was bouncing a ball rather than spinning the globe).<p>Anywho, if anyone can remember a large, big purple book on HTML from the early naughts, you&#x27;d make my day if you could send it my way.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cameronsworld.net&#x2F;img&#x2F;content&#x2F;10&#x2F;7.gif" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cameronsworld.net&#x2F;img&#x2F;content&#x2F;10&#x2F;7.gif</a>

This is amazing. I miss the days when the web truly felt like a vast tapestry of people energetically letting their freak flags fly.<p>Pave paradise, put up... an algorithm to maximize engagement.

If you liked Geocities, Neocities is trying to recreate the vibe, and is an excellent project:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;neocities.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;neocities.org</a>

Ah I long for the days when you could just use a few frames and throw an image map together for graphical navigation...

I miss the ugly internet.<p>It was ugly but it was also theirs, I respected that.

So much nostalgia in those gifs. I built my first website on Geocities in 1997. It was devoted to all the PC games my middle school self loved to play. I have fond memories of &quot;visiting my neighbors&quot; by checking out the addresses next to mine. e.g. geocities.com&#x2F;TimesSquare&#x2F;1000, geocities.com&#x2F;TimesSquare&#x2F;1001, etc. It was always fun to see a Guestbook entry from one of the people with sites next to mine.

I missed the Geocities time but my similar experience was MySpace. That my first introduction into any sort of code. I have no idea at the time what I was copying and pasting into my page. But was able to eventually learn and change things through it. Really no current platform that is used to allow this level of customization. At most it’s a banner or profile image to express yourself publicly.

I recall no one really loving geocities but it was there. Looking back, it’s endearing given how user generated content became such a big thing. I feel the same about live journal which came a bit later iirc.

Good medicine! I hope there are scores of us who see this and feel the immediate inspiration to recreate our old freak sites.

So much geeky expression. Something was definitely lost when we traded in our individual sites for social media profiles

Damn, and to think I almost skipped this link because I wasn&#x27;t in the mood to read a letter!<p>Catscape Navigator 2.0

I&#x27;m actually shocked the background MIDI played on my Android 12 phone. It put a huge smile on my face this morning! Thanks for the nostalgia OP!

This is beautiful! GeoCities represented the amazing creativity of the early web. I miss it :(<p>If anyone would like to create a GeoCities-inspired site of their own using a no-code builder, we got you: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;clovercities.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;clovercities.com</a>.

Any old heads remember using HoTMetaL to write HTML? It was literally just a glorified text editor that inserted tags for you. I eventually learned HTML well enough from it that it became faster to just write pages in Notepad.

It’s become the norm for big tech to acquire and kill off beloved products over the objections of passionate communities of users.<p>For me that first experience was Yahoo acquiring and killing GeoCities, not to mention deleting 10’s of millions of websites from the early web in the process like it never existed paving the way for social media.<p>I’ve spent the better part of a decade waiting, and in 2020 Yahoo’s trademark for GeoCities was finally cancelled by the USPTO, I filed for it using geocities.eth, in part, and successfully became the new owner of the GeoCities registered trademark.<p>There is a new era of passionate website builders that are making the Internet fun again and they have inspired me. You can find some of them at the .eth website search engine <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;esteroids.eth.limo" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;esteroids.eth.limo</a><p>If things go as planned, it may just be a matter of time before you’ll have the opportunity to build a geocities website once again, only this time your website(s) won’t be able to be rugged.

I ran a Geocities rescue site for years and it has since moved to a new owner, see reocities.com

Sites like this belong in a museum!

This is a masterpiece of fine art.

Rest assured, the rotating cranium - a staple of 1990s web design - is present.

I have autoplay turned off for everything. I have to click play twice on YouTube to start anything. Some sites don&#x27;t work at all. Looks like MIDI doesn&#x27;t get blocked by even the most strict settings.

The nostalgia for geocities sites gets a bit old...<p>The website that&#x27;s linked here is a million times better than all the sites it claims to be inspired by.<p>In all honesty, most of geocities was crap, and every time you&#x27;d stumble on those sites with messy content and flashing &quot;under construction&quot; gifs, you&#x27;d just click away in no time.

&quot;Steve Buscemi Greetings!&quot; - the first MemeGenerator?

This needs more upvotes! How is this not at the top of HN!

This kind of content has found it&#x27;s way on todays web on <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;spacehey.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;spacehey.com</a> :)

Five notable good things that happened after 1999:<p>1. Obergefell<p>2. First Black President<p>3. Wikipedia<p>4. .....idk, maybe CRISPR? Deep Learning? Avatar: The Last Airbender? I&#x27;m drawing a blank here