Web Dreams

©2000 Mike Allison

The Web is a dream. The Web is a gift, a promise, from the past. I see the Web and I think of the whole metaphor as something borrowed from the late 1940’s. I would expect to have seen the Web previewed at the 1950 World’s Fair (if there was one). No -- the 1951 World’s Fair ("A Half Century of Progress").

The Web is a promise from the crazed generation of the 1940’s. A promise they never quite finished and never made good on. Then one day, some kids, goofing off invented the web. Someone from the 40’s remembered it, and the rest is history.

I can see the Web as from the 40’s or 50’s. What is on the Web that couldn’t have been seen in the 50’s? Certainly TV was becoming popular. The whole idea of presenting media in that fashion was not new. Writing, music, radio, pictures, all of it would have been quite easy for the 50’s person to grasp. They’d even BELIEVE that such networks could have been made and made available for everyone. This was, after all, the Atomic Generation. They also created jet aircraft and rocket ships. TV, radio, nothing was beyond them. And, they BELIEVED that.

I know what you’re thinking. JAVA. Those cool little Java scripts that make things dance and give us instant information. COME ON! These people were all into Neon and those revolving restaurant signs. Come to think of it, most of the cheesy graphics on the web are VERY similar to those eye catching neon signs. These are the people who perfected CARTOONs. "Fantasia" and the Warner Brothers cartoons, Snow White, etc. They would be VERY comfortable with what they found on the net. Aren’t these the people who invented those scrolling light signs? Think about how much classic web design is merely a knock off of 50’s kitsch.

You know, I’m starting to believe that they actually invented the web. They were a very smart generation. They could have made it during World War II and just kept it a good secret until it was no longer needed, you know in the early 70s. Then they pretended that it was only a few years old – when, IN FACT, it was already 25 years old.

The Internet today is 55 years old. Not much progress in this half century.

Think about the content. Would a person in the 1850’s be confused by the Web? Surely the text is the same. Text is a common thread that goes back thousands of years. Video, pictures, graphics? Okay, somethings might only go back to the 1910’s.

So the web is really nothing more than a hodgepodge. A collection of stuff we’ve left laying around all these years. Someone else just put them together in a useful way.

So, all this new found nostalgia for the "Greatest Generation" is really just a final realization that they really were the Greatest and they invented EVERYTHING that we find useful and fun today. Can you BELIEVE it? I do.

-Mike