12 Websites That Will Body Slam You Back To The Early Aughts
Only DollzMania can save us now.
Recently, we asked the BuzzFeed Community to share stories about their very first websites or blogs. Here are their fondest remembrances!
1. The story that proves everyone's gotta start somewhere:
Here's a montage of the very first websites I made on Freewebs.com when I was 12 in 2004. I learned how to code when I was playing Neopets (I was obsessed with Neopets lol). When I started making sites, it was around the time I entered my 'emo phase' and I made so many layouts featuring my favourite bands.
The early 2000s brings back so many wonderful memories of my time online — fanlistings, Myspace, DollzMania, blogging, etc. It was during that time I decided I was going to be a graphic/web designer and I'm thankful for those experiences that got me to where my career is today.
2. The high school project that no one needs to know about:
I did this 50webs thing for an IT class sophomore year of high school when we were learning HTML coding/web design. The background was tiled, you can't read the text, and I put up tacky quotes a lovesick teenager loved in the '00s. Fast forward nine years later, I'm now a thriving digital marketing manager, and part of my experience is project management for web development. So lucky that my employers never found out about my embarrassing initial venture into websites!
3. The girl's only spot:
Gyrlcorner.webstarts.com, just take a look. 'Nuff said lol.
4. The Sailor Senshi scholar we can all relate to (...right?):
I created a Geocities web page featuring all things Sailor Moon. I collected pictures and found songs from the show, in glorious MIDI format! I tried to create little bios of all the Senshi using what I knew from the volume manga published by Tokyo Pop before the reboot, and the anime lovingly massacred by DIC. Sadly, it was never finished and died in the Great Geocites Purge.
5. The Dollz designer who helped us out before emojis came around:
Had a Geocities website called "Kate's Korner." It was a place to post all the dollz I made in MS Paint. Man... I'm old LOL.
6. The activist who was ahead of their time:
I was in sixth grade and after watching a video about global warming in school, I decided to make a website to try to “educate” people about it. Needless to say, it didn’t really work out. I got like 5 views total before taking it down.
7. The dedicated dolphin fanatic:
When I was 10, I had a huge obsession with dolphins. Everything was about dolphins. The books I read, the movies I watched, the decorations in my room, etc. So one day, I went on Blogspot and created my own little blog about dolphins. Every day, I’d update the world with a fact or some news. I did this every single day, seven days a week, for about a year.
8. The fan who proved it's never too late to make that fansite:
When I was around ten in 2000, my uncle showed me how to make a simple webpage. I used to sneak onto the computer late at night to build a webpage as an homage to Madeline Kahn. I even used MS Paint to create a background for it. What 10-year-old was obsessed with her in the 2000s?
9. The basketball philosopher:
When I was 8 or 9, I developed a really sudden fascination with basketball. I was terrible at it and refused to call it anything other than "b-ball." I ended up creating a website called "Aly's Thoughts On B-ball" that featured such gems as, "Why B-ball Is Cooler Than Soccer" and "How To Be A Professional B-ball Player." I inevitably sent the link out to my whole extended family because I was so proud. Sadly though, I did not ever really play basketball.
10. The reason the Spy Kids franchise lasted as long as it did:
I can't remember what the host was — it was a kids edu-tainment site where you could make your own page and learn basic HTML — but I had a site dedicated to Spy Kids and how it was the best movie ever, and listed all the reasons why I thought so. I updated that thing like nobody's business.
11. The fansite '80s babies will appreciate:
Ok get ready for a throowwwback that legit only people born before 1990 will remember. There was this show on Nickelodeon called Space Cases. It only lasted two seasons and you’ll only find it on YouTube. I was obSESSED with it, and my favorite character was Catalina. I wrote fanfiction for it and my own page on a popular fan website (I think it was called Leah’s Space Something). No one remembers that show but it was amazing.
12. The blog that got a little too cool for school:
I had a Blogspot blog that was titled "Getting Crazy with the Cheese Whiz” à la Beck’s Loser lyrics. It was random ramblings, like what I did that day or what I thought was funny. And then came the fateful day. For a class in college I thought it would be so innovative to submit my papers via blog, because I just loved blogging. Well, any additional blog you created with the same email linked together. So the instructor saw all of my rants about how the class sucked and that it was an insult to education. And she called me out on it. I’ve never been so regretful in my life.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and clarity.