There were a handful of websites I found way back in the 2000’s that I liked, and kept on a short list to check every few days. This one stuck in my head because of the domain name, which I thought was terribly clever. I dug it up in the Internet Archive. It’s been taken over by some film company? Or something? I’m not clear if it’s run by the same people or not.
Another one was called “The Bassment” (sic), made by a guy who worked at SGI. It was named that way because he played bass, too. I can’t find it in the archive. It was run out of an Indy he had at his house, which inspired me to run my own web and email servers out of my house for 15 years.
There were others, like “Ze Frank,” who has moved to TikTok and YouTube (and probably others).
Anyway, I just wanted to capture the kind of free design that used to be prevalent on the internet before everyone started using “engines” and “templates” and “front ends.” And, no, the irony is not lost on me, sitting here using WordPress with a stock theme. And, sure, I started to rewrite another custom web site for my personal use, but I was using Bootstrap anyway. I readily admit that I’m not creative, but I used to at least try.
The web used to be a wild frontier of programmers and artists and writers who were exploring the new medium. Now, it’s just YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, et. al., etc. There are very few personal sites left. It all got so boring. And for all the “AI” that’s supposed to be in “the algorithms,” TikTok and YouTube offer me 20 pieces of crap for every 1 thing I might have been interested in.
