Had a perfect morning digging through an old Geocities archive last Tuesday

That bit you mentioned about the guestbook with handwritten HTML signatures really hit home. I remember spending hours making my own signature with rainbow text and little dancing GIFs, and it felt like legit self-expression (even if it looked like a mess). Those midi soundtracks too, always that one guy using the Mortal Kombat theme on his Sailor Moon shrine. It's the lack of polish that made it feel real, you know, like someone actually cared enough to learn tags just for fun.