👀 An online museum of the online world
#430 | Look, it's the lawless times of yore.
Did you know the first spam email was sent before the term "spam" even entered common usage? Or that Pizza Hut pioneered online pizza delivery... back in 1994? We pretty much live on the internet now, but what is the internet, anyway? Today's rabbit hole for you to disappear into is on the internet, and *about* the internet. Welcome to the Museum of Internet Artifacts, your little online gallery to trudge through the trenches of Internet history. The minisite was created by Neal Agarwal of Neal.fun, pinpoints landmark "events" and artefacts of the online world, starting in 1977 with a map of ARPANET, the US Department of Defense network that is considered the precursor to the internet we now use.
The timeline ends in 2007 with the launch of the first iPhone, the device that arguably reshaped how we use the internet, and pretty much launched a new era. But there's quite a few stops along the way from 1977 to 2007 - including the very first MP3 and the first ever LOL, both of which predate the internet's first ever actual website.
There's also some absolute gems that anyone my age will remember - such as that horrifying yet ubiquitous dancing baby gif, that helicopter game that was pretty much everywhere, and the iconic "You wouldn't steal a car" anti-piracy ad that's burned into my memory from the era when I had a membership at a local dvd rental place. Fun times.
I highly recommend a little clickthrough of this delightful museum - for us Olds, it's a great nostalgic stroll around our online roots, and for the youths...it's a time machine of sorts, a peek into how absolutely unhinged and lawless the lands of the internet used to be a mere couple of decades ago.Â