retro

I'm going to be spending my weekend wondering why this is a real thing.

Think you can explain it? Tell us in the comments.

Want to extend your weekend? Check out previous WTFridays!

Months after the initial announcement, today, it becomes official: Yahoo has shut down GeoCities— one of the original kings of free web hosting services.

Now, all of those GeoCities websites (excuse me, "Web Sites") are coming down. It's got me more tear-jerkingly nostalgic than Where The Wild Things Are.

No doubt, GeoCities started a revolution, but many of its ways have gone by the wayside. While Yahoo deploys the virtual demolition crews, let's make one last toast to a few of the relics they'll leave in the rubble.

1) Under Construction GIFs

It's absurd to think that putting up an ?under construction? sign on a web page was at one point an idea that was (pardon the pun) ?ground breaking.?

Why did people make such a big deal out of being ?under construction? in the 90s? It's not necessarily something you want to attract attention to. ?Hey! See this fancy animated GIF? That?s just a previewof how impressive my site will be when it?s done.?

Sadly, putting up 37 under construction animations is definitely as impressive as your Family Mattersfan page ever got. (Except for when you added the auto-playing MIDI version of the intro song. That was awesome.)

And why the civil engineering motif? Are you trying to tell me that a self-taught HTML geek is like a construction worker? I hope not. Making a website is about the furthest you can get from hard manual labor.

See the other six retro things we'll miss after the jump… more...

A week from today, GeoCities — Yahoo's free website hosting arm — will be no more. Yahoo decided to pull the plug a while ago but on Monday, it's official. (Don't worry. We'll be paying our respects for the rest of the week.)

One of the two and a half things that GeoCities bestowed upon web culture was the idea of ?under construction." Just stick an ugly orange warning image on your site, and you have instant license to jack things around without regard for your users!

People are scrambling to save things from GeoCities before they go ?poof" and a group called Archiveteam has built a site to save these legendary under construction signs. It?s kind of ironic that they?re saving "under construction" signs from a site that?s about to get demolished. I guess it makes sense though ?- people will need them when they start rebuilding after Yahoo bulldozes the place.

Sites are always under construction but when was the last time you actually saw one of these signs? In concept, they don't make much sense — even back then — since websites are almost by definition dynamic entities.

One banner that I saw had flashing sirens surrounding animations of men using pneumatic drills over a hammer being operated by an invisible hand slamming the "C" in a giant "UNDER CONSTRUCTION." Why did they have to make such a big deal out of being under construction in the 90s? ?Hey! See this fancy construction GIF? That?s just a preview of how impressive my site is about to be when it?s done.? Sadly, putting up 37 under construction animations is definitely as impressive as your Family Matters fan page ever got.

Why should there be a civil engineering motif to websites that are still being made? Real construction isn't similar to making changes to a website. In real life, construction causes traffic. On the web, it's the opposite.

Plus, by this rationale, computer science geeks are "construction workers." Well then, where are the tans and muscles! Nonsense. Making a website will never be hard manual labor.

But there's one construction GIF that's acceptable to use. How could you pass this up? My Web Developer is the Lord.

[via The Presurfer]

Yes, the Internet has tons of pornography…

But it also consistently serves as an outlet for those who seek "mental masturbation" via 80's nostalgia and gadgets with retro appeal.

Sure, the above video of a hand-held gaming system made out of an old NES cartridge looks cool.  But what's the point?

The video doesn't provide a link on where you can buy one of these for yourself.  It doesn't give any instructions on how to make one.  Whoever made this video basically provides no information whatsoever except to say, "Hey, look at this cool thing I have!"

Why would you taunt us like this?  What do you stand to gain?!  Is there a benefit in instilling jealously throughout the world??

Yet people still gawk and covet.  If you build 80's retro junk, they will come.

[via Unique Daily]

Here?s video proof that journalists had a solid 30 years to come up with a new business model. Unfortunately, he said, "We're not in it to make money," which is roughly the same model they're still using now. And the newspaper websites of today might seem flashy, but they're still using the same "less-than-fashionable cubby holes" and "Ohio" computers.

[via Journocafe]

We're all sad about the death of Ted Kennedy. Any person with his own separate Wikipedia article — just for his awards and honors — deserves a lot of respect in my book. In fact, he was a Senator for so long that he actually had the first website among the Senators. From back in 1994, it's pictured above (and you can click through to a larger version of the screen grab). Though the site was pretty momentous at the time, let's bask in its awesome retroness.

I wonder how the end of his campaign commercial went back then. "For my whole tax plan, visit my handy, easy-to-remember website at: http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/iiip/kennedy/homepage.html."

It's pretty remarkable to think that a whole "project" back in the day at MIT was to make a black and grey website for Ted Kennedy. I hope that during campaign season they added little firework animations and scrolling text via the indispensable <marquee> tag. Or maybe not. It looks like the <center> tag hadn't been invented yet.

[thanks Steve]