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The early internet was wild, weird, and wonderful. There was no social media. No smartphones. No platform ecosystems like Google or iOS to create a uniform aesthetic. From 1995 to the early 2000s, the online world was whatever you made of it. As long as your parents didn’t need the phone.
As SEO experts, we spend a lot of time studying the internet. From algorithm updates to new strategies like incorporating AI in content marketing, the Redefine Marketing Group team is always keeping up with what’s new. But sometimes, we take a break from looking to the future and wax nostalgic about the past.
We recently asked our team to reflect on their earliest memories of the World Wide Web and what they miss most. Here’s what they said:
Stephanie Fehrmann, co-founder: “Old internet is my passion”
- LiveJournal: I still have my LiveJournal from high school/early college activated and I love going back and reading my entries. I loved the sense of community that LiveJournal created – I still have friends I am friends with to this day who I met through LiveJournal. I miss having a space where you could get to know someone for their thoughts and emotions instead of through a perfectly curated Instagram profile that only shows the best part of their lives. I like knowing the raw and sad parts of people, too, and LiveJournal was a great place to access that.
- Melodramatic: Melodramatic is another journal-type website from the early to mid-00s that I absolutely LOVED. It was a precursor to LiveJournal and was very representative of the “scene” culture at the time. Unfortunately Melodramatic is no longer active so I can no longer go back and revisit it.
- Pirating things from The Pirate Bay & Napster: Even though piracy isn’t dead by any means, I miss the dedication it took to download things from those sites. Once I remember I spent over a week downloading the entire series of COPS and once it finally downloaded and I started playing episode 1 it was in Spanish.
- AIM / away messages:I love the idea of logging into a platform and chatting with people on your own time. Then when you’re busy you just pop up an away message and deal with any messages you received while you’re away later. I think being constantly connected is toxic for mental health, so logging in for an hour or two every night and chatting with people is something I definitely miss.
- Meeting people from the internet when it somehow felt safer but probably wasn’t: It might not have BEEN safer to meet people off the Internet in the mid to late-00s, it definitely FELT safer. I met a handful of friends through AIM or LiveJournal and it was nice meeting people I felt really close to in person after we spent months and months chatting online.
- Periscope: I miss Periscope so much! It isn’t actually that old (started in 2015), but it was a video streaming app that had a map so you could choose a live video stream from anywhere in the world where there was one. I remember seeing live streams from Germany after they won a huge soccer championship and watching people party in the streets, live streams from festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza, and then just ordinary things like people in Russia hanging out and drinking or someone in Turkey cooking food. It was a really fun way to waste some time online
- Myspace + Myspace drama: Who doesn’t miss the *drama* of giving your new boyfriend the #1 position in your “TOP 8” and having your best friend freak out about it. I miss adding songs to my MySpace page and having it be my first experience with coding – making things bold or italicized, etc.
Andrew Hernandez, SEO analyst: “The old internet was GOATED, and here’s why!”
Greater anonymity
With fewer trackers, it was easier to be anonymous online, which offered a great sense of freedom. Back then, it was like the Wild West of the internet, and everyone was on their own, using names like “Dragon$layer265” or “xX_WyrmRyder420_Xx.”
There was a certain magic to being in a world that was essentially a fantasy, where legends were shrouded in mystery and didn’t need a huge Twitch following to be revered. They were just cool because they were knowledgeable or good at something, and everybody knew them because communities were much smaller back then.
A more personal and passionate web
A higher barrier to entry meant that if you were building a website, you were truly dedicated to it and invested every aspect of it with great passion. With far fewer monetization options, many websites were created out of love for the topic, with few other motivations, which lends them well to feelings of credibility and genuine fellowship when discussing a topic online.
The old school, simple, what you see is what you get UIs
Even though they’re often a bit all over the place. Have a look at some of my favorite old-school websites:
- JeffLudwig.com
- Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
- Snafaru’s Fan Page
- Welcome to the Home of Flamestryke
They’re definitely a little odd to navigate, but they’re rich with information, all collected by individuals or through online forum discussions.
Miranda Perry, content manager: “Two words: Time. Cube.”
Early websites were insane in the best way
Like Andrew, I loved the wildly uneven aesthetic of the old internet. There were no sleek, minimalist templates that made everything look kind of the same. Instead, you had DIY sites built on platforms like Geocities and Angelfire. There were animated GIFs, MIDI songs that would auto-play, menus of links that made no logical sense, text blocks all over the place.
When people ask about my favorite old school website, I say two words: Time. Cube. I don’t remember where I first encountered it, but Time Cube remains one of the most hilariously absurd things I’ve ever seen. Part pseudoscience, part conspiracy manifesto, 100% incomprehensible. Imagine the ramblings on the Dr. Bronner soap label if they did meth.
Flash cartoons
I’ve always enjoyed animation, in general, and there was a period where Macromedia/Adobe Flash opened the floodgates to a lot of really wonderful indie cartoons on the internet. All Your Base, Animutations, Badger Badger Badger. But Homestar Runner was my favorite. My friends and I watched Strong Bad Emails religiously. Trogdor!!!
Online shopping before Amazon
I also miss online shopping before Amazon. It seemed like a more mindful process because you’d have to search much harder to find exactly what you wanted, research the seller to make sure they were legit, email the seller if you had questions about the item, and then sometimes wait 4-6 weeks for your shipment to arrive. I remember using my dad’s eBay account to bid on video games and graphic novels, which also made the process more fun than just clicking “buy now.”
Adrian Gonzalez, SEO specialist: “Club Penguin”
“i miss club penguin”
Us too, Adrian. Us too. #justiceforclubpenguin
Michael Gomez, content operations manager: “GTG meant something.”
I feel like I miss a lot about the early days of the internet. I think I can talk forever about this once the ball gets rolling and triggers memories of old websites and moments. I’ll try to keep it brief, even though it is hard not to reminisce about what we hoped the internet would be versus where we ended up.
1. People did it for the love of the game.
Not every interaction on the web was monetized, and that made it feel so much cooler. People created content for the love of it, funny videos, blogs, guides, and quirky projects, mostly for the sake of sharing.
Early YouTube is a great example. It was all about sharing videos without ads, clickbait titles, or optimized thumbnails. MySpace was messy and personal, where people expressed themselves with custom pages. GameFAQs captures this vibe perfectly. Fans made guides written in simple text without ad-filled videos (or stuffed keywords lol). It was all about showing your knowledge/helping people.
Stuff like that still exists, but it feels rarer now. More like a diamond in the rough. I miss the simplicity. It was basic in a way that felt earnest and real. It is funny because the old joke was “on the internet, nobody knows you are a dog,” but it still felt more human than it does now.
2. GTG meant something.
When you said GTG or TTYL, you were gone, and everyone understood that. Now, you’re always online and always reachable. While there’s convenience in that, I miss the ability to disconnect.
The internet was a place you would visit, like an amusement park. You would “go online,” explore, talk to people, and then leave to live your life. Now it lives in your pocket and never really shuts off.
There were no instant DMs or endless private channels like Instagram and WhatsApp. Even back when we used AIM, families typically shared one computer, which meant you had only about 30 minutes to message your friends before getting kicked off. Communication felt more intentional, so we appreciated it more.
What do you miss?
What do you miss about the early internet? We’d love to reminisce with you! Drop our team a line today or connect with us on social media and share your fond memories of the early web.
