Xpiritualism: The Aesthetic of Internet Surfing

Years of Discovery:


I'm going to make a small thread about this particular aesthetic, unseen by many; misunderstood by most. It is no vaporwave, and it surely doesn't have the popularity of it either. Popularized by a particular European rapper Yajubin and then carried off to its ultimate form by the internet.

This is Xpiritualism; Or I'd rather call it Internet Surf Aesthetic.

I only want to make a short thread (I have to study sorry.) to bring light to it, because I find it so interesting. It has many weird notes unlike many other aesthetics; It is brash, contrasting, and at times violent. It is absolutely unfiltered and that is why I love it. There's nothing like it.


It is a call back to the days of the internet where you can go into google and begin your jouney and descent into being chronically online; going through websites starting off in newgrounds, clicking on an ad, and then enter the wild west. From playing flash games to seeing gore, and back to watching youtube videos; to then frequent a forum; and then look up the weirdest stuff on google. Nothing was curated for you for the most part, you had to go find it; you had to go on a journey.

Many of the websites you frequented were handcrafted instead of using major presets.

And at times, most of the websites, weren't of a high quality. But that doesn't matter. You were the first, you were the witness. An internet pioneer discovering websites unknown.

Many of the known users within their own forums, usually utilized profile pictures of their favorite media. Something done today; but there was something more particular about it. From the blur in the memories, it felt as if that person was the avatar. That is all you can remember after all. Its been too long; You can only remember interacting with them but the sentences are opaque; however their profile picture is ingrained.

Many of the individuals you interacted with back then, showed their love in the purest form. Displaying it. Love itself is the highest form of being. It shows no weakness and it is the light in the darkness. The game they enjoyed so much they displayed it; that game with the weird moon runes? They displayed that too! All of it; it didn't matter... it characterized their being.

Many users were adamant about their opinions, regardless of what it was in defense of. Religion? Games? Society? It was there; no person said the samething, but many had to argue.


It is a weird aesthetic, and I can't explain all either. Just what it means to me; and I suppose thats what makes it enticing. Its new.

 

[Some_porcupine]

Xpiritualism

Xpiritualism is defined term for a loosely diverse outsider online art movement focusing on digital collage that combines old web culture, esotericism, spirituality & foreign internet elements over it. The tag of #xpiritualism was coined by 3rd.world.elite on Instagram. On TikTok edits often...

aesthetics.fandom.com

Xpiritualism

Introduction In the realm of art and culture, the ever-evolving landscape of aesthetics continually gives birth to new movements and ideas. One such intriguing and enigmatic aesthetic is...

www.theworldaloha.com

MICHAELBRAILEY | Xpiritualism

www.michaelbrailey.com

View: https://sk.pinterest.com/angleamoon/xpiritualism/


View: https://www.reddit.com/r/schizoposters/comments/15z5ck7/xpiritualist_design_the_internet_and_children/

and interesting analysis of psychology (pseudoscience or not, real or manmade?) ^

 

[nsequeira119]

There's so much anime on the examples given here. I guess I see the spiritual aspect of it- they all have a sort of digital halo forming around them- but I can't say I'm particularly nostalgic about anime characters, mainly because their design never changes all that much and they look about the same now. Nor do I really see the "surfing the internet" motif. Not enough search bars, cookie graphics, etc. If someone were to look at these, and didn't know what the Internet was, they would probably just assume the Internet was a manga database.

Props to the David Dees poster, though. I guess it's part of the aesthetic, although maybe he's more kinda his own thing.

 

[Xovi]

There's so much anime on the examples given here. I guess I see the spiritual aspect of it- they all have a sort of digital halo forming around them- but I can't say I'm particularly nostalgic about anime characters, mainly because their design never changes all that much and they look about the same now. Nor do I really see the "surfing the internet" motif. Not enough search bars, cookie graphics, etc. If someone were to look at these, and didn't know what the Internet was, they would probably just assume the Internet was a manga database.

Props to the David Dees poster, though. I guess it's part of the aesthetic, although maybe he's more kinda his own thing.

Hey! I can see where you are coming from, I'll provide definitely more examples of the aesthetic that don't have as much anime going on. Thats just my bias due to the fact growing up I was in the scene. Just give me some time and ill reply to you with them

 

[15horses]

It's similar to ArabFunny, only instead of satirizing it's more about admiring the innocence and weirdness in the amateur design of that time.

 

[power gem]

it was a simpler time, memories of hours spent on google image search, in awe of images like these as if they were the greatest works of art to ever exist (maybe they are)

 

[Psionic]

I never found a way to describe this feeling. I explored that web when young, my adsl connection and the net. Its like the simplier times the simplier the expressions and such. It was an unique thing, now just laying around hidden.

 

[eyes]

Man hearing about the way the internet used to be makes me so sad. I wish I had some sort of spiritual connection to the age of websites and forums instead of growing up with social media platforms and especially twitter (may it be nuked, inshallah).

 

[McGovern '72!]

Wonder if kids in the future are gonna be nostalgic about early shitweb the way us losers are about the Bush Internets. Prolly even more so, given how brands have figured out the way of breeding perfect r*dditor fanatics (i.e. Disney, Nintendo, etc...) With declining literacy and increasing ad spam, we might see the rise of organized Fear and Hunger-style technoreligions; dark altars made to repeated corporate imagery which is made immortal through its permanent dwelling in the past, legions of gen alpha iPad Pro Semen Edition rushing onto the streets hungry their desires produced and negated by the same gnostic Landian cyberdemiurge of soy...

I'm probably just being a boomer about shit, though.

 

[eyes]

With declining literacy and increasing ad spam, we might see the rise of organized Fear and Hunger-style technoreligions; dark altars made to repeated corporate imagery which is made immortal through its permanent dwelling in the past, legions of gen alpha iPad Pro Semen Edition rushing onto the streets hungry their desires produced and negated by the same gnostic Landian cyberdemiurge of soy...

Hasn't this already happened though? I mean isn't that what >reddit fandoms are?

 

[Some_porcupine]

Hasn't this already happened though? I mean isn't that what >reddit fandoms are?

isnt that like, the point of vaporwave?
fully automated space gay communism, but instead we got wall-e neoliberal ("listen, or!") corpocracy

 

[Noxy]

Man hearing about the way the internet used to be makes me so sad. I wish I had some sort of spiritual connection to the age of websites and forums instead of growing up with social media platforms and especially twitter (may it be nuked, inshallah).

You should not wail over it, no one should.

Which old internet are you nostalgic about? 199X? Early 2000's? mid-to-late 2000's?
Everyone has their own version of what the 'old internet' was like, the 'old internet' is a range of about 20 years between 1990 and 2010.

I bet your sadness comes from frustration. Frustration that arises from seeing only the bad and the ugly of the modern internet, and comparing it to the good of the old one, and only the good. Meaning you know exactly what to change.
You should not get sad over the old internet, because no one has ever fixed anything with tears. Use that sadness and frustration to build the internet you want to see.

You don't need to build an html1.0 website to 'build the internet you want to see', just meeting friends that want the same thing, forming groups, coding tools or simply posting in old-style forums like this one and supporting websites you like are already things you can do.
Don't let corporations fool you, google, facebook, twitter, whatever, they don't own the internet. No one really does, not even ISPs.
Even if every ISP out there shat it's pants and died, we would still be able to set-up a new internet fairily quick, thanks to the underlying technology.
Even if we forgot all about modern internet technology, we could still use the internet through bloody IPoAC.

 

[N3TZZZ]

View attachment 88949



Years of Discovery:


I'm going to make a small thread about this particular aesthetic, unseen by many; misunderstood by most. It is no vaporwave, and it surely doesn't have the popularity of it either. Popularized by a particular European rapper Yajubin and then carried off to its ultimate form by the internet.

This is Xpiritualism; Or I'd rather call it Internet Surf Aesthetic.

I only want to make a short thread (I have to study sorry.) to bring light to it, because I find it so interesting. It has many weird notes unlike many other aesthetics; It is brash, contrasting, and at times violent. It is absolutely unfiltered and that is why I love it. There's nothing like it.


It is a call back to the days of the internet where you can go into google and begin your jouney and descent into being chronically online; going through websites starting off in newgrounds, clicking on an ad, and then enter the wild west. From playing flash games to seeing gore, and back to watching youtube videos; to then frequent a forum; and then look up the weirdest stuff on google. Nothing was curated for you for the most part, you had to go find it; you had to go on a journey.

Many of the websites you frequented were handcrafted instead of using major presets.



View attachment 88950
And at times, most of the websites, weren't of a high quality. But that doesn't matter. You were the first, you were the witness. An internet pioneer discovering websites unknown.


View attachment 88951

Many of the known users within their own forums, usually utilized profile pictures of their favorite media. Something done today; but there was something more particular about it. From the blur in the memories, it felt as if that person was the avatar. That is all you can remember after all. Its been too long; You can only remember interacting with them but the sentences are opaque; however their profile picture is ingrained.



View attachment 88952

Many of the individuals you interacted with back then, showed their love in the purest form. Displaying it. Love itself is the highest form of being. It shows no weakness and it is the light in the darkness. The game they enjoyed so much they displayed it; that game with the weird moon runes? They displayed that too! All of it; it didn't matter... it characterized their being.


View attachment 88953


Many users were adamant about their opinions, regardless of what it was in defense of. Religion? Games? Society? It was there; no person said the samething, but many had to argue.


It is a weird aesthetic, and I can't explain all either. Just what it means to me; and I suppose thats what makes it enticing. Its new.


View attachment 88954

View attachment 88949



Years of Discovery:


I'm going to make a small thread about this particular aesthetic, unseen by many; misunderstood by most. It is no vaporwave, and it surely doesn't have the popularity of it either. Popularized by a particular European rapper Yajubin and then carried off to its ultimate form by the internet.

This is Xpiritualism; Or I'd rather call it Internet Surf Aesthetic.

I only want to make a short thread (I have to study sorry.) to bring light to it, because I find it so interesting. It has many weird notes unlike many other aesthetics; It is brash, contrasting, and at times violent. It is absolutely unfiltered and that is why I love it. There's nothing like it.


It is a call back to the days of the internet where you can go into google and begin your jouney and descent into being chronically online; going through websites starting off in newgrounds, clicking on an ad, and then enter the wild west. From playing flash games to seeing gore, and back to watching youtube videos; to then frequent a forum; and then look up the weirdest stuff on google. Nothing was curated for you for the most part, you had to go find it; you had to go on a journey.

Many of the websites you frequented were handcrafted instead of using major presets.



View attachment 88950
And at times, most of the websites, weren't of a high quality. But that doesn't matter. You were the first, you were the witness. An internet pioneer discovering websites unknown.


View attachment 88951

Many of the known users within their own forums, usually utilized profile pictures of their favorite media. Something done today; but there was something more particular about it. From the blur in the memories, it felt as if that person was the avatar. That is all you can remember after all. Its been too long; You can only remember interacting with them but the sentences are opaque; however their profile picture is ingrained.



View attachment 88952

Many of the individuals you interacted with back then, showed their love in the purest form. Displaying it. Love itself is the highest form of being. It shows no weakness and it is the light in the darkness. The game they enjoyed so much they displayed it; that game with the weird moon runes? They displayed that too! All of it; it didn't matter... it characterized their being.


View attachment 88953


Many users were adamant about their opinions, regardless of what it was in defense of. Religion? Games? Society? It was there; no person said the samething, but many had to argue.


It is a weird aesthetic, and I can't explain all either. Just what it means to me; and I suppose thats what makes it enticing. Its new.


View attachment 88954

I had tried to emulate that style for the thumbnails of my videos, but I had never captured the essence of the style,Thanks, I think I'm understanding the core of this.

 

[Captain]

Problem with the declaration of this aesthetic is that surfing wasn't derived from going into Google and searching. It was derived prior to Google and references when you started out on lists or indexes of sites people made or a persons website you got from a business card or something. An example is Yahoo before it was Yahoo. It's following links from links. Surfing was used in the search days, but the meaning is with an earlier time. When everyone looks back they tend to lump 1995-2005 in the same bucket and it's not the same at all. How do I know? I was there.

 

[punisheddead]

Another new old web thing that's just an aesthetic that's cohesively very loose, lovely. It is interesting though, like most of these aesthetics are. I dig the dreamlike vibes.

I wish I had some sort of spiritual connection to the age of websites and forums instead of growing up with social media platforms and especially twitter

I do feel bad for the early zoomer and gen alpha crowd who couldn't experience any of the old net. Not because it was particularly amazing but because of how free it was, so free that you had the option to not even go there. Kiddos don't have that freedom now, not without social consequences at least. Noxy really said it all, nothing is stopping you from making the internet your own but it doesn't come by default like it used to.

Wonder if kids in the future are gonna be nostalgic about early shitweb the way us losers are about the Bush Internets

They will and they are. I've seen kiddos be nostalgic about 2019 memes and "the first season of fortnight". The modern day adult is probably going to be so nostalgia blinded that it's going to make Disney adults and the church of Nintendo look tame. For corporations this is great news, for the rest of us not so much.

I'm probably also just being a boomer about it.

 

[幽邃森林]

I don't know, it looks like a picture of what zoomers think describes the early 2000s internet.

In reality it looks like you're taking a bunch of Indians who make those weird photo edits on social media and hiring them to create y2k art.

It's not doing anything for me.

 

[Z0diacK]

 

[N3TZZZ]

I had tried to emulate that style for the thumbnails of my videos, but I had never captured the essence of the style,Thanks, I think I'm understanding the core of this.

I had tried to emulate that style for the thumbnails of my videos, but I had never captured the essence of the style,Thanks, I think I'm understanding the core of this.

I had tried to emulate that style for the thumbnails of my videos, but I had never captured the essence of the style,Thanks, I think I'm understanding the core of this.

Thanks a lot!I'm learning with this, I'm going to see how I can apply it to my projects, I just did a DDR edit and this would be perfect

 

[Some_porcupine]

Is weirdcore vaporwave

A image of dreamcore if you dont wanna search it up on google or if you dont know what it looks like

forum.agoraroad.com

 

[Holy]

A lot of the actual images are definitely y2k zoomer tiktok-core feeling but one picture in this post feels very authentic.




Oh man, do I miss this sort of stuff. The fading effects, the custom photoshop brushes used to add texture, that obligatory quote that nowadays would be referred to as "edgy" since people aren't allowed to be sincere anymore somewhere on it. These sorts of pictures elicit a response from me personally. From the dreamlike editing to the quote, which sort of serves the purpose of setting the mood for the image edit itself. Yet it still maintains an authentic amateur feel to it. You can tell it's someone who, as the OP post puts it, wants to express their genuine love for something. Be it a character, a show, etc. I do agree with most of the words in the OP post here even if I think a lot of youngins have no idea what stuff back then looked like. In my experience most graphics back then were very pixelated and jagged. You'd see 2D sprites in them often from retro video games, too. Though there were some that went for more dreamlike faded visuals, the quality still wasn't so hilariously low as a lot of the pictures here are. Which gives away that it's a posthumous creation and not something endemic to the times, look at the first picture and the fifth picture especially for examples of this.

On that note, in general most old school graphics had much more consistent theming. What gives away the last picture and arguably third picture as being something created by zoomers is how so much random shit is strewn about with no regard for how it clashes. Forum signatures, userbars, 100 x 100 avatars, 468 x 60 banners etc. would focus on one thing (usually one character or object, at that) and try to represent that thing. Whereas zoomer aesthetics just have far more visual noise and tonal whiplash. Old school graphics would stick to a specific color palette while with this stuff it looks like you puked a rainbow onto the screen. You see this on Neocities too with a lot of the websites there. The only real capacity that these sorts of sensory overload graphics existed in would be online emo/"scene" culture which was decidedly not representative of internet culture as a whole. And, in my experience, even scene-y Blingee stuff tended to be more thematically consistent than a lot of these newer graphics are. Yeah there was a lot of random stuff, but they tended to conform more strictly to a color palette and generally didn't fill up every pixel of the screen with something. Here are some examples from my collection in varying dimensions & styles to convey what I mean.

You notice this on Neocities too. A lot less regard for web design principles and a lot more sensory overload. Which, I think that in a way older websites could almost be too prickly about remaining "boring". So I don't exactly dislike it until it makes the site annoying to browse. This is a little website from the 00s dedicated to reviewing animanga graphics websites; by reading some of these reviews, you can sort of gauge what it is that people valued in both web design and graphic design at the time. There are also links to lots of graphic design sites that you can view to see more graphics like the ones I've posted, as well as their website UIs.

With that being said, I like these messy aesthetics. Just pointing out how it's pretty obvious that a lot of your image examples aren't from the time period that you're describing. Rather, these are romanticizations of the past through the lense of someone who didn't experience that past. There's some beauty in that too though. I do like the aesthetic, both here and also on Neocities. It'd be boring if things never evolved after all.