I am changing the way I use my phone. Today I sat in front of the computer and wanted to do something cool on the internet, like in the time before insta/fb/reddit/lemmy doomscrolling. I couldn’t think of any website and took a bath instead, thinking of all the older websites where you had a chatwindow, forums and such.
They’re all gone by now, aren’t they?
So many people have brought up Neocities ( modern day Geocities ) and I absolutely agree it’s an amazing site to find non-corporate and non-monetized to death sites made by random people across the globe. Definitely worth looking around there to see what others have built over time.
As for forums, I wasn’t really on that side of the internet, so no clue.
Neocities is treasure trove of personal websites built by people of all ages. Super sick designs. If you’re into replacing your social media doomscrolling with some blog reading get an RSS reader set up and add some sites. PowRSS.com is a nice place to start as an aggregator of feeds and discovery tool
Other replies have listed a lot of them, and there are plenty more. Lots of webrings for personal sites are still running. Plenty of BBS-style forums too.
The bottom line is, there are plenty of other people who enjoy those aspects of older websites, whether for nostalgic aesthetic reasons or for the benefits of minimalist design. So there are many new sites being made in the same vein of twenty and thirty year old sites. Just like Lemmy is a breath of fresh air for those who are only used to having ads shoved down their throats, old-style sites can be surprisingly relaxing and refreshing.
I like going on Wolfhome.com - it’s a chat site that’s been running near continuously since 1999. The code is a bit dated but there’s a nice group of folks there.
Take a look over at https://piefed.social/f/smallweb
Neocities has a fun collection as well.
All the old websites I liked turned into for-profit monstrosities, then got bought out, gutted, and shut down. 🥺
Neopets is still around. Monetized to hell, but still…
They’re not all gone. I own an online community that I have been running since 2001. The only changes I’ve made was a redesign to make the site responsive to all screens. They’re out there.
what is it?
All the forums I was on aren’t really active anymore as the user base changed substantially and admins changed. I miss the forum days. 90% helpful and only 10% BS. Now it’s the opposite on social media.
Not all forums are ghost towns. Maybe the ones you went to years ago but active ones are still out there, just keep looking.
Maybe I’ll go looking for some again since lemmy doesn’t have many subs I can relate to and don’t have any new content for weeks.
Check out Wiby - its a search engine for old-looking internet pages
neocities
Baths are nice :3
They’re not gone, largely, but they’re a drop in the ocean now.
you need an http:// at the beginning; otherwise current browsers try to open it with https, which throws an error because old sites generally didn’t provide security certificates
I’m on a forum! If you’re interested, it’s called anarcho-punk.net
strangely, GaiaOnline is still going and the majority of its users are millennials and zoomers. it has the same functionality as it did 20 years ago lmao. it’s very active.
i don’t know of many other communities from that period currently operational.
