The Dead Web, abandoned and dead web pages

[unknown death 2002]

There's something haunting, eerie and sad about web pages or personal blogs that were just abandoned.
A few old geocities pages are still up today but exist in ruin
here are some screenshots I took

feel free to share your screenshots or links too

 

[unknown death 2002]

 

[Xovi]

i know a really sad one, i really dont want to give it away though (due to keeping it DEAD, its like a artifact) but its this forum, this a dead forum that seems to be only running due to the owner of it wanting to be ran for memories. it goes back YEARS, and you can tell when the activity died, and how the owner misses his members. He always checks in, he checked in during covid, and checked in again only recently. its pretty sad and definitely eerie. the passage of time does not forgive anyone.

 

[remember_summer_days]

There was an old thread here about a website that throws you random 90's-early 00's websites. Here it is, just click on the surprise me button. Though I never found any 'this website is over' sort of comments, you can tell most of the pages that come up are completely abandoned. Blogs that have their last entry like 15 years ago are especially daunting. You can't help but wonder what happened to the person behind the site. Are they dead? Did they disappear to run away from their ex? Just moved on from their blogging hobby? And not to mention the haunting feeling of an abandoned website, it sort of feels like going, not like I've gone to one but the videos give that impression, to an abandoned mall or urban building. The abandoned internet website might be the equivalent of an old and decrepit European cathedral or a decaying southern plantation mansion. So internet gothic, whatever that implies. I personally want to write stories that capture that haunting eeriness of an old and obscure abandoned internet website, a very weird sense of loneliness and nostalgia brought about via the contemplation of a dead thing. Dead internet websites are, forgive the redundancy, haunting. They are dead but somehow still present as a ghost and ghosts scare us.

As for my contribution, The Windows of the World website feels especially sad. https://web.archive.org/web/20010405131255/http://www.windowsontheworld.com/wow/index.shtml

 

[Punp]

And not to mention the haunting feeling of an abandoned website, it sort of feels like going, not like I've gone to one but the videos give that impression, to an abandoned mall or urban building. The abandoned internet website might be the equivalent of an old and decrepit European cathedral or a decaying southern plantation mansion. So internet gothic, whatever that implies. I personally want to write stories that capture that haunting eeriness of an old and obscure abandoned internet website, a very weird sense of loneliness and nostalgia brought about via the contemplation of a dead thing. Dead internet websites are, forgive the redundancy, haunting. They are dead but somehow still present as a ghost and ghosts scare us.

Thanks for the inspiration!

The Forum

I pored over the maze of entertwining threads like corridors and rooms, each filled with mannequin-like figures frozen in their final gestures like a digital Pompeii. I pitied those struck with simple, one-word-riposte paralysis of "haha" or "this"; marvelled at the glorious down-in-flames deaths declaring they'll never come back after some minor spat; and wondered at the figures remarking that they'll "post tomorrow, it's too late right now". Their history and personalities were painted in their discourse - their favourite animes and why they suck, plans for the summer that they'd never later relate, and little glimpses between the cracks in their anonymous armour of the meatspace that would later consume them.

Their kids would grow, their jobs would change, their living situation would unfold like wet origami.

I was happy for them.

They were free.

 

[Punp]

I'll edit this post as I browse. I realise they're not broken sites like you wanted, but they're still packed with old data and abandoned.

The girl's 06 journal

I found a girl's old journal from 2006. It was sweet to browse through someone's old life. They're 40 now. I thought it was abandoned, but they have a google calendar hooked up which is still being used. They have burning man planned. It's nice to know that the abandonweb doesn't necessarily mean death!

They have galleries of friends and family showing a life well lived.

I emailed them about their google calender posting their updates live. Looks like there's some private data there. In fact, there's lots of private data all over the website including body measurements - it's bizarre.

I won't link it here because it seems riddled with private information, but I really liked her splash screen.

Christian hymns

Bigfoot research site

Pipe collector's website (this guy was a chad)

Pork rinds

On Dovecotes

Nothing has really changed - a guy's blog
This one is packed with personality. I really love the distorted digitised photography.

 

[Punp]

Update: the email bounced. Guess she's online forever until she's not.

 

[Xovi]

if you guys want to find a lot of dead sites just enter [game name] and then forum in a search engine, then skip several pages and have fun.

 

[2bitDeparture]

i know a really sad one, i really dont want to give it away though (due to keeping it DEAD, its like a artifact) but its this forum, this a dead forum that seems to be only running due to the owner of it wanting to be ran for memories. it goes back YEARS, and you can tell when the activity died, and how the owner misses his members. He always checks in, he checked in during covid, and checked in again only recently. its pretty sad and definitely eerie. the passage of time does not forgive anyone.

Reminds me of a forum from the later 2000s(I think) that I've still got in newsboat. Just visited to take a look, Used to be a go to place, sections for gaming, tech, etc.. most active was anime, they had a whole directory of ddl's for anime, one guy that made these huge bloated high quality encodes.. around 2019 I think they got a dmca or something and removed that whole side of the site, there was a decent drop off then, but now its gone from some 1k+ alternating active users down to a few hundred that don't even use the actual forum anymore, everyone is just in some discord server now..

 

[ｃｙｂｅｒ ｌｏｖｅ ９７]

i know a really sad one, i really dont want to give it away though (due to keeping it DEAD, its like a artifact) but its this forum, this a dead forum that seems to be only running due to the owner of it wanting to be ran for memories. it goes back YEARS, and you can tell when the activity died, and how the owner misses his members. He always checks in, he checked in during covid, and checked in again only recently. its pretty sad and definitely eerie. the passage of time does not forgive anyone.

Was it by any chance this website?

 

[Punp]

Was it by any chance this website?

God, this is sad as fuck.

 

[Dark Agent]

I'll edit this post as I browse. I realise they're not broken sites like you wanted, but they're still packed with old data and abandoned.

The girl's 06 journal

I found a girl's old journal from 2006. It was sweet to browse through someone's old life. They're 40 now. I thought it was abandoned, but they have a google calendar hooked up which is still being used. They have burning man planned. It's nice to know that the abandonweb doesn't necessarily mean death!

They have galleries of friends and family showing a life well lived.

I emailed them about their google calender posting their updates live. Looks like there's some private data there. In fact, there's lots of private data all over the website including body measurements - it's bizarre.

I won't link it here because it seems riddled with private information, but I really liked her splash screen.

I found that site!

 

[stonehead]

The most sad to me is when the site is up, and the last update is a post from 4 years ago saying "Sorry for the lack of updates, I'll post more soon!" Something about the lack of any closure combined with the author's obvious desire to keep updating their site is so sad to me.

It's actually really easy to find examples if you just google "Personal Blog sorry for lack of updates"