flâneur — a map of the web's best reading

We found love in a fictional place | The Outline

theoutline.com · 2,235 words · saved by 1 readers

In 1995, the utopian, galactic future was made tangible by software engineer David Bohnett and aerospace engineer John Rezner when they first invited you to their page: GeoCities.com. After several months of testing and developing their free web hosting service, GeoCities took the internet away from academics and hobbyists and gave it to The People, with 25,000 pages created by the first half of the decade’s end. For the first time, the internet was driven by user-generated content, as those who were connected to the early web (including Homer Simpson) began to tinker with paint-by-numbers HTML and CSS. GeoCities welcomed users into its global village with kitschy gifs, an amateurish passion for graphic design, and a real sense of excitement for the globally connected future. Each frenzied webpage offered a window into their user’s lives, interests, hopes and dreams. Soon, GeoCities became one of the most inhabited spaces on the web and stayed that way through the late nineties. “This

Emma Madden Dec—18—2019 10:05AM EST A series reflecting on the 2010s as we head into the new decade. In 1995, the utopian, galactic future was made tangible by software engineer David Bohnett and aerospace engineer John Rezner when they first invited you to their page: GeoCities.com. After several months of testing and developing their free web hosting service, GeoCities took the internet away from academics and hobbyists and gave it to The People, with 25,000 pages created by the first half of the decade’s end. For the first time, the internet was driven by user-generated

Explore this link on the map →

saved by

related reading