I remembered 5-10 years ago when I was apart of countless forums where web design was all the rage. To me, to everyone, it seemed like the future was limitless and that we could do anything we wanted. Back then, being able to successfully call an image or make a link was cause for excitement. And I was hooked. So I took a bite of the possibilities and hopped on the blog train before they weren’t considered anything different than journals. I had affiliates, I made fanlistings and cliques and joined webrings and, for the most part, still maintain much of that. I made my own forums on Delphi. I dived in head first.
Then I took some time to weed out what it was I really wanted to do. I stepped away from cartoon dolls and trying to have my own forums. I slowly weened the list of projects to the ones I cared about the most and, of course, this site was always at the top of that list. I spent hours working on content which was all the rage. I looked up HTML help and tricks and CSS guides and Javascripts and shortcuts and includes and colour charts. I commented and linked and associated with very similar people with very similar sites. At that time, Web2.0 was far in the distance, everything was graphic intensive (and, usually, beautiful) and everyone and their dog had a site. We were all still learning and making mistakes together.
Then, something happened. Maybe people grew up. Maybe we just got to a point where we could comfortably do what we wanted without learning much more or anything more. I know I’ve been there for a while. I could make new themes, add new content and continue doing things the way I’ve been doing them without learning anything new. It feels kind of stagnant. Back then, I learned basic HTML, I learned tables, then frames, then divs then increased my understanding of CSS and it seemed like progression was obvious and logical but now I don’t know where I’d go even if I wanted to. I suppose PHP is the future and I’d gleaned some information here and there, especially using WordPress, but it doesn’t thrill me the way learning something new used to.
There’s not really anyone else whose thrilled either. I definitely think we all fed off the excitement of the group and it encouraged us to do more, go bigger. It’s harder to keep up the frenzy when you’re alone in it. But there’s this general trend of folks getting on with their lives and the internet just doesn’t play as big a part of that anymore. There’s school and work and families and stuff I have somehow managed to avoid and now I’m a remnant of something that will probably never come back and I miss it.
Of course, there’s people left who are still trudging on but now that the internet has made the transition to 2.0, I find myself alienated by the new trends. There is no inspiration for me anywhere; I do not want to do what people are doing and, even if I did, what they’re doing doesn’t feel remarkable the way everything used to feel. I guess I’m just not a big fan of function over form.
Man, I write all these posts where I am nostalgic for the past, especially when it comes to the internet. I’m not that old; how does that even work?