Twenty-five years in cyberspace! In real time that converts to 3294 conventional years a/k/a the Bronze Age. Well it certainly feels that way, reflecting on how much the net has changed in the last quarter century. So, what was the cyberworld like in 1998? It was truly a primordial era. No, there weren't any Triceratops roaming about, but the information superhighway was green. It was a treasure hunt. Far less commercialized. No TikTok challenges (lol).  

After graduating college, I discovered the web in Fall '96. Amazon and eBay were only a year old and Google didn't exist yet. Within a few months, I wanted to put my own name out there and found GeoCities. Before the social media explosions of MySpace or Facebook, it was a rarity to have a web presence and GeoCities was the place to stake your claim. Sure, there was Hometown AOL and Angelfire, but GeoCities was an incredible opportunity to learn HTML and create webpages without training, and yes, it was free! Back during this time, it seemed like every other page was hosted by GeoCities.

So, I was off to the races. The net was nowhere near as slick as it is today and Web 1.0 resembled a hot mess of mismatched fonts and pixelated jpegs. It was kitschy and cool and unfettered in which personal spaces would always be "under construction" and our search engines were "web rings." For many, it was an unrefined, self-expression similar to a freshman's dormitory; bikini babe posters, pizza boxes, dirty laundry, sportscars pix, strewn cans of Old Milwaukee. My personal cyber canvas? It dripped with my own diversions that included screenwriting, film production, graffiti and comic art. To make it distinct, I divided each section into "theaters" with it's own eccentric design. Rules? We don't need no stinkin’ rules. And so, I built .. and built .. and built. It was delightfully addicting and after four years I created 450+ pages — mostly with a 14.4 modem! Phew...

Besides teaching HTML, GeoCities was unique as each site was a homestead and you belonged to a virtual community of likeminded pages. I made acquaintances with other screenwriters & filmmakers, traded links, engaged in cyberchats and bulletin boards. Email opened up a whole new world in querying agents, producers, and the like. No longer did you have to be in Hollywood to be in show-biz.  

With the new millennium, I broke away from GeoCities and relocated to my own domain (teako170.com). It was a fun time to be online. No data phishing, fake news, clickbait, or malware. Ok, other than the occasional Nigerian prince seeking assistance, it was truly an innocent period where I pounded the keyboard with regular updates and ate many a meal at my PC. Life then interceded, and I was pulled in other directions. I gave thought to yanking the site, but by then it had evolved into an extension of me. Couldn't just give it up like some cyber-suicide.

And so, here we are twenty-five years later. A phenomenal virtual adventure it has been, and I still enjoy reminiscing on the "good ole days" and the people I've met. As to the next 25? Unfortunately, I'll be in my early 80s (ugh!) or more likely moved on to the great beyond; however, this website will certainly outlive me. That is, at least for a few months after, until my wife/kids cancel my credit card and my host provider deletes the account. But it will still be out there, somewhere in the cyber-verse until all remnants of it dissipate, or as they say in the screenwriting world ... FADE OUT.

THIRD MILLENNIUM entertainment