Whither the Webpage ⇥ theawl.com

Charles Thaxton, writing for the Awl:

So to what extent does the way a site looks impact what a site is? This question might have to be re-legislated again. What seems certain is that fewer discrete pages means fewer discrete voices, and further ensures that the internet becomes primarily a vehicle for reaction (and all the ugliness of a purely reactionary culture) rather than creation.

Nostalgia for the way the web looked is really a sublimated nostalgia for how it felt, for a time in almost everyone’s life when discovery and openness and joy were all more operable. As much as we want to preserve the early internet in amber, we want to hold on to the feeling of the early internet even more.

It fascinates me that there are Tumblr blogs belonging to teenagers who never experienced the early, lo-fi web, but seek to emulate its style. They’re also partially responsible for the resurgence of animated GIFs over the past few years. I wonder if they are trying to create their interpretation of a romanticized ideal.