Farewell, Geocities
Most people have probably never heard of Geocities. The free Web host — basically a huge Web site that provided space for people to create their own Web sites — wasn’t popular for very long. But for a few years when I was in high school and just discovering HTML, Geocities hosted my own site and those of many of my friends.
Nowadays, kids turn to networking sites like Facebook and MySpace or blogs on Blogspot and Wordpress, but back then, Geocities and Tripod, another free Web host, were the only games in town. You had to learn HTML and write your own pages, not just type something into a box and hit “Publish.”
My very first Web site was on Geocities, back before it was owned by Yahoo. It showcased my “Newsies” fanfiction and some failed attempts at poetry and science fiction short stories. I used “showcased” very loosely — it was terrible at first, but it got better as I learned more about HTML, CSS and Web design, and grew a little as a writer.
Many of those Web sites were hideous — patterned page backgrounds, blinking text and moving text, glittery icons, huge fonts in unreadable colors. (For an example, see the fantastic webcomic xkcd, which has redesigned its site in a tribute to those first Geocities pages today.) But for those of us on the forefront of the Internet generation, it was a way to express ourselves and leave a little of our own creativity for others to find, and we were dedicated and enthusiastic at our “craft.”
We’ve grown up, and the Internet has, too. Some of us still blog or have Web sites, but now we (mostly) conform to standards of design and content. There aren’t very many “Pokemon” or “Sailor Moon” fansites out there anymore, at least off of LiveJournal, and the ones that do exist today are a far different beast than their ancestors. There aren’t very many static Web sites anymore, period; most have at least a blog and near-daily updates, if not a store, forums, Twitter feeds and other interactive features.
And I think the Internet is a much better place for it. It’s become a forum for the exchange of ideas, news and creative ventures in realtime, rather than being just a few people and their ugly, ugly Web sites (no, really) shouting into the darkness.
But it’s still a little sad to see Geocities go.
