WELCOME TO THE NIGHT LOUNGE

Home	About	News	Music

ABOUT	LINKS
Exploring the old web was unnerving, like walking an empty street at night not knowing where you'll end up. You could end up near a roadside diner that offers you the cheapest and tastiest 3 AM meal you've ever tried in your life, or you could end up in the middle of a KKK bonfire. The old web felt like that, where if you knew exactly where to go, like cartoonnetwork.com, you simply entered the address on your web browser and went there, knowing you'll end up in a good place... But if you searched for something and clicked on a website you didn't visit before, chances are it could download a virus to your computer that deletes your C:\Windows folder, turns your wallpaper into a picture of a pixelated, mutilated corpse, or both. Antiviruses didn't usually stop problems at the source, they treated the infection. You didn't have software firewalls, Windows smartscreen, free built-in Windows Defender, secure web browsers, warning screens before installing or modifying anything in your system, phishing warnings on your emails, spam sorting, or even pop up blockers. Back then, if someone wanted to screw up your computer, they could and would with incredible ease. However, the old web was also a place of complete artistic freedom for people. There weren't rules that governed the way websites needed to be designed with specific metadata in order to get hits on Google's algorithm. Hell, websites didn't even have ads 99% of the time... People who made websites (outside of companies to show off their products) made it with the sole intention of just being a part of a larger whole, a place where they could show off their true selves no matter what it was. Whether that means a black background with pixelated flaming gifs next to a blood red title header to talk about how much school sucks and how your parents don't understand that this isn't just a phase, to hot pink backgrounds with bright yellow text that was the equivalent of staring into the sun, it was a place without limits. It was this fear of the unknown, but also the excitement of the unknown, that made the old web beautiful. Just like people romanticize old westerns for showing America as a land of freedom and opportunity where the only law of the land was shoot-now-ask-later, so too was the old web a place of potentially dangerous yet rewarding exploration. So when I look for a news article now and realize that the same company owns the first top 5 results and the other 15 are copy pasted articles of the top 5, it's hard not to get nostalgic for a time when life was simpler and not governed by money and greed, only the true expression of one's soul and artistic creativity. This website will be a love letter to that, a time when webpages were simple and easy to use.

ABOUT

LINKS

Exploring the old web was unnerving, like walking an empty street at night not knowing where you'll end up. You could end up near a roadside diner that offers you the cheapest and tastiest 3 AM meal you've ever tried in your life, or you could end up in the middle of a KKK bonfire. The old web felt like that, where if you knew exactly where to go, like cartoonnetwork.com, you simply entered the address on your web browser and went there, knowing you'll end up in a good place... But if you searched for something and clicked on a website you didn't visit before, chances are it could download a virus to your computer that deletes your C:\Windows folder, turns your wallpaper into a picture of a pixelated, mutilated corpse, or both.

Antiviruses didn't usually stop problems at the source, they treated the infection. You didn't have software firewalls, Windows smartscreen, free built-in Windows Defender, secure web browsers, warning screens before installing or modifying anything in your system, phishing warnings on your emails, spam sorting, or even pop up blockers. Back then, if someone wanted to screw up your computer, they could and would with incredible ease.

However, the old web was also a place of complete artistic freedom for people. There weren't rules that governed the way websites needed to be designed with specific metadata in order to get hits on Google's algorithm. Hell, websites didn't even have ads 99% of the time... People who made websites (outside of companies to show off their products) made it with the sole intention of just being a part of a larger whole, a place where they could show off their true selves no matter what it was. Whether that means a black background with pixelated flaming gifs next to a blood red title header to talk about how much school sucks and how your parents don't understand that this isn't just a phase, to hot pink backgrounds with bright yellow text that was the equivalent of staring into the sun, it was a place without limits.

It was this fear of the unknown, but also the excitement of the unknown, that made the old web beautiful. Just like people romanticize old westerns for showing America as a land of freedom and opportunity where the only law of the land was shoot-now-ask-later, so too was the old web a place of potentially dangerous yet rewarding exploration. So when I look for a news article now and realize that the same company owns the first top 5 results and the other 15 are copy pasted articles of the top 5, it's hard not to get nostalgic for a time when life was simpler and not governed by money and greed, only the true expression of one's soul and artistic creativity.

This website will be a love letter to that, a time when webpages were simple and easy to use.