I had a website YEARS ago hosted on Angelfire. I also had a Guestbook that, only this week, I found out was gone forever. Seriously.. they deleted it on me. You know, I guess… things change. So this guestbook existed since the year 1998. There were tons of memories in there. I signed up with an email address that is now non existent. So if I had an email that was existent as the main contact, I would have known since April it was going away. Alas! I didn’t.
So there goes that guestbook.. filled with as many memories as a photo album. Friends…long nights of messaging back and forth when the internet was in its infancy.. drunken stupors in text. All that in this guestbook. The world was able to read it.
And now it’s gone.
I know people say if you type something online “it will last forever.”
Tell that to people who had websites on Geocities. Or those who had Tripod guestbooks. Or slambooks (remember those!?) Or ICQ.
I hopefully think that somewhere, in the vast universe, the keys we stroked and letters we typed still exist. But with all these companies folding their ventures and replacing them with nothing, I dare to think that there are some things online that will never exist again. And that’s sad.
What will exist is Facebook. .Maybe Myspace? That’s up to Murdoch. Maybe Tumblr, that’s up to Karp if he makes money.. and Google blogger, which is probably up to the CIA more than anyone else.
Yes.. what you type may not exist tomorrow.
Kind of sad, in a way. Years of Guestbook entries back when the net was young have just been deleted from countless sites…
They better not get rid of Angelfire. Or else if they do, my entire 18 years old to 21 years old period of my life is gone. Forever.
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