In “I Was a Teenage Webmaster,” Mike Grindle traces his roots back to the early 2000s Internet, its evolution from the personal web to the corporatized monolith we mostly see today, and its yet to be determined future.
I was almost certain I’d linked to Mike’s essay somewhere on my blog back in 2024. In doing a quick search, it appears I was wrong. Cue Social Distortion. My guess: the reference is collecting dust in a draft text file yet to see the light of day on my blog. So many essays of this nature stored on my computer.
But I love this essay so much, including the title which I’m going to assume is a play on “I Was a Teenage Anarchist” by Against Me!, that I’m going to link to it again — only this time, it will most certainly live on my blog and not merely referenced deep in a txt file on my hard drive.
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An ocean separates Mike from me. The Atlantic. Roughly 3,736 miles, plus land travel. We’re not the same age. I’m not sure what the gap is. I think 10 years. Maybe a little more. Maybe less. But along those lines. For reference, I was four-and-a-half when the Goonies released on VHS tape in March 1986—and yes, we rented it from Buck’s on Main.
I was born in the early 1980s and grew up in the 90s. Mike in the 1990s and 00s. Despite the decade or so between our births, and that whole different continent thing going on, my experience on the world wide web mirrors much of what he writes.
Hence, why I routinely find myself nodding along when I read a new one of Mike’s essays. And, “I Was a Teenage Webmaster” strikes a chord perhaps most of all. Cream of the crop on the Internet in my opinion. It resonates with me in a myriad of ways.
My Webmaster Roots on the Internet
The first website I ever built was in 1997. Its home: GeoCities. Of course, it was GeoCities. No Angelfire for me. In January 1998, following the release of the bio-pic Gia, starring Angelina Jolie as a punk rock supermodel, I swapped out the intro graphic on my welcome page. In order to enter, you had to click a photo of Angelina. Peak Internet, guys. Peak Internet.
There was scrolling text that followed your mouse pointer around until you clicked, too. It said: I am the ghost that haunts you. You may or may not be surprised to learn this line came from a poem I had written and dropped onto my personal webpage once you entered.
The site itself was rudimentary. Save for the scrolling text on the welcome page, I left off all the available bells and whistles of GeoCities. And they were a plenty. Lots of blinking images to choose from. The dreaded “Under construction” graphics. The animated fire icons.
For me, however, it was plain text and hyperlinks with a few images sprinkled in here and there. The content: punk rock lyrics and poetry I’d written and amateur political science essays. I had a guestbook until the company pulled the plug.
CSS was new, and to my knowledge, not something I ever incorporated on that early version of my website. Pure HTML. I did actively pursue CSS skills. It was “the next wave” in web design. Get studying.
There were websites that served as repositories for code. Tools you could play around with to see how changes would look on a site if you implemented them. I bought an HTML and CSS for Dummies book. But CSS wouldn’t be any real focus of mine until 1999.
Webmaster Needed for Summer Job
Funny story. The first real job I ever applied for was in the summer of 1998. I was 16 and still in high school. It was prior to my senior year in high school. I was a youngster for my grade. I found an ad in a newspaper based an hour away in Lynchburg. It was for a webmaster at a real estate company.
It said nothing of age requirements or restrictions. Didn’t even cross my mind that would be an issue. What’s a summer job but for someone under 18? I knew how to build and maintain a website. I was just the man (boy) they were looking for.
My mom rode up with me to the interview because I had no clue where I was going. You have to keep in mind that GPS wasn’t a thing back then. No Maps app. Granted, I did print out six pages of directions from MapQuest on how to get there. Then another six pages on how to get back home.
Don’t worry: my mom stayed in the car in the parking lot for my interview. I wonder if she remembers this.
I walk in to the interview and give the receptionist my name and tell her what time my appointment is. She hands me a formal paper application. I start filling it out. A few minutes later, a lady in business dress wearing a somewhat revealing top opens a door leading into an office in the back. She gives me a strange look, as if, “You’re the candidate?”
Granted, I didn’t catch on initially. I go into the office, sit down, and she introduces herself. I return the favor. In hindsight, I can look back on this interview and realize she is humoring me. It’s clear to her I’m not 18. That I’m still in high school. But at the time? No clue she was just being nice.
We talk about the job. What they’re looking for. She asks for my resume. I hand it to her. A one page beaut in Times New Roman. It lists my webmaster skills. The code I know. I fudge the truth a tad on CSS. I’m a quick learner. Can’t hurt. One previous job in my work history is included on the resume: cutting grass at Drakes Branch pool.
“Any other employment not listed? Other webmaster jobs you’ve had?” she asks.
“No,” I say. “But I built my own website a year and a half ago. I’ll show it to you.”
“How old are you?” she asks.
“Sixteen,” I say. “But I can fix your website. I already looked at it.”
“What are your impressions of it?”
“Honestly?”
“Yes, honestly.”
“It’s coded pretty poorly. And if you view the source code, you’ll see it’s linking out to sites you may not be aware of.”
“What do you mean?”
I show her the source code and how certain links are attached to various images on the page and hidden hyperlinks in the footer. That was a thing hackers did back in the day. Color code text to match a website’s background. Appeared invisible on the front-end. Not on the backend though.
“Don’t click those,” I say.
She looks both impressed at my knowledge and, at the same time, skeptical, as if I planted those links there prior to our interview. I didn’t. But I don’t think she buys it.
The interview ends shortly thereafter. The real estate lady thanks me for coming in. Tells me they’ll be in touch should they offer the job to me. I walk to the car. My mom asks me if I got the job. I said, “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Said she’ll call me if they do. Still early in applicant process. She asked how old I was.”
“Was there an age requirement?”
“Didn’t say. I think maybe so. It’s a summer job though. What adult gets a summer job?”
Needless to say, the real estate company never called me with a job offer. I applied to a few more jobs. Didn’t get those either. Even applied at a gas station. No dice. Went back to cutting grass at Drakes pool. My grandpa had the connect.
With my job aspirations sidetracked, I said f—k it and went and got my hair cut into a mohawk for my senior year of high school, which would start another chain reaction in my life: constant threats of expulsion by the principal and superintendent, threats of being sent to the delinquent school three counties away, and a Save Jeff’s Hair petition that landed a story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch a few months later regarding school dress codes and free speech.
That was wild.
Teenage webmaster? Teenage anarchist? Was there a difference in the late 90s and early 00s? Don’t ask me. The web was different then: for better and worse. Its real estate hadn’t been gobbled up by the corporate world yet. Open surfing. Rarely a login screen. Tacky design. There was a uniqueness to it you don’t see nearly as much in today’s polished version. But the old vibe still lingers if you know where to find it.
So, check out Mike’s essay if you haven’t yet clicked over to it. The essay is gold and he links out to some cool sites and blogs you may not realize exist. Like I said, the old vibe is still around. You just have to know where to find it.
Oh, and the real estate company’s website by the end of the summer? Hot garbage. And whoever they hired? Some adult. Never did remove all the hidden links. Amateur. Should’ve gone with the teenage webmaster.