Back in the old times, The Internet was pumped directly in to your house through a pipe. It was the same pipe that was used for the analogue telephone and so it came with various caveats that we just accepted as modern, futuristic life.
In the olden times you would be surfing The Internet Super Highway, or ‘the web’ and then suddenly your Mum’s on the phone and you’re cut off.
There was a romantic, Wild West side to this. One moment you could be reading about some obscure Australian soap, catching up on the latest Evangelion gifs, or half way through printing a 1400 page pure text walkthrough of Final Fantasy 7. You could be planning Friday night on MSN while downloading -I promise this is System Of A Down doing Legend Of Zelda this time.mp3- and then boom. Screech, Chuurn, your Aunt’s talking through the internal speaker.
The early internet was exciting, frustrating at times; but there was one thing that made it great.
There was a level of kudos in just doing, sharing knowledge and making new things. People who were online at the time were semi-confined to niche groups or interests and people in those groups tended to share fandom, development, design and general ‘internet’ knowledge. Often you’d find yourself breaking out of your little web-groups, falling down rabbit holes of interesting snapshots of people’s lives, fandoms and stories. As you found new websites and groups you discovered new ways of presenting, coding and designing things. And with that came more little snippets of knowledge that people shared, for the kudos.
The thread that kept these little pockets of the internet thriving was the idea that knowledge was something to be celebrated and shared and that you could just create something for the sake of it.
One of my first websites was an Evangelion fan site. So as a little tribute to that, I set up https://centraldogma.co.uk. Part of me looks at the web nowadays and I’m sad how commercial it’s become, like a lot of early web-tinkerers I make websites for a living now. But I think it’s important to keep the experimental and whimsical aspect of the Internet alive, have a bit of fun with it, and to foster that free flow of knowledge and ideas when you can.
