Doing crazy things with CSS, including animations, has never been easier or more consistent between browsers, and yet creativity in web design has gone down practically to zero these days. I blame mobile, where nobody can seem to escape from the "responsive column of blandly styled content" paradigm.
My theory for why this is is that in the past when the web was arcane and challenging to learn to develop, this actually acted as a filter for people who had a special sort of intellectual curiosity and passion to really push through and make what they wanted to make. It’s great now that the web is so broadly accessible, but now no such filter exists, so truly creative sites are fewer and further between.
It's the same reason why most modern books are bland streams of text set in brushed-up typefaces, while medieval manuscripts were written in whimsical hands and richly adorned with full-color illustrations and drop caps decorated over the top.
Back in 1995, a web page was an experimental medium, with very few experts in the field, and few businesses seeing it as a key asset. It could took long to develop, it could look fancy and whimsical, and there were few other sites to compare to, with the same properties. The chance for a web user to encounter something unusual was higher, because there was very little properly usual yet.
Today the web is the main medium, with a lot of standardization which comes from the need to be readable, accessible, look clean, and take as short to develop as possible. The consumer expects the same: simple, familiar packaging, easy access to the content which is usually a piece of text or a picture. This leaves especially little room for fancy on small-screen mobile devices. The web is not more of a place for artistic expression than newspapers were in 1970. Whimsical and fancy designs exist, but they are relatively rare and special-purpose, promo or art pages.
I think I had enough "creativity" from webdesign. Video backgrounds, fading,or reappearing text sections, absurd colour schemes,or overengineered SPAs. I'd happily trade all that shiny wrapping paper into something a bit more boring and consistent.
I actually still occasionally see ads or videos for Indian programming courses, that look close to that.
Considering that visual austerity is a distinct feature of Western visual design and seems foreign to Chinese/Indian/Middle-Eastern tradition—I sometimes wonder what Eastern people consider as examples of stupid tasteless Western design.
Working in web hosting, I've hosted many sites like this and had to deal with some of the people who've made them. And I have to say that while it's fun to point and laugh at the websites, there are a few of these in the ring that are borderline troubling. It is clear that their authors are suffering from some serious mental illnesses and at the very least some major delusions.
I recall a case years ago where I hosted a site for someone who appeared to be a paranoid schizophrenic. They called in one day complaining that we'd moved one of their HTML tables to the left by a few pixels. Another one was a website by somebody who was "exposing" their local municipality for doing things like charging for water and "illegally incarcerating" the website owner, who viewed their stints in a mental hospital as an attack to their freedom.
On the other hand, Lings Cars made it on this webring, and it's well deserved. That site is awesome and horrible at the same time, and it's designed to make us gawk at it for fun.
At what point does appreciating content produced by the mental ill become exploitation of them? Gene Ray was clearly mentally ill, but few had any qualms about enjoying the WTF quality of the Time Cube website.
Some of the classic twentieth-century art by outsider artists like Adolf Wölfli was in large part the consequence of their illness, and yet it is appreciated nevertheless, so couldn’t the same persist today for the mentally ill’s analogous creations on the internet?
If 'cursed' is derogatory, then it seems unfair/mean to call sites cursed just for not keeping up with current web design trends. Shouldn't we be better than that?
The website design is pretty bad but based off of the OP saying "most of them are really deep and demonstrate some sort of twisted brain that was behind each site" I'm not really sure why this one is on the list.
I don’t see how any of these is cursed really. I think it is fair to assume that most of these websites are the product of work and passion from individuals having put some time and effort into it.
One can perceive them as ugly, outdated, funny, or even pointless (I don’t, but it’s not the point). But using a domain like cursed.lol and a vocabulary like “twisted brain” or “fucked up shit” (OP’s comment) is a bit too much on the side of the mockery / disrespect / immaturity and doesn’t belong here IMO.
I'd say that one gets in for having photos with "2019-2020", so clearly still being updated, but for feeling so very much like it's from 1999. Choosing to lead with an unremarkable aerial photography shot, and something about the saturation in the images, is so 1990s, not just the design. @aol.com contact email. The name is reminiscent of "icy hot stuntaz". The whole package is very special.
Maybe like finding a Prada store in the middle of nowhere near marfra Texas... Either it's a cover or an artwork, or possibly someone That twisted at Prada headquarters decide that it was a good location
I would disagree - the Web hasn't strayed, it's just gotten bigger. A lot more people on for a variety of reasons. If you look closely, you can still find creativity. For example, search up "digital gardens"
Cursed indeed. I am enjoying the web 1.0 insanity of the Atari parts maker for 8-bit machines. Somewhere there is a person still making a bit of cash from 1985 tech.
Here's what the widget looks like on your profile -- there are some wild markdown table hacks to make the buttons individually clickable: https://github.com/veggiedefender/
Wow, the greatest website of the ’90s that never was, it even has a Catsape browser embedded somewhere. Found that by coincidence — clicking around in this thing can have surprising results. It is also the first site that managed to get me this warning from Safari: “This webpage is using significant energy. Closing it may improve the responsiveness of your Mac”. I recommend the site for its entertainment value but make sure your battery is charged!
Interesting project, however it seems it has a certain bias against a peculiar demographic, unfortunately this isn't surprising at all. Culture war permeates everything.
I really didn't understand this comment, and you didn't expand, so I assumed that it must have been something obvious and I was too insensitive to notice. So I did a survey of the first 20 sites it gave me and try to categorize by "demographic/culture." Here's what I got:
Unknown (math, science etc) 6
Asian 4
Christian 2
Middle America 2
Goth 1
Democrat 1
Irish 1
EU 1
Swiss 1
English 1
So... I'm still in the dark. I guess Asians are overrepresented? But that included several different countries (I could only wrote Korea and China before I started categorizing them together).
Or maybe you decided they were making fun of your demographic in particular, and confirmation bias led you to see only that? Are you seeing "culture war" where there isn't any, or am I still blind?
Culture war does permeate everything, including any time you see something that's perfectly balanced demographically, which is how you know it was contrived and is probably an ad or other obsequious sanitized corporate communication designed not to be cancelable.
analyte123|5 years ago
johnfn|5 years ago
nine_k|5 years ago
Back in 1995, a web page was an experimental medium, with very few experts in the field, and few businesses seeing it as a key asset. It could took long to develop, it could look fancy and whimsical, and there were few other sites to compare to, with the same properties. The chance for a web user to encounter something unusual was higher, because there was very little properly usual yet.
Today the web is the main medium, with a lot of standardization which comes from the need to be readable, accessible, look clean, and take as short to develop as possible. The consumer expects the same: simple, familiar packaging, easy access to the content which is usually a piece of text or a picture. This leaves especially little room for fancy on small-screen mobile devices. The web is not more of a place for artistic expression than newspapers were in 1970. Whimsical and fancy designs exist, but they are relatively rare and special-purpose, promo or art pages.
cosmodisk|5 years ago
jgalt212|5 years ago
emayljames|5 years ago
jamiek88|5 years ago
Teared up reading it.
So much love and work went into these homepages.
Hammershaft|5 years ago
imgabe|5 years ago
Groxx|5 years ago
antihero|5 years ago
punkspider|5 years ago
beaconstudios|5 years ago
sidpatil|5 years ago
[1] https://www.lingscars.com/
aasasd|5 years ago
Considering that visual austerity is a distinct feature of Western visual design and seems foreign to Chinese/Indian/Middle-Eastern tradition—I sometimes wonder what Eastern people consider as examples of stupid tasteless Western design.
unknown|5 years ago
[deleted]
emayljames|5 years ago
geocrasher|5 years ago
I recall a case years ago where I hosted a site for someone who appeared to be a paranoid schizophrenic. They called in one day complaining that we'd moved one of their HTML tables to the left by a few pixels. Another one was a website by somebody who was "exposing" their local municipality for doing things like charging for water and "illegally incarcerating" the website owner, who viewed their stints in a mental hospital as an attack to their freedom.
On the other hand, Lings Cars made it on this webring, and it's well deserved. That site is awesome and horrible at the same time, and it's designed to make us gawk at it for fun.
Mediterraneo10|5 years ago
Some of the classic twentieth-century art by outsider artists like Adolf Wölfli was in large part the consequence of their illness, and yet it is appreciated nevertheless, so couldn’t the same persist today for the mentally ill’s analogous creations on the internet?
jstanley|5 years ago
In fairness, this is an attack on their freedom.
DiggyJohnson|5 years ago
prox|5 years ago
joemi|5 years ago
CDSlice|5 years ago
The website design is pretty bad but based off of the OP saying "most of them are really deep and demonstrate some sort of twisted brain that was behind each site" I'm not really sure why this one is on the list.
bpierre|5 years ago
One can perceive them as ugly, outdated, funny, or even pointless (I don’t, but it’s not the point). But using a domain like cursed.lol and a vocabulary like “twisted brain” or “fucked up shit” (OP’s comment) is a bit too much on the side of the mockery / disrespect / immaturity and doesn’t belong here IMO.
hc-taway|5 years ago
hinkley|5 years ago
High saturation text on a black background does not cancel out the overuse of high saturation colors. This looks like a flyer for Hempfest 2021.
(Why do pot smokers enjoy higher saturation than the rest of us? Has anyone studied this?)
mattnewton|5 years ago
But have hideous design :D
dookahku|5 years ago
regus|5 years ago
RGamma|5 years ago
How far the web strayed from this, it's a shame really. The soul has left :/
nexthash|5 years ago
sidpatil|5 years ago
https://www.cameronsworld.net/
https://wiby.me/
pdx6|5 years ago
https://cursed.llolo.lol/best-electronics-ca.com/
unwiredben|5 years ago
eat_veggies|5 years ago
https://octo-ring.com/
Here's what the widget looks like on your profile -- there are some wild markdown table hacks to make the buttons individually clickable: https://github.com/veggiedefender/
tempodox|5 years ago
bwooster|5 years ago
fortran77|5 years ago
tomcooks|5 years ago
SeeManDo|5 years ago
muybasado|5 years ago
SamBam|5 years ago
Or maybe you decided they were making fun of your demographic in particular, and confirmation bias led you to see only that? Are you seeing "culture war" where there isn't any, or am I still blind?
hc-taway|5 years ago
bwooster|5 years ago
rdiddly|5 years ago