The Distant Past

There are many things on the internet that have improved over the years. This is an obvious statement, of course.  However, I have to admit, there are things I miss about late 90s/early 2000s net. There were aspects of it that had a certain charm about them, and,  in many ways, added to a more interactive internet experience.

There used to be a 'make your own website' place called Homestead. Homestead, while it was still free, would assign you a web address and then give you various tools to make your site look good. Which, okay, most of them didn't. Most of them, but today's standards, looked pretty crappy. However, as we didn't know any better, we were fine with them.   People would set up sites for parodies of fictional characters, with updates every week over the ongoing adventures of said characters. And yes, people still do that now, but usually on more sophisticated (and therefore, more limited) formats.

Eventually, Homestead removed their free aspect and watched as people abandoned it. As much as everyone loved it, there was no way they were going to pay money to manage a website about an anime character. With the loss of Homestead, people looked for other places to keep their communities alive. Some people went to the Groups aspects of the various places like Vista or Yahoo. Others, usually teenagers and 20 somethings, turned to Livejournal.

Now Livejournal was more structured than other sites had been,  It was, well, a journal format, although one could add pictures and links as well.  This, however, required a bit of coding knowhow.  Not a lot, but at least enough to be able to insert a link.  The fancy set of buttons that Blogger has is pretty advanced compared to LJ, although the format is pretty close to the same.

At its peek, LJ was amazing. You could find anything on there, from newsletters to diaries to communities dedicated to just about everything.  We used to have LJ accounts for our roleplaying characters and would entertain ourselves by letting them fight with each other in comments. There was a music community I was very active in. Every week,  there would be a theme. You posted songs that fit that theme, the more beloved and obscure, the better. I found SO MUCH new music from that community.  I used to be on LJ everyday.

Until, you know, one day, I just wasn't anymore. One day, I forgot to check it. One day, my friends said they hadn't posted in a while. And then, it was over. At the time, I really didn't regret it too much. After all, everyone was leaving the building, so to speak. Facebook was becoming the far better option. It was easier to work with . . . of course, it's also far less individual. And eventually, all the communities faded.

I suppose that is the nature of things. On the internet, kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall. Still, we can mourn for the old kingdoms and remember their days of glory.