this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
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The Smol Web

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Community for the appreciation and sharing of links, resources, and culture of: the smol web / small web / ~(w)~ / the indie web / or even the non-www internet (gemini, gopher, etc).

Back of a napkin definition, subject to change: if it's internet accessible and is maintained by a person, especially for non-commercial aims, then I would consider it smol. There are, however, much stricter definitions.

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Hardly needs an introduction, but someone is always experiencing something new on the internet, so if this is you today - congratulations!

You can click many of the images to pop up an archived version of an old Geocities page. Or just scroll and enjoy the soothing theme song (recommend turning sound on (speaker icon in top-right)).

Here's a splainer from the footer of Cameron's World itself:

GeoCities was a web-hosting service that made it possible for people to build their own home pages. During the 90s, users from all over the world created personalized corners of the Internet.

By the time the U.S. service shut down in October 2009, there were over 38 million GeoCities pages. Cameron’s World brings together archived material from thousands and thousands of these sites.

In an age where we interact primarily with branded and marketed web content, Cameron’s World is a tribute to the lost days of unrefined self-expression on the Internet. This project recalls the visual aesthetics from an era when it was expected that personal spaces would always be under construction.

Actually, a little bit of trivia: if you go back to the aughts with the WayBack Machine, you'll find the domain was considerably riskier then. Click around at your own risk, because it gets NSFW pretty quickly. :)

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[–] quercus@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

This unlocked a memory of making a page full of dress up dollz. I had a composition notebook full of html codes 😂

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Oh that's a good memory. I remember roughing out website ideas at school and later work, waiting until I got home to try them out (all on localhost ofc haha).

Some of the gifs really call to me, and I couldn't even tell you why. Maybe I'm just remembering what the www used to look like.

[–] quercus@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 days ago

Same here. The music really sets the mood, too. Mesmerizing in a way.

I remember being invited to facebook and getting upset you couldn't customize your page. Going from angelfire/geocities to myspace then to that... such a loss of character.