suddenly feeling weirdly sad about old dead websites/forums

[Junebug]

I think whenever there's a new technology, there's passionate evangelists for that technology who believe it will create lasting, permanent change on society. I remember a lot of that growing up when the world wide web was increasingly becoming a normal part of people's lives. They'd taken for granted that uploaded files would always be available on the internet and that this would do away with the necessity of older information technologies. Now it's clear that copyright holders affect the dissemination of books and articles and the rest, that such things are not nearly as easily available as they were ten years ago, that people in practice do not save files faster than they are destroyed, and that books are actually a lot more durable than digital files because they at least have the decency to not dematerialize on you randomly. This is not to speak of the obsolescence of technology making it harder to access old things, like how you need emulators to play old games. A little extra inconvenience can go a long way toward encouraging people to forget about the past.

I think digital media is uniquely bad when it comes to information ephemerality in this case. Most people are familiar with the burning of the Library of Alexandria as an archetypal example of lost media, but fires happen occasionally while the web is always burning. It follows the words of Sir Thomas Browne:

But the iniquity of oblivion blindely scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity.

[Eunice]

Oh my goodness yes. I spend far too much looking at old sites on the wayback archive. Mourning for the great sites that closed when everyone ran off to facebook and whatever twitter is being called this week. I wasn't into forums very much, but there was one called Lifeless People. You could get free hosting and a free subdomain, for posting on the forum. There was a good, broad number of sections and it was a friendly place. I do miss it.

[Corrupted Unicorn]

It's important to always appreciate what we have.

If we have lost it, remember: the time you spent with it, the love you poured into it, does not make it meaningless.

In some way or another, it still exists, in your memory.

You should preserve what you can, of course, but also honor what you no longer can.



He puts it into words better than I can...

[raytracer]

I had learned pretty recently that what is put onto the internet is not something that is truly eternal. Especially now adays when most of the internet's userbase is huddled together across the select few social media platforms. However, I eventually came to realize that places like this still exist and still get regular activity like it was back in the late 90s and early 2000s if not more, and that's due to people like us wanting something more than just the same 3 or 4 websites. People say the old internet is dead, when in reality, people just moved to the next big social platforms while the rest of the internet, well, stayed the same. The old net never left. We left it ourselves.   

[Inlusione]

I miss a plethora of old forums almost every single day. I feel weird about it, as I should move on after so many years, but I can't. Nothing felt similar until now. Nothing accomplished what those forums did. Nothing got improved in any way.

You don't miss the forums themselves, of course, you miss how they made you feel. You miss the atmosphere, the people, the discussions, the way you perceived them in your head. I still remember how I was feeling when certain users were online or when they posted something new... It felt amazing and they had a certain "aura" around, you could feel their impact, ideas, personality. I was never able to feel something similar again. Old forums and the format itself made possible to care about some people in particular, to feel something when you'd remember their quality, their words, their ideas. The way I was able to interact with people from forums was never matched. They felt like characters from a really good book, but real. You knew who are you talking with before they'd talk to you. You'd understand them better than you'd understand people around you. They had hours upon hours of ideas, thoughts, grievances and frustrations. You wanted to know what someone thought about a certain subject, and the feeling you had when they finally wrote about it was incredible, especially since they wrote with the quality you were used to. You'd never find these people around you. Forums were better because people tried their hardest to offer a definitive answer. They were trying to encapsulate everything they were thinking and to become better at it.

Fan fictions were common, writing a lot was something well seen. There's no other platform anymore that will invite people to write their best pieces and to have a real opinion about anything. It doesn't matter anymore. Nobody is looking through your profile history either because it's a mess anyway or because no one cares. There's no evolution, it's just laziness. Short, rubbish, without substance. I've heard people saying "why are you not saying that you just liked it" when someone started to remind me of the "old ways" of talking about movies and the likes.

You can't stop missing them when there's nothing new(er) to miss anymore.

[cynderthekitsune]

same sometimes.

it's mostly with YouTube and various other platforms i grew up with - YouTube used to be my prime source of Vocaloid/UTAU PVs, memes, Let's Plays, mod reviews, and all that other kinda stuff. Flash is probably another big one too. i used to play Flash a heap when i was in primary school.

anyways, with Vocaloid and UTAU especially - i grew up on it, to the point it's literally baked into my own self at this point. but now seeing how much old stuff gets spam-reported, taken as more trying to mimic it than actually being with it, and plus how distant Crypton has ended up turning them into, almost killed it completely for me. though~ i still love it, i just try to avoid a lot of the new stuff.
though despite how many old songs and stuff get lost, and how much hate i see for Project DIVA and pre-2017ish as well, it's still with me? i still love it, i try not to think that a whole lot of people genuinely don't understand me, and that's fine. if someone's say, much younger and they looked at a book from idk, a long time ago? there'll be different perspectives, and in some ways that's how change happens!

still though, it makes me feel much better realising there's at least some people archiving it, though i know lots of Vocaloids and UTAUloids outside of the Cryptonloids are almost entirely lost.

at the end of the day, i just end up seeing it like how life happens. some die (or go extinct), but others thrive, usually in their place afterwards. the world rotates this way and i think it's kinda beautiful looking at it from a zoomed-out perspective! 

[Junebug]

I think whenever there's a new technology, there's passionate evangelists for that technology who believe it will create lasting, permanent change on society. I remember a lot of that growing up when the world wide web was increasingly becoming a normal part of people's lives. They'd taken for granted that uploaded files would always be available on the internet and that this would do away with the necessity of older information technologies. Now it's clear that copyright holders affect the dissemination of books and articles and the rest, that such things are not nearly as easily available as they were ten years ago, that people in practice do not save files faster than they are destroyed, and that books are actually a lot more durable than digital files because they at least have the decency to not dematerialize on you randomly. This is not to speak of the obsolescence of technology making it harder to access old things, like how you need emulators to play old games. A little extra inconvenience can go a long way toward encouraging people to forget about the past.

I think digital media is uniquely bad when it comes to information ephemerality in this case. Most people are familiar with the burning of the Library of Alexandria as an archetypal example of lost media, but fires happen occasionally while the web is always burning. It follows the words of Sir Thomas Browne:

But the iniquity of oblivion blindely scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity.

I just thought about a story that also explains why I built a website in the first place. I grew up reading Homestuck and my first update was Cascade in 2011. Reading Homestuck back then was a great time. It was at the height of its popularity and I had many friends in high school who were reading it too, so I never lacked a person to chat with about that weird inscrutable webcomic. I didn't post on the MSPA forums, but I would occasionally read fan adventures that would be posted there. There was a popular one that I liked called Be The Sea Dweller Lowblood.

Time passed and my interest in Homestuck faded. Still, this did not mean I liked the comic any less, even if in a rather classic Homestuck fan way I have an opinion on which Act the story declined in quality. But it'd been about ten years later and I thought to myself I should find out how BSDL ended. Low and behold: MSPA forum had died. A critical server failure had occurred some time back and all of that history was gone. Searching for archives, I found incomplete versions of the story riddled with broken images and gave up.

This catalyzed certain thoughts I had for a long time. I had always wanted to build my own website, having admired how personalized and interesting they could be. But now I knew that if I relied on things to stay on the web to be available to me in the uncertain future, I would be disappointed. It was up to me if I really wanted to keep anything. I also didn't much care for how much social media restricted my self-expression either. It felt like a toy when the real tools were sitting there, always available to anyone who wanted to learn.

Putting my fan related thoughts in a dedicated place in reaction to data loss for another work of fiction feels a little petty when it comes to the topic of owning your information and what that means, but it's where it started. I want to take back all the hours I spend just letting my thoughts leak out online, to instead use that energy on writing things that are a lot more worthwhile.

[cynderthekitsune]

Low and behold: MSPA forum had died. A critical server failure had occurred some time back and all of that history was gone. Searching for archives, I found incomplete versions of the story riddled with broken images and gave up.

oh, wow. that's actually really sad...

i remembered especially when old video game servers die - like Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii-era games' servers are no longer online. that, coupled with half-assed attempts at bringing back Flipnote and Miiverse, that doesn't really make it much better.

though since i'm a much bigger Vocaloid/UTAU fan, i've felt the wave harder with that instead.
PJSK is... interesting for me, but most of the songs on Nico Nico Douga aren't available anymore (or are archived but they don't play), and most don't exist on YouTube anymore. even on YouTube their archives will more than likely not be able to play the video, or the only archive is from half-assed kids trying to "mimic" it in 2023 or so, when the song came out in 2008 or something.

outside of some popular tracks like World is Mine, i've only found most from Project DIVA. and i don't remember if SPiCa's original PV is still up anymore, but part of me doubts it since last time i didn't see it in my YouTube Music playlist.
tracks like SPiCa, Kokoro, Ai Kotoba, Waffle, Don't be afraid you're alright, and Gigantic Girl are by far some of my favourite tracks, though it's already shaken me knowing those' aren't available in their original forms anymore. and non-Cryptonloids/adjacent (like Miku, Luka, Rin, Len, Kaito, Meiko, Teto, Neru, Haku, Hachune Miku, Tako Luka, Sakine Meiko, etc) like Gumi, Gakupo, Ia, and SeeU are at a higher risk again.

didn't mean to get so negative! but it's just how i feel!

[Junebug]

oh, wow. that's actually really sad...

i remembered especially when old video game servers die - like Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii-era games' servers are no longer online. that, coupled with half-assed attempts at bringing back Flipnote and Miiverse, that doesn't really make it much better.

though since i'm a much bigger Vocaloid/UTAU fan, i've felt the wave harder with that instead.
PJSK is... interesting for me, but most of the songs on Nico Nico Douga aren't available anymore (or are archived but they don't play), and most don't exist on YouTube anymore. even on YouTube their archives will more than likely not be able to play the video, or the only archive is from half-assed kids trying to "mimic" it in 2023 or so, when the song came out in 2008 or something.

outside of some popular tracks like World is Mine, i've only found most from Project DIVA. and i don't remember if SPiCa's original PV is still up anymore, but part of me doubts it since last time i didn't see it in my YouTube Music playlist.
tracks like SPiCa, Kokoro, Ai Kotoba, Waffle, Don't be afraid you're alright, and Gigantic Girl are by far some of my favourite tracks, though it's already shaken me knowing those' aren't available in their original forms anymore. and non-Cryptonloids/adjacent (like Miku, Luka, Rin, Len, Kaito, Meiko, Teto, Neru, Haku, Hachune Miku, Tako Luka, Sakine Meiko, etc) like Gumi, Gakupo, Ia, and SeeU are at a higher risk again.

didn't mean to get so negative! but it's just how i feel!

Wow, it's really something to hear this. Because I also used to be really into Vocaloid back in the day, and used to know all the memes and utauloids (at least the ones you could find out about on Youtube.) So I'm a bit stunned to learn that a lot of old Vocaloid history is being lost like this, not just on Youtube but on Nico Nico Douga. I guess when I think about it, a lot of Vocaloid was a bit of a fad. There were composers who did some great things with the programs, but a lot of them broke into the mainstream and just work with regular singers now. So once they moved on, there wasn't a reason for people to care too much about the old music unless one was personally there and is still fond of those songs.

A little while ago I remembered Glider, that Taiwanese artist who did a lot of music video art for songs that used the Kagamines. I remembered he was working on an illustration a while ago and I got curious about whether he ever finished it, and any trace of that old WIP video I saw was completely gone from Youtube. It was disquieting. So I try to appreciate what's still there.

And man, Gakupo!? Gackt's own self-insert Vocaloid is at risk too? Now I've seen everything.

Here's an old video I'm fond of: Megpoid Gumi's cover of the popular IOSYS Miracle Hinacle, and even today counts as an example of extremely good tuning.

[ewomack]

Though I feel somewhat like I should "just get over it," this thread's topic yanks me in inexorably. I really miss the old web. Pretty devastatingly. Having built my first "real website" in 1997 (a commercial one for the company I worked for at the time, it even used JavaScript), I fully lived and experienced the explosive creativity and fascination of the early web. It reminded me of what I had read about early television. Both attracted people who had the right mentality and skills for the medium. Plus, it didn't yet have any rules. The anarchy remained irresistible. It was impossible to keep up with most forums without logging in every few hours. New websites blossomed every day. It was amazing. I used to upset people back then by posting thoughts such as "don't get too used to this, someday large businesses will take this over and the delicious chaos will vanish." I wish I hadn't been correct, but, just like early television, people learned how to make swaths of money with the medium and the inevitable occurred. The takeover process took maybe 10 years or so and the cosmic microwave background left behind by the early web now exists only in minuscule obscure corners that one must seek to find. I found this forum just last week, embedded in a Reddit topic called "do any active forums still exist?" It was the first time I had heard of this site. Now I can join other mourners wailing over the loss of the early web. I still miss it. I always will. Those who weren't there will likely have a hard time understanding the nostalgia. I still find the web fascinating, and I still spend too much time on it, but it's now far more homogeneous and fenced off than its auspicious beginnings would have ever insinuated. Oh well.

[fawn]

Though I feel somewhat like I should "just get over it," this thread's topic yanks me in inexorably.

I relate to your thoughts on this so heavily. When I was younger I spent lots of time on the Neopets forums, and couldn't wait until I reached the age of full browsing freedom, but by the time that happened (especially with strict parents) forums were already becoming very few and far between. I'm very thankful for this site for many reasons, especially because it lets me live that dream that I never got to experience, but it definitely pains me a little that I'm forever grasping at something just out of reach, that I never experienced myself. I was online at the time, just not socially. There's also the yearning for things in my memory that I know I'll never be able to find; I remember sitting in the computer room and finding a website that taught you how to start learning HTML (it maybe also hosted sites similar to Geocities, I'm unsure), being so excited and calling my parents in to look at the masterpiece I had created - aqua text on a shocking pink background talking about my school day. I've tried searching some kind of archive/memory of that site over the years with what very little I remember, but I know it'll never happen. It's all very bittersweet. I'm glad I be here, though.

[ValyceNegative]

I understand what you mean, OP. As a gut feeling, I too have the sense of regret and loss when browsing a subsequently dead site on Web Archive. However, I rationalize it by understanding that it's not the code that I miss, but the person that was behind the screen at the time the site was active.

When I really used to visit those old sites back in the 90s/2000s I was a kid, early teen at most; webmasters of my favourite fansites were other fellow kids and early teens. When they wrote update logs or blog articles they used to talk about school assignments, vacation trips, the same struggles or happy events that I was going through at the same time: in that era, it was like having a whole group of penpals from every part of the country.

Of all those people, some I've managed to stay in contact or follow elsewhere when their childhood webpages expired. They were fellow "art kids" like me, and now many of them have careers in art or animation, fulfilling their dreams, achieving what they used to write about on their fansites. Some of them, though this being a rarer occurrence, I've even met at conventions where we work as fellow sellers!
I don't need to feel sad about an archived old site when I know the old webmaster went on to achieve even more grandiose things.

I also follow a blog on Substack that sometimes interviews webmasters of classic Pokemon fansites, some sort of "where are they now" kinda thing, and the vast majority of them do recall their old pages with nostalgia, but they also show their latest projects with enthusiasm, spend a lot of time talking about what they became once growing up, how things evolved and changed for them, a great part of them being happy and satisfied. That's what counts the most.

[Cobra!]

I tend to feel this way not just with the internet, but media in general. The idea of time going on and things disappearing scares me. That's probably why I love stories that involve time travel, actually, but I digress.

What helps me cope is try and do what I can to preserve what we have. Obviously we can't preserve everything, and frankly, maybe we shouldn't, especially with the rise of AI-generared content, but I like to preserve or archive what matters to me.

Time goes on and things change, but it's really cool we're able to create snapshots of what was, and temporarly bring ourselves back to that time. (and this is something I personally like to go all in with era-appropriate hardware and CRTs!)
I love seeing communities like Lost Media Wiki document what is lost and hearing about said lost media being found!
It's also fun to just go down rabbit holes with these things, and to do that for the stuff that interests me, they need to be archived and available to delve into.

I guess what also concerns me is I like to create things to outlast me, and be evidence that I existed in the world. Life is short, at least relative to how long the world, and the universe has existed, and many people go only to be forgotten a couple of generations on.

Another thing to consider, though, is storing archived websites/media. You need power to store these things and keep that data accessible, there have been some attempts to store them into long lasting physical media such as film, but in my opinion it's still something to consider when discussing archival and lost media.