Before Tumblr, there were personal domains. This is hardly news to anyone who has spent time browsing the Internet. Neocities exists as a place to revive the "old Internet," and it has many beautiful sites with a vintage aesthetic. But I haven't seen as much of the more ornate websites that I remember browsing in my late teens and early twenties.

The domain-as-work-of-art seemed to emerge somewhere between Geocities and Web 2.0. I remember that they had a lot of ornate and Victorian gothic elements to give the site an air of mystery, or at the very least to make it super confusing to navigate. Eventually, this style of graphic design came to be known as Gothic Organic.

The complete lack of adherence to conventional web design was what made them beautiful and memorable. They were emphatically not corporate websites, making liberal use of CSS and rollover effects. The point was self-expression and experimentation. It was a hobby that lived by the saying, "I have no idea what I'm doing, and you can't stop me."

Inspiration came from the fine arts, from vintage and Victorian aesthetics, and from books. They were littered with quotes from old poetry. It was a style that would later come to be called "dark academia."

New conventions emerged, of course, as they always do within creative communities. People who were familiar with personal domains and HTML knew what to expect. There would usually be a bio page that told all of the most intimate details one could without revealing their actual identity. There were often pages for art, photos, for Photoshop brushes, writing, and a journal.

I loved splash pages with small, ornate entrance graphics that hinted at the gorgeous layout that awaited me. I had a site of my own for a bit that I loved dearly. Even though it never became one of the more popular domains, I met a lot of amazing people through it and learned a lot about how computers & the Internet worked.

Sites from Archive.org

• arabesque.nu- I wish the archive had managed to save the graphics! They were gorgeous; she used a lot of vintage fashion ads. I remember sending her a message on AIM once, & she was super nice.
• relique.net
• nocturna.net
• annikavonholdt.com & The Fifth Muse Brush Gallery- YOU CAN STILL DOWNLOAD THE BRUSHES FROM THE WAYBACK MACHINE. I REPEAT, YOU CAN STILL DOWNLOAD THE BRUSHES!
• damnedinblack.net
• many others I'll probably remember and add