Jump in the Way Back Machine with me

 There was an internet sweet spot, a little later than Neopets and age-inappropriate Hotmail email addresses, but well behind the "trending audio" Tiktok slop funnelled into our feeds now. And that time, this historian explains, was where one would purposefully visit a website, usually in blog form, to catch up on the latest posts. You'd simply click back a few pages to catch up, and then switch off your desktop computer to get on with your life. This said computer was probably housed in one of those computer desks with roll out keyboard drawer that slowly retreated back into home base while you typed. Eventually, when only able to access the spacebar, you would yank it back out again and start again. Like a typewriter but more annoying. 

We weren't just stuck on the same three apps. The internet was a broad and wild place, full of wonder and mystery just waiting to be explored. 

One such quest led my friends and I to a website that each of us still checks in on from time to time, and that is the splendour of Randy Constan's Peter Pan-inspired life. Randy, a self-styled Peter Pan who refused to let this dark world corrupt his inner child, documented his life, his search for his very own Tinkerbell, and - most importantly - his outfits on his personal website. 

When checking in recently, I was unnerved to read a pop-up explaining that Randy has updated and modernised the site. Thankfully there was little of the latter, because Pixyland.org is still there in its purest 2000s form. It is a riot of grainy, sparkling GIFs, Comic Sans, and emojis circa 2002 chain emails (4ward to 10 ppl on ur friends list or bad luck 4 10 yrs 💗💗💗💗💗😞😞😆). While the website itself is a museum, and I mean that in the most wholesome, nostalgia-filled way, Randy's fashion creations must not be missed. The loading screen alone makes this website a must-visit. Trust me. 15,608,865 visitors (at the time of publishing) can't be wrong. 

The 2010s were a time when you would stalk the website and then buy the book. I bought a few of the books, and Cake Wrecks was one of them. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the website lives on and is updated regularly! This was the website for appreciators of wild and desperately incorrect applications of spelling, as well as some really creative interpretations of different living things handcrafted in cake form. I was very unkind to my best friends for taking cake decorating classes as an elective in Year 9, but it's a shame that they did. They might have ended up here in this museum of horrors otherwise. 

Another book that still sits on my shelf, is the printed form of snark blog Regretsy, only available now to view through the Way Back Machine. Savage and merciless, the blog was penned by voice actor April Winchell, featuring the most craptastic and unhinged creations sold on maker website Etsy. There was a steady flow of vaginas, bad art and poorly-executed craft, drip-fed to us post by post that you'd periodically check back in on. It was an early form of internet bullying, sure, but the snark was top-tier and I really did lol reading back through some of the posts even today. Often featured items were snapped up quickly by readers from the blog, so like content creators of today have worked out, any engagement results in more sales. Also... someone needed to tell them. 

'Merica.

Behold the glory of this deliciously nostalgic photograph. The slightly mullety haircut, Valencia insta filter and the coloured flats. I actually love how it captures the time. 

Just, no. 

Lastly for today in my nostalgia round-up, I can't forget the kinda horribly titled food blog This is Why You're Fat (TWYF) Partly appreciative and partly in horror, like a slow-motion car crash of heart disease and spiking cholesterol, TWYF documented the most creatively obscene culinary concoctions. Posts were submitted, let's face it, almost entirely from Americans, who had discovered completely and wholly unique methods of cosuming calories. The calories. The fat content. The sugar. The complete lack of any featured vegetable (does potato count?). Decadent and delicious? Or a single bite away from an early grave? You be the judge. 

KFC Pie: six pieces of fried KFC chicken breasts baked into one pie. (Submitted by Shazmodo.)

Pulled pork and mashed potato parfait. (Submitted by Anne.)

The Bacon Mug: A giant mug made out of bacon and filled with cheddar cheese. (Submitted by K8.)

That is all for my round up of 2000s internet nostalgia for one day. Honourable mention to STFUParents (obnoxious parents, still hilarious even though I now am one), and NSFW dishonourable mentions to Chat Roulette and especially Cake Farts. Don't ask. 

Keep Calm, It Happened to You

 Today in my daily depressing trawl through the internet (though, now I suppose it's more like what the algorithm force-feeds me), I saw a video of an American sorority who had a kitchy 2010s theme for their O-Week party. Girls dressed in their interpretation of the 2010s - denim three-quarter jeans and a long top -  held up their moustache-adorned index fingers above their lips, and danced energetically to Gangnam Style. Behind them was an enormous "Keep Calm and..." sign printed onto a mint and coral chevron background. All of this was mildly alarming. I wasn't completely convinced by the outfits - one girl was wearing chunky white grandpa sneakers (no thank you, sweet summer child, millenials would never), yet the attention to detail was definitely accurate but concerning. 2014 was only a few years ago, and no-one can convince me otherwise. I'm not ready for infinity scarves, peplum tops, and bandage dresses to be packaged up into a packet at Spotlight as a retro party costume. 

This unkind reminder of the disappearing decades was compounded later in the day when the internet deemed Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros' Home as the 'worst song of all time'. The voters have short memories, or more likely had not yet been born, when Crazy Frog burst onto Video Hits and assaulted us with his aviator helmet, micro penis, and the most annoying song you'd ever heard (one that the completely deranged could download as a ringtone). The demonising of the "stomp clap hey" era of music is just another attack on millenial culture by our nihilist Gen Z rivals. That genre of music sold itself as anti-establishment, yet was so catchy it was snapped up by enterprising advertising executives to sell everything from cars to Big Ms. It was overplayed and as a result is now being dismissed as hipster nonsense, and worse - 'millenial cringe'. 

Actually we all made fun of hipsters too at the time, and we lived in the capital city for hipsters. but what I wouldn't give to see a vintage bearded Melbourne hipster with no socks and loafers, skinny pants just a bit too short around the ankle, wearing an SLR camera as a fashion accessory. I actually saw this for real once in a copy of MX (RIP, iykyk), and he told the interviewer that the camera didn't actually work. 

'Millenial cringe' is a statement that, no matter how many times I hear it, cuts me deep. Once upon a time, we were the cool young generation - Josh Thomas with his cutesy, awkward antics on Talking About Your Generation alongside his Gen X and Boomer counterparts. Raised on Neopets, we taught our parents how to navigate between windows on their computers, and we snapped photos of our food as early adopters of Instagram (#brunch #adulting). Somehow we blinked and to paraphrase Grandpa Simpson - It happened to us. 

At a recent work party, many drinks were consumed, and staff had a chance to let loose and have a dance in our kitchen garden. My Gen Z colleague stood on the side, watching the dagginess unfold with her arms crossed and almost a look of pain upon her face. While my Gen X colleagues were having fun, she was dying of secondhand embarrassment. When she asked what my song of choice was on nights out and I replied with the anthem Mr Brightside (and let it be said on the public record that I expect my wake to be exactly this), her reaction was, and I quote, "Cringe". Likewise too was winged eyeliner, for some mysterious reason. 

But when I watched my Gen X colleagues drunkenly attempting the Dirty Dancing lift, egged on by laughter and cheering, and then back at my mortified young friend, I realised that perhaps Millenials are the last generation to really have fun. Gen Z, who have grown up with their image carefully curated, haunted by the fear of going viral for the wrong reasons, have lost the freedom to truly live. 

While I depart to dance to Mr Brightside with my arms in the air (yeah, that's cringe too apparently), my thoughts turn back to my favourite writer and appreciator of youth. So much so, that he penned a novel entirely dedicated to the dark depths one would go to to retain his youth and beauty. "Ah," writes Oscar Wilde. "Realise your youth while you have it... Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you. Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing."