Limerick odes to GeoCities
Dear GeoCities,
I’ve completely forgotten about you, but I will miss you none the less.
When I heard the news a few months ago that Yahoo was shutting you down, I was heartbroken. I had not visited one of the many circa 1995 websites you hosted in years, but as they say, distance only makes the heart grow fonder.
I hope you’re not offended that I forgot about you. It’s partially your fault. Why didn’t you friend me on Facebook? You showed me the power of letting anyone express themselves on the web for free. Your story is a good reminder to giants (in this case Yahoo!) that even if you acquire a top web property, irrelevance is just one iteration of the web away.
I thought a poem was in order to read at your funeral. I’m not a poet myself, but I commissioned one on ChallengePost for $10 (please don’t take that amount as an insult, I know you were worth more, but that’s the going rate for poets). The winning poem is penned my friend and British limerist Toby Daniels. Here’s his ode to you:
Once there was a site called geocity,
that became the darling of the internet despite looking shitty.
Alas, along came web 2.0
which sang a different tune
and now we enjoy sites such as bit.ly.
Josh S. wrote in a fit of passion:
There once was a place on the Net,
Where building a page was no sweat.
With blinking GIF
whoresand MIDIs galore,
GeoCities, we’ll never forget.
And my friend Mike Duda did a financial analysis that takes a close second:
There once was a site by Yahoo
Bought with stock up the wazoo
It attracted a mass
But revenue was ass
So rest in peace ‘cities of Geo.
You can read the rest of the loving submissions here. I’m sorry for being late with this post so long after you’ve passed, but I’m still waiting for Yahoo! to make the newspaper announcement with details of your funeral.
Love,
Greg
