Geektown USA
March 2nd, 2005
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. o
March 3rd, 2005 at 12:38 am
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.
March 3rd, 2005 at 7:47 am
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…
March 3rd, 2005 at 8:14 am
Please excuse my ignorance but after visiting that guy’s website I have to ask…what’s the deal with Mahir?
March 3rd, 2005 at 8:45 am
Karen: Mahir is just like Jesus. All powerful, all seeing, and all loving. Especially the loving. So. Much. Loving.
March 3rd, 2005 at 8:45 am
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!
March 3rd, 2005 at 8:56 am
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.
March 3rd, 2005 at 9:07 am
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!
March 3rd, 2005 at 9:11 am
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.
March 3rd, 2005 at 11:13 am
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?
March 3rd, 2005 at 11:56 am
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.
March 3rd, 2005 at 1:15 pm
Fucking awesome.
March 3rd, 2005 at 1:25 pm
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?
March 3rd, 2005 at 1:34 pm
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
March 3rd, 2005 at 2:08 pm
I seem to have become very old.
March 3rd, 2005 at 2:17 pm
Remember when EVERY page was on a grey background? With blue letters? Awwww…
March 3rd, 2005 at 4:26 pm
Mahir is the O.G.
March 3rd, 2005 at 5:46 pm
The Mahir sensation is much like Ali G’s “Borat” character who is also hilarious, if you haven’t seen him yet.
March 3rd, 2005 at 10:36 pm
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.)
March 3rd, 2005 at 10:41 pm
oh and Mahir totally rules
March 4th, 2005 at 4:56 pm
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….
March 5th, 2005 at 12:12 pm
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!
March 5th, 2005 at 3:22 pm
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.
March 5th, 2005 at 9:14 pm
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.
March 6th, 2005 at 6:31 am
boy did it bug me that I had to turn off my firewall to see the “netrospective”.
March 6th, 2005 at 8:04 am
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.