Geektown USA

Yahoo is 10. I remember when Yahoo was a single page of links with bullets and a gray background and hosted on a server at Stanford. I think that was longer than ten years ago. When I was still amazed that I could hit a server in another state.

I went to the special celebratory matrix that Yahoo posted. I was reminded why I think San Francisco is the nerdiest, geek-friendly city in the United States. You only need to know that a travel-related dot com based in San Francisco flew Mahir out for their launch party. And Mahir was mobbed like he was Britney Spears walking barefoot in Los Angeles.

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  • http://www.twosittingducks.com Andrew

    Ah, Mahir. I remember the huge craze that he began. Suddenly, there were Mahir-wannabe sites popping up all over the place.

    I feel like such a dork knowing who Mahir is.

  • http://www.ipengy.com Chris From Ohio

    About the same time this was going on, I had just installed a lightning-quick 14.4 card in a hand-me-down IBM 286 PCXT and logged into the local, non-graphical, freely provided bbs where I discovered the fun of IRC and having my very own email address. As fun as all the technology is now, I still get a little technostalgic looking back on the humble beginnings…

  • Karen

    Please excuse my ignorance but after visiting that guy’s website I have to ask…what’s the deal with Mahir?

  • http://www.joh3n.com joh3n

    Karen: Mahir is just like Jesus. All powerful, all seeing, and all loving. Especially the loving. So. Much. Loving.

  • sheyna

    I’m sorry, but i fear I am in the same boat with Karen. I feel like I’m in high school again where all the kids were in on the joke but me. I wanna be down with the cool kids too!

  • http://www.sharbean.ca sharbean

    I had a friend who had the opportunity to invest in Yahoo and Netscape in the 90s but he didn’t because he didn’t think the Internet was going to be big. Ooops.

  • http://www.sharbean.ca sharbean

    OMG, I completely forgot about Mahir!! How could anyone possibly forget him (His site is much cleaner now). Thanks for the walk down memory lane!

  • http://gretchenb.tripod.com/mrbaby/ Gretchen C.

    OMG, Mahir. And ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US. And ATE MY BALLS. In fact, I think there used to be a Mahir Ate My Balls site.

  • Debra

    I am a new reader to this site and Dooce’s, and I am with the others who need some background on Mahir. What’s the story?

  • Ari

    For all you Non-Mahir lovers out there, Mahir was quite the internet phenomenon a few years back. He’s just some guy from some far off land with a really bad website with all kinda broken engrish about kissing you and loving you. In a fairly platonic way. It became a real internet sensation – there were not only many copycat sites, but tons of pages of pictures of people holding up signs that said “I kiss you” or “Citibank Kisses Mahir!” or “all my dogs kiss mahir” or some other permutation thereof. I wish I could tell you there was something more to it but there really wasn’t. Think of him as a William Hung type celeb from 6 or 8 years ago – someone people love for no particular reason.

  • http://misskimberley.blogspot.com Kimberley H.

    Fucking awesome.

  • http://battybeyond.blogspot.com Tammy

    Oh gosh. I remember. It was the coolest thing in my little world. I first said to myself “wow, has it ONLY been 10 years?” Then i thought about it, and I said… HOLY CRAP. Has it ALREADY been 10 years?

  • http://daxohol.typepad.com Daxohol

    I have had my yahoo email account for close to ten years. I wish I could get a cool thank you letter or something LOL

  • Bruno

    I seem to have become very old.

  • http://www.livejournal.com/users/deodand/ Carolyn J.

    Remember when EVERY page was on a grey background? With blue letters? Awwww…

  • http://www.dadgonemad.com Dr. Johnny Fever

    Mahir is the O.G.

  • http://www.gngrafx.com/blog.html GN

    The Mahir sensation is much like Ali G’s “Borat” character who is also hilarious, if you haven’t seen him yet.

  • http://www.lompyville.blogspot.com marsha

    I just bought a SHUFFLE!!! Geek on THAT! It’s on a string! Around my NECK!!!! I AM UBERGEEK! Bow down and worship me now. Seirously. I wear this walking around new york people. Geeky as hell…(oh and I also like to make databases and get excited when I figure elegent ways to store and relate data.)

  • http://www.lompyville.blogspot.com marsha

    oh and Mahir totally rules

  • http://aredeaf.blogspot.com Coelecanth

    Love the design of that Yahoo matrix. Didn’t really read anything just played around it and admired the cleverness. Can’t decide if that’s geeky or just sad….

  • http://urbanecho.blogspot.com Echo

    Made it!!! Just been reading all of your work (took a few weeks). I’ve got to give props to you and your lady. You guys are the most dynamic modern couple.

    For what Yahoo started as and is now, it goes to show where we’ve come from and are destined to go. I’m a Yahoo slut, and proud of it.

    Thanks for writing, putting it out there, and letting it come back. And what amazing shots!

  • http://www.livejournal.com/users/dogatemysocks Jen

    Wow. I remember the first time I accessed the internet. I was in grade school. I looked up figure skating!

    I also remember hating the school computers. In fact, I think the first time I hated the school computers was when the schools got internet. Before that we just played Oregon Trail and that Amazon river game.

  • jenna

    My first website…I got a book out of the library and loaded some lame-ass early version of AOL with a lame-ass dialup connection. I typed in the address. The book was written by a young guy and recommended his favorite site which was “My Girlfriend, Claudia Schiffer”. I remember it took 10 minutes to load 1/2 way and I called my husband over and we marveled in awe at some blurry 1/2 loaded images of Claudia. Ah, the old days.

  • coskel

    boy did it bug me that I had to turn off my firewall to see the “netrospective”.

  • http://www.canyonjam.net erat

    Wow, I was just thinking about Yahoo a few days back. A group of us were chatting at school and Yahoo came up. I recalled how they had a section on their main web page that listed all the sites they added to their search database that week. Can you imagine? A list of four or five sites added over the span of a week? That happens something like every half second nowadays.

    Ahhh, the old Internet. Bad web pages, gopher, finger, shell archives, ftpmail at decwurl, The Well…

    It brings a tear to my eye.

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