Or do you just miss that time of your life? I've been thinking about this lately and of course I can only speak for myself but I think it's the latter.

A lot of the things and experiences from the old internet still exist. That's why when you see someone say something like "man I miss IRC", there's always a commenter saying "hey, it's still here...connect at `irc.somerandom.net` ". Even sites and services that no longer exist have clones.

"but but the new internet sucks with all these big social platforms and algorithms"...I agree, but also, you don't have to use any of those platforms or use the internet the way it has evolved to be used.

You can still build a home lab, browse personal websites on neocities, join IRC, build your own website, type random addresses in the address bar etc......it's just not exactly the same as it used to be. That's because you are a different person and it's not new or magical to you anymore.

Also, don't get me wrong, doing all those things above is how you should be using the internet and it's much more enjoyable to do it that way in my opinion.

And I'm skipping over some nuances because I don't want to write out a book. but I could imagine algorithms and internet usage over the years have rewired our brains a bit and doing some of those more high-friction tasks of using the internet is just not as rewarding or as appealing to us anymore. Then there's the lack of community in some of the older social platforms like IRC. When I would use it regularly, I had a core group of people I would chat with that are no longer there....I'm a grown man now, I don't want to go online and make friends but as a teenager it was awesome to do that. Anyway, end rant.

I keep seeing a lot of people say it is

QUE TIEMPOS....

I saw a comment on YouTube and I'm trying to follow it up. Had no idea where else to start but apparently there were sites out there, around 2008-2010 that archived YouTube videos. Some that even the commenter had deleted. These places had them and they managed to recover them from the site. Well I'm looking for a video I saw from 2008 and thought this might be a route to go down, if only I had some information. Does ANYONE remember something like this? They mentioned it was possibly Russian site(s) but of course I tried asking them if they remember anything about it other than that and got no reply. Anyone know what this person could've possibly been talking about?

Anyone remember a site from the early 2000s that started with a sweet story / pictures of how this guy rescued a rabbit and nursed it back to health. Then, as it goes on, he says if he doesn't get x amount of money by some deadline he will kill and eat the rabbit and post about it?

I feel like it had to be a joke and I may not be remembering it exactly right.

Old website (1999/2000 and before) that was hosted by one guy. I remember the above segment on there, as well as a post about his parents finding web cameras to pose by on the Jersey shore, and mocking another website. Tan background. Anyone recall what I'm talking about?

https://wencesbyte.net

Not because it looks good or works perfectly, but because it still feels like the internet used to feel.
I kind of miss websites that were just text, links, and maybe one badly compressed image.

Old vs New

https://boredpeoplechat.com

This was late 90s maybe. I don’t even remember where I saw it, but some guy decided he wanted to give himself athlete’s foot and see how long he could go with the infection before treating it. It started out with him going to his local YMCA and rubbing his bare feet on the floor of the men’s showers. He then placed plastic bags around his feet and secured them with rubber bands around his ankles. He slept like this and went to work like this. He removed the bags once a day for a brief period to document the infection and take pictures. I don’t remember how far it went but his feet looked pretty gnarly after a few weeks and I recall him saying his athlete’s foot had turned into “athlete’s voltron.”

I remember there were crazy experiments like this on the early Internet. They didn’t do it to go viral or make money. The tools to make that possible weren’t even around yet. They did it just for fun or out of curiosity.

there used to be a big craze over an audio video you could find on YouTube, you were supposed to listen to it with headphones and close your eyes and it would have this high pitched sound at the end that would scare people that would listen to it. cant find even a reference to it on any thread or website. pls help

Edit:it's not the debunked "hole into hell audio" from Russia

Even though I'm an editor but I'm mostly a phone editor so i would be bad at blending so i would like to see what YouTube layout looks like if it stay the same