Ways our Retro Web differs from the original Old Web

[Memory]

A lot of people in the retro aesthetic web revival/RAWR () subculture seem to be younger, too young to have consciously experienced the original web we are kind of modelling ourselves after.
As someone who grew up during the last few years of forums and the old web, I see some things that are now different from what I am used to originally.

So, let this be a thread to collect little tidbits and ways in which our RAWR subculture is different from the original times.

I'll start with a few things:

• People used to be very interested forum threads' position in the thread list, and would push them upward by posting nonsensical placeholders (often only the word 'push':wink:. That was frowned upon and often against the rules. You don't see this much anymore and people generally don't care about their thread being "buried" anymore.
• There used to be a big obsession in forums with roles and ranks like moderator, administrator, helper, donator and so on to the point where I would notice their role first and their identity second.
• Politics changed, and the RAWR subculture is much more diverse (gender, ethnicity, neurodiversity, age and so on), accepting, and progressive than I remember the original old web ever being, even on specifically progressive communities.
• Low-effort responses are nowadays pretty rare because the kind of people who seek out the retro web are usually the ones who also strive to get away from shallow social media.

Anything you can think about yourself?

[BradE]

There was that time before blogs had been invented, when people were publishing their knowledge on topics they had an expertise in. All in html sites. People honed their skills on personal websites (about themselves) and then went on to build sites about their hobbies and passions.

• Episode guides to TV shows.
  How to sites: some of these were incredibly detailed (ie. making full scale models of Star Trek TOS phasers, communicators from scratch, or Daleks, etc.)
  Collector sites - photos and detailed info

We have some of that today, but Wikipedia and some commercial sites have taken the place of these topical sites.

[xero333]

Love point 4. When I was lurking on this forum, I noticed just how lengthy and in depth the replies were, and I absolutely love that. I'm glad it's not people just posting one word answers or meme type stuff constantly. I definitely feel like I'm at home here with the quality and length of discussion.

[mahoroa]

I remember a lot of forum threads would completely change subjects at random. Sometimes youd make a post giving a little life update and then itd turn into whatever else. Im guessing its because we were kids back then? Ill be honest I kinda miss how wild forums would be now, I dont think Id see a random post hijack today

[MHKN]

i would say 3. is actually pretty important, say what you want. you can't really escape politics unless, i guess, run off to a forest to never be found again.

thing is, i don't consider someone's existence political. i'm glad the retro web has become the inclusive old web i wanted. especially you can see some of the sentiment seeping into the fediverse and its accessibility culture

[ralfwause]

Well, regarding point 3 there is - in my opinion - a major point todays corporate web has lost:

"On the internet, nobody knows you are a dog"

On the old net, if you wished to, it was entirely possible to seggregate your online persona from the one you where in meatspace. In a way, an absolute and perfect safespace. With the modern web, with connected google or facebook accounts its an entirely different story. "Just log off" if someone stalks or harasses you? Today much, much more difficult than back in the day. So... what can the web revival do here? Well... don't do tracking. Don't do google / facebook / twitter / amazon accounts to log into something. Allow people to disconnect their online persona from their meatspace one. Just my tow eurocent...

[xero333]

Well, regarding point 3 there is - in my opinion - a major point todays corporate web has lost:

"On the internet, nobody knows you are a dog"

On the old net, if you wished to, it was entirely possible to seggregate your online persona from the one you where in meatspace. In a way, an absolute and perfect safespace. With the modern web, with connected google or facebook accounts its an entirely different story. "Just log off" if someone stalks or harasses you? Today much, much more difficult than back in the day. So... what can the web revival do here? Well... don't do tracking. Don't do google / facebook / twitter / amazon accounts to log into something. Allow people to disconnect their online persona from their meatspace one. Just my tow eurocent...

Definitely! Do away with signing up to everything with real details. Use aliases. Don't login or register with FB/Google etc. I loved the old anonymous feel of the Internet.