4 ms·

Oh, I thought we'd moved on to the 2000s? I was just about to post an old collection of MSN and AOL portal screenshots on my tumblr. That was close. Any idea ar

by leppr 12y ago

Oh, I thought we'd moved on to the 2000s? I was just about to post an old collection of MSN and AOL portal screenshots on my tumblr. That was close. Any idea around when the 2000s will be in-vogue? Some of my case studies indicate it should have begun already. My baseline is 1000 notifications a post so call me when it's time please.

moron4hire 12y ago
I don't know if I should up vote you or down vote you. I agree that articles like this one are a pain. They are pitching a misplaced nostalgia. The "good ol' days" weren't good. Even then, we knew that these sites were bad. We just didn't know what else to do. I used to be torn on the Tumblr blogs that create the content that ends up in articles like this. On one hand, link-baity articles that keep hammering on one subject, over and over again, wouldn't exist without them. But on the other, I understand that need to explore and create things, even things that aren't a good aesthetic. I did an entire series on taking cellphone photos of prisms that had lasers passing through them. Hundreds of photos that were mostly junk. But there was something in there that I couldn't articulate, and the process of posting helped me figure it out. I did it for the same reason I played Sudoku for a year straight, but haven't touched it again in 7 years: I had a need to figure it out. It's one of the reasons why I think there is no meaningful distinction between art and science. Your brain subconsciously recognizes that something is there, gets snagged on it, and you use the tools at your disposal to test, test, test and figure it out. I know very few working, successful (even if marginally so) artists who make exactly what they want. Most of them are trend following on how the market reacts, and they aren't exactly cognizant of the precise elements that make their work popular. It's our fault for continuing to buy it. But regardless, I also don't think it deserves such a flippant reply. HN gives you all the characters you could want to write a reply.
- leppr 12y ago
  Well you probably should have up voted me but it's my fault for being unclear about my opinion while trying to be funny. I don't think that this aesthetic is stupid or anything, it's only that what's represented in this article is the same kind of content you would see when tumblr had almost just been created. People were very attracted to these aesthetics, some focusing more on the uncanny aspects while others presented a more quaint and nostalgic picture. It gave rise to a whole plethora of visual and even musical sub-genres. People developed sometime very fine and subtle aesthetics. Reading this article makes me feel the same way an average HN'er would feel reading a 2015 article praising the merits of that new paradigm shift called Object Oriented Programming. You would expect at least one or two sarcastic comments. Even *ing Rihanna 'borrowed' the style 3 years ago [1]. And we're talking about the most mainstream US singer since Michael Jackson. Still I know techies aren't exactly the most art-voracious demographic so maybe I'll try to dig up some google stats to prove my point. [1]: http://www.spin.com/articles/azealia-banks-rihanna-seapunk-beef-saturday-night-live-video/ http://www.spin.com/articles/azealia-banks-rihanna-seapunk-b... (2012)
  - sp332 12y ago
    The aesthetics of Geocities was admittedly pretty questionable :) But it is still interesting. http://contemporary-home-computing.org/1tb/ http://contemporary-home-computing.org/1tb/
    - moron4hire 12y ago
      There is no accounting for the amount of time I spent trying to pick the perfect background music for the websites I built in the late 90s. It never occurred to me that you'd even want a silent site. But, I guess that's the nature of youth. We're supposed to be a bit embarrassed of ourselves, or else we never grew.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      Thanks for that link. Fun memories.

by leppr 12y ago

moron4hire 12y ago

I don't know if I should up vote you or down vote you. I agree that articles like this one are a pain. They are pitching a misplaced nostalgia. The "good ol' days" weren't good. Even then, we knew that these sites were bad. We just didn't know what else to do. I used to be torn on the Tumblr blogs that create the content that ends up in articles like this. On one hand, link-baity articles that keep hammering on one subject, over and over again, wouldn't exist without them. But on the other, I understand that need to explore and create things, even things that aren't a good aesthetic. I did an entire series on taking cellphone photos of prisms that had lasers passing through them. Hundreds of photos that were mostly junk. But there was something in there that I couldn't articulate, and the process of posting helped me figure it out. I did it for the same reason I played Sudoku for a year straight, but haven't touched it again in 7 years: I had a need to figure it out. It's one of the reasons why I think there is no meaningful distinction between art and science. Your brain subconsciously recognizes that something is there, gets snagged on it, and you use the tools at your disposal to test, test, test and figure it out. I know very few working, successful (even if marginally so) artists who make exactly what they want. Most of them are trend following on how the market reacts, and they aren't exactly cognizant of the precise elements that make their work popular. It's our fault for continuing to buy it. But regardless, I also don't think it deserves such a flippant reply. HN gives you all the characters you could want to write a reply.

leppr 12y ago
Well you probably should have up voted me but it's my fault for being unclear about my opinion while trying to be funny. I don't think that this aesthetic is stupid or anything, it's only that what's represented in this article is the same kind of content you would see when tumblr had almost just been created. People were very attracted to these aesthetics, some focusing more on the uncanny aspects while others presented a more quaint and nostalgic picture. It gave rise to a whole plethora of visual and even musical sub-genres. People developed sometime very fine and subtle aesthetics. Reading this article makes me feel the same way an average HN'er would feel reading a 2015 article praising the merits of that new paradigm shift called Object Oriented Programming. You would expect at least one or two sarcastic comments. Even *ing Rihanna 'borrowed' the style 3 years ago [1]. And we're talking about the most mainstream US singer since Michael Jackson. Still I know techies aren't exactly the most art-voracious demographic so maybe I'll try to dig up some google stats to prove my point. [1]: http://www.spin.com/articles/azealia-banks-rihanna-seapunk-beef-saturday-night-live-video/ http://www.spin.com/articles/azealia-banks-rihanna-seapunk-b... (2012)
- sp332 12y ago
  The aesthetics of Geocities was admittedly pretty questionable :) But it is still interesting. http://contemporary-home-computing.org/1tb/ http://contemporary-home-computing.org/1tb/
  - moron4hire 12y ago
    There is no accounting for the amount of time I spent trying to pick the perfect background music for the websites I built in the late 90s. It never occurred to me that you'd even want a silent site. But, I guess that's the nature of youth. We're supposed to be a bit embarrassed of ourselves, or else we never grew.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Thanks for that link. Fun memories.