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Our Internet Years
I can never get anything done every time I go to look up something in Wikipedia. I was looking for info about Dodgy but somehow I ended up browsing the entries for Geocities, Fortunecity and Tripod, followed by the immense nostalgia and a sadness about how easily our history can disappear like it never happened.
Ackbar Abbas's Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance is a set text for anyone who studies Hong Kong culture. I can't help thinking that the internet life of our generation is exactly like that. Or maybe it'll disappear even more completely than Hong Kong. We were the generation when the internet boom first hit Hong Kong. We remember how we browsed and picked which neighbourhood in Geocities or Fortunecity to make our home. We remember the joy when xoom first arrived (and the pain when it went away). We remember joining Link Exchange and Web Ring and when that actually worked. We remember downloading clip art (esp. background, bars & buttons set) all over the web and actually using just that to make our sites. And the EFF ribbon was on every non-commercial site everywhere.
We remember newsgroups. We used mailing lists. And I spent hours and hours editing dmoz (the Open Directory Project) - even got the labels. And I remember Suprnova.org, like I remember the pirate copies of Saint Seiya doujinshis that were sold at every newsagent like they were proper Japanese manga. I remember when Ai no kusabi VCDs (also pirate versions) were openly sold in shopping malls.
But I guess trying to explain that to the younger generations would only get blank faces, like that time when I tried explaining the DOS and Eten years to a colleague a couple of years younger than me.
Ackbar Abbas's Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance is a set text for anyone who studies Hong Kong culture. I can't help thinking that the internet life of our generation is exactly like that. Or maybe it'll disappear even more completely than Hong Kong. We were the generation when the internet boom first hit Hong Kong. We remember how we browsed and picked which neighbourhood in Geocities or Fortunecity to make our home. We remember the joy when xoom first arrived (and the pain when it went away). We remember joining Link Exchange and Web Ring and when that actually worked. We remember downloading clip art (esp. background, bars & buttons set) all over the web and actually using just that to make our sites. And the EFF ribbon was on every non-commercial site everywhere.
We remember newsgroups. We used mailing lists. And I spent hours and hours editing dmoz (the Open Directory Project) - even got the labels. And I remember Suprnova.org, like I remember the pirate copies of Saint Seiya doujinshis that were sold at every newsagent like they were proper Japanese manga. I remember when Ai no kusabi VCDs (also pirate versions) were openly sold in shopping malls.
But I guess trying to explain that to the younger generations would only get blank faces, like that time when I tried explaining the DOS and Eten years to a colleague a couple of years younger than me.
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Oh, I remember, I remember. It's crazy isn't it, how things can just disappear in cyberspace, unmarked, and mostly unmissed...
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