Liminality of the dead web

[Zombiethederg]

So, I saw alot of discussion about dead websites and how people were feeling sad over losing them, but I wanted to share how I feel about these websites, and wonder if others feel the same.

I remember seeing a website that (I cant remember the name of it) simply had text conversations put onto the webpage, blocking out all possible forum posts being able to be seen. Instead of feeling sad, I felt.. curious. I could only wonder "what happened here?" and knew I likely would never find the answer. It lingered in my mind and felt really strange getting the feeling of "somethings happened here". I don't have much attachment to the old web, so its probably why I didn't feel as sad, more just curious in this way.

I haven't really seen this feeling explored anywhere else, the feeling of a character or even the viewer coming across a story that's already happened, and not knowing the full picture of what's occurred, only able to make out things through small clues or inclinations (or if your Fallout, long ass text logs explaining what happened), and ultimately not being able to get the full context / story.

Have other things made anyone else feel this way? Websites, movies, books? Im very curious to hear if this is just me or if others have experienced something similar.

[CableCat]

Yes, I have had that feeling. It's like walking into a nuclear bomb strike site long after the radiation has dissipated enough, but the crater is still obviously visible and dead.

For me, it was not on the "old web". It was on an older established social media site. I used to be part of a group called "Artsy Maximalist Hippie Antique Bohemian Retro Colorful Home Design" (or something along those lines with a lot of words). It was my favorite group because it was entirely just people posting home design inspiration over a large swathe of aesthetics. I was on this group for probably 8 or 9 years total, and it blew up and filled with members.

With more members came more group rule violations. So they got more moderators. All was going well. But keep in mind, the group was started and owned by ONE person. It was also implied it was a group for adults/apartment residents/homeowners to share various decor photos and ideas, or their own decor.

A person who worked in a particular kind of store where children are not allowed joined the group. (I'm gonna leave it at that because it's MelonLand.) They started posting images of their product displays (full maximalist scenes complete with googly eyes and other silly things made of pipe cleaners and glitter). They were really funny, and technically did not violate the group rules, and the owner of the group and the mods found them hilarious as did many members.

But some members did not find it funny. It resulted in many upset reports being made to mods for posts that had already been mod-approved. So after so many announcement posts trying to get people to stop reporting that one user's posts, the owner changed the group name to "Artsy Maximalist Hippie Antique Bohemian Retro Colorful Home Design and sometimes ******* (18+ ONLY)". Lots of people made "I'M LEABING" posts, and others quietly left, and then the group was good for a while longer. Things tempered out.

Fast forward to two years later. The group's content had stopped appearing on my feed thanks to the ever changing algorithm and me not seeking it out. But I had just gotten my new apartment, and I wanted some home decor inspiration! I go to the group from my profile... And I don't see it. In its place, I see a group I never joined that is called "Fun's over, it's just pictures of my cat Tobias now." The profile picture is of a cute Tuxedo cat.

I go the group page and almost everything is gone. All the old posts, everything. Nuked.    And of course, I haven't looked at this group for like two whole years so I'm wondering "What in the world...?" And hoping the group didn't get hacked or something. I scroll through just dozens and dozens of pictures of this tuxedo cat. I search through for comments. Eventually I find the remnants in old posts of people who got deleted from the group. Pretty much, the group had another influx of newcomers, became unmanageable, got strikes from the social media site itself over false reports from people who kept reporting that one user's posts despite the title of the group... So the owner got fed up and said "this isn't fun for me anymore, I never expected this to get so big" and then they nuked EVERYTHING out of spite and told everyone to get out if they don't like it, or they can stay for pictures of the group owner's cat. My guess is that the people who stayed had probably been original members or just didn't know what happened. For perspective, the group grew to like over 60,000 members, and when I last looked at it post-nuking it was down to like under 500 members. No group members were allowed to post anymore. The owner had locked down the group so it was entirely private, no new users could join, and only they could post. If you commented about the old group, you got evicted.

It felt so unfortunate to me that the incoming group members did not respect the space the owner had cultivated, and instead of reporting privately to mods, they used the official report system through the social media site which would then bounce those posts to the owner and not the mods. Or they could've just left and found a different space. That group space had turned into a massive library of home decor tips and tricks and photographs of all these different beautiful design aesthetics under that maximalist umbrella. Many members posted photos of their own home designs that were never cross-posted and were lost to the public in the nuking. It was like the burning of the Library of Alexandria of Maximalism and other Subculture Aesthetics.

[Paprika]

Same for me as well, there's something fascinating about dead web or remnants of websites. It feels like archaeology some kind of modern times indiana jones. SOmetimes you understand, sometimes it's just abandoned fragments all over the place. I'm mostly focused on pictures, I often spend time wondering who it is/was where and how are they today. I could spend days on this if I didn't had other things to do haha

[milo]

Around 2004-2006 there was a certain proto-social media website my friends in high school and I all frequented. We all had our own pages with pictures and descriptions where we'd post what we were up to and stuff. The site is still up and I guess active enough that a few users still seem to log in... maybe folks like me digging through all the lost, forgotten stuff there is there.

Pretty much everyone I knew on there stopped using the site as MySpace became a thing and they changed their pages to short, often spiteful goodbye messages. Some of them changed their pictures to something nonsensical, others left whatever pics they had up, so there's pics of these people the way they were, whatever they were doing 20 years ago. It's like walking into a neighborhood of abandoned homes and some of the houses have writing on the walls as the owners moved out that said stuff like "see you later [site name], i'm moving on" or "there's nothing left here for me". Some of them look as if the people who lived there left for the day and just never came back. You can dig through their photo albums and diary entries that were just left sitting there. It's pretty eerie.

I think the weirdest thing is how the conversations just stopped. We all used these "wiki" pages as a chat/bulletin board system and the last bits of it aren't sad goodbyes or anything like that. It's just like "lol yeah right see you tomorrow" kind of stuff. And then nothing else.

The site would send out automated messages to remind you of your friends' birthdays. So my top of my inbox is a trickle of messages from back when we stopped using the site, years of automated birthday messages for whoever was still left on any kind of friends list, and a few random messages from people trying to reach out to me for the heck of it and not knowing how.

I'd like to start trying to archive of it somehow. It's such a fascinating time capsule and it'll be a shame when it's gone.

[grubbyfox]

Around 2004-2006 there was a certain proto-social media website my friends in high school and I all frequented. We all had our own pages with pictures and descriptions where we'd post what we were up to and stuff. The site is still up and I guess active enough that a few users still seem to log in... maybe folks like me digging through all the lost, forgotten stuff there is there.

Pretty much everyone I knew on there stopped using the site as MySpace became a thing and they changed their pages to short, often spiteful goodbye messages. Some of them changed their pictures to something nonsensical, others left whatever pics they had up, so there's pics of these people the way they were, whatever they were doing 20 years ago. It's like walking into a neighborhood of abandoned homes and some of the houses have writing on the walls as the owners moved out that said stuff like "see you later [site name], i'm moving on" or "there's nothing left here for me". Some of them look as if the people who lived there left for the day and just never came back. You can dig through their photo albums and diary entries that were just left sitting there. It's pretty eerie.

I think the weirdest thing is how the conversations just stopped. We all used these "wiki" pages as a chat/bulletin board system and the last bits of it aren't sad goodbyes or anything like that. It's just like "lol yeah right see you tomorrow" kind of stuff. And then nothing else.

The site would send out automated messages to remind you of your friends' birthdays. So my top of my inbox is a trickle of messages from back when we stopped using the site, years of automated birthday messages for whoever was still left on any kind of friends list, and a few random messages from people trying to reach out to me for the heck of it and not knowing how.

I'd like to start trying to archive of it somehow. It's such a fascinating time capsule and it'll be a shame when it's gone.

holy moly, i dont know what site you're referring to lol but i know the feeling! it's crazy. i dont think i have any websites that are like abandonded neighbourhoods like this though. you should def try to archive it in some way, because i love looking into stuff like that and it's always so good when someone actually archives these! i guess the closest i was, was that i found some old ezboards archived, and it was the same like, nobody was like "well, goodbye everyone" it was just up and running until it wasn't. i'm too over stimulated to write about it in lenght, haha, but yeah, now i gotta rack my brain and see if there are any wastelands i can visit!