Hamsterstyle was originally started in 1999 while I was in high school and was actively updated until early 2004. Since then it’s mainly been a placeholder for some experimental websites and eventually just a forwarding domain to my other work. I’ve decided to ‘relaunch’ it as an exercise in being fed up with the current state of hyper-specific social networks.
The original intention was to create a personal space to post what would end up being the very bad and stupid ideas a white male teen at the time would have. There was no purpose other than to log whatever came to mind and hit post. That doesn’t sound very novel now, but when I registered the domain, the term ‘blog’ didn’t even exist. I certainly wasn’t the only one with this idea and this genre of websites would quickly morph into what is colloquially known as ‘everything/nothing’ or E/N.
An ever growing group of young idiots fell somewhere just outside of the now traditional term ‘blog’ during those early years when it came to posting online. Since there were no easily accessible social services to use and spit your terrible ideas into the void – you had to become more resourceful and build that space yourself. Those without the determination could maybe turn to LiveJournal – the others learned to code rudimentary html sites (tables and NewsPro/Coranto anyone?) and begging your more well connected online friends for hosting.
Needless to say, it was a lot of fun. I was able to turn all that time on a computer and random idea generating into literally what I do for a living. Twenty-six years later, married with two kids and I’m still here.
