My cousin argued that GeoCities pages were more creative than modern social media profiles

We were looking at an old archive of his 1999 site with a black background and animated fire gifs. He said the total freedom to make something ugly and weird was the point, unlike today's polished templates. It made me realize maybe the old web's mess was a feature, not a bug. Do you think the early internet's wild design was better for real personal expression?

2 comments

2 Comments

morgan_ward619d ago

That Geocities page probably took a week to build in Notepad and required three separate under construction gifs. The freedom was real, but let's be honest, most MySpace profiles from 2005 were just as chaotic and ugly in their own way. The tools changed, but the urge to make a loud, personal digital space never really went away. It just moved to different platforms.

iris4419d ago

Remember reading an article about how those old profile pages were like digital scrapbooks... a total mess but full of personality. You're right, morgan_ward61, the chaos just moved. Now it's a TikTok feed or a cluttered Instagram story highlight reel. The tools got simpler so everyone could do it, but that also made everything feel a bit more the same. The real freedom was in not knowing the rules and just slapping your favorite midi file on a page.