Weird Old Video Game & Anime Fansites

[@ianhoopes6650]

As someone born in 2003, I find the early internet fascinating. I was there for the tail end of early KZbin and the era of clicking between dozens of sites looking for flash games, but I was in elementary school at the time. Hearing about the internet in the late 90s and the 00’s feels like hearing stories from a tribal elder. Thanks for the video, Hazel.

[@hanabi64]

I was also born in 2003. I relate to that extremely similarly.

[@whtetiger]

literally my exact experience as someone who was also born in 2003. While I still remember a lot of the more decentralized internet than we have now, seeing the weird niches that were exclusive to the beginning of the widespread internet is so surreal.

[@adamstevens9271]

You explained it in the best words possible

[@NosferatuMonty776]

Definitely! I'm a '03 baby as well and it's so interesting hearing about the internet I only got glimpses of. We kinda were there for the start of modern internet but too young to fully understand the change.

[@swagguy7515]

04 person here, the early internet seemed like an adventure. Everything so unique, not streamlined and full of articles and ads vying for your attention. Every website was holy unique in layout, style, and vibe. Everything so so raw, so shoddy, so human. Reminds of my powerpoint presentation where I slam a colorful background on every page with tons o pictures abound. I miss that identity. Many things have become homogeneous in every way possible in a creative environment born to be painted on. Everything so bland, so boring. People have wisened up to realize that the things old considered cringe are now actually fuckin' cool. I just hope this mindset comes around to web design too.

[@imjustdandy9799]

I’m so glad I’m not the only one who hates Fandom. It’s so unintuitive and janky and it’s festering with ads.

[@XerxesTexasToast]

It's fucking awful and I've hated Wikia ever since I learned that NIWA was a thing. They've gotten jankier than ever, too.

[@whatisfzeroanymore2nd]

@@XerxesTexasToast What's NIWA?

[@ritaleena]

@@whatisfzeroanymore2nd not op but it's "Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance" Here's their bio: "We are a network of independent wikis working together since 2010 to bring fans quality coverage of all things Nintendo. Together with our affiliates, we collaborate and support one another in our mission. We are driven by our focus on our fans: - Fan communities should be run by the fans, and not corporate entities that don't put the community first. - Fan communities should be run for the fans, by people who will always think about how they can continue to enhance the enjoyment of everyone in the community. - Fan communities should be run together with the fans, embracing a spirit of co-operation and camaraderie."

[@nicky2stars]

@@XerxesTexasToast Ive been using it for years and I didn't know it sucked so much. But I also don't know where else I would get my info, or at least in a convenient way.

[@a1rg3ar31]

Fandom also censors certain wikia's.

[@diddgery6315]

Hello! I was a staff member on Kirby's Rainbow Resort back during the latter half of the 2000s and seeing this very nice coverage of the site warms my heart. Thank you so much for your kind words! I'll pass this video along to other members of the staff.

[@foxbuns]

visuals: *Mario being compressed into a pinball* caption: THIS IS NOT HARVEST MOON FOOTAGE.

[@Palmtop_User]

Damnit, then whats the point of living

[@icravedeath.1200]

It's even funnier to me personally because it was recorded on a Mac. I have a complicated relationship with Macs.

[@ashliic.2879]

To be fair, Harvest Moon DS did have an Easter Egg thing where you could fight all of the datable girls in RPG combat

[@ersatzandartifice]

my favorite part of fansites (and really any website that covered games+anime and their contents) was how they looked. the way they took sprites or illustrations and decorated webpages with them, gave a lot of these artwork a new life beyond where they had originated from. creating large sprawling spritesheets or accompanying them with text, allows you to appreciate spritework or illustrations clearly and unobstructed.

[@NotCreativeEver]

There was something so clean about being online those days. I remember being part of a small fan forum when I was around 11 and the friends I made back then. It felt significant to be part of a small circle like that, rather than a fish lost in the sea of social media.

[@alonedownthere47]

as a 13 year old on 4chan and encyclopedia dramatica in 2007 idk if clean is the word i'd use

[@TauiTV]

@@alonedownthere47 was thinking the same, playing MMORPGs as a 10-year-old in 2002 was equal parts beautiful and brutal

[@sethmcdonald1876]

Hazel upload, today is a neat day

[@matt4193]

NEET day

[@soatman06]

retweet!!

[@Thenormal880]

very neet

[@user-dc5ti1is1s]

today sucks so this is a very lucky day for me, I getchu Seth.

[@ElvenApparition]

There was a Seto Kaiba fansite back in '03, and the owner of the site wrote a short essay on why the trend of incisive hatred of the female character Tea had its roots in misogyny and sexism. I was one of them, absolutely hated this fictional female character because she was "annoying", "useless" and her "friendship speeches are dumb lol" (and Yugi's love interest and I was jealous of her???) The website owner was a college age woman already in her 20s and I was a terrible little preteen. It was the first time I'd ever heard anyone put misogyny into words, but it had such a profound impact on me at the time, it was my jumping off point into learning about feminism and double standards. I even wrote the site owner an email thanking her for helping realize my own deep rooted misogyny I was developing. Thank you lady who ran a Yugioh fansite back in the early 2000s lmao.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Buuuuut Tea IS pretty useless and annoying, though. Even though I think she actually won every duel she ever had. Nobody likes boring, invincible characters. Unless they are depressed. So, that's why she's hated more than Tristan, who is also boring and useless, because he, I think, lost every duel he ever took part in.

[@Oujouj426]

@@aprinnyonbreak1290 Everyone's useless besides Goku and Vegeta, err, I mean Yugi and Kaiba. Shout out to guest character who also tends to be useful or more useless than anyone else.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

@@Oujouj426 Duke Devlin is absolutely necessary in every scene he's in.

[@AlkaRez]

I feel like this comment is wholesome? Idk.

[@89marble30]

serebii was genuinely one of the most influential websites to my tiny little baby brain, i still have so many vivid memories of browsing random parts of it, it would just be part of my daily routine. i would spend entire days just taking everything in and telling everyone at school my extensive pokemon knowledge that no one believed. (i even at some point was basically the exclusive news source for my 2nd grade class on pokemon black and white pre release, since i was the only person in my class with absolutely no internet moderation LMFAO) i absolutely love fansites and miss them dearly. i didnt really get to experience as much of old internet as others but what i did was still fun as hell. i hope one day to get off my ass and learn html to make my own extensive fansite for something that obviously will never get anything more than a fandom wiki. i dont... hate fandom wikis, i appreciate how easy they are to browse and find the info you need, but god theres no word to explain the feeling of just getting lost in the rabbit hole of some old ass fansite that has a literal database of everything about whatever so easily accessible. also glad everyone here feels the exact same about that fakemon page. literally life changing

[@alonedownthere47]

can't forget the dollar store version of serebii, psypokes

[@lagomorphogram]

The next layer down from lost Geocities fansites is lost Neopets fansites. People would dedicate their pet pages (which were essentially one-page HTML sandboxes) to whatever anime or games they liked at the time, and since you had a maximum of 20 pet pages to work with across 5 accounts for one email address, people used those to make these elaborate multi-page shrines. I remember coming across one dedicated to Mermaid Melody that had episode summaries, gifs of every transformation in the show, pixel dolls - all kinds of lost treasures. They would even make userlookup and shop layouts (among other things) with their favourite anime characters on them, which other users could then use for their own pages. A lot of what was going on in the mid-late 2000s Neopets boom was taking place entirely among covert geeks in our pet pages. It was awesome.

[@doggyspeak]

God this. tinypic and photobucket going down were each a mini library of Alexandria burning, I still occasionally dig deep into petpage webrings and the amount of sad emojis, empty frames, and broken jpegs is enough to make a grown man cry. Then there's also freezing, hacking, trading or rehoming while forgetting to copypaste the html back once they reach destination account... Neopet Petpages are such an incredibly fragile part of the internet, though there's definitely some gems out there, its where a lot of people get started!

[@sugarysweet07]

This channel has quickly become such a comfort channel for me, I get so happy when I see a new upload 🥰

[@teocatnation4818]

Me too! Hazel’s voice is very relaxing to listen to (^-^)

[@peptopeko]

Me too!

[@thekagepro24]

Truer words have never been spoken

[@MiaJoBella]

Same here!!!

[@s0api3]

Yay!! Same!!

[@gaycosmichorror]

20:00 as an avid sailor moon and card captor sakura site connoisseur as a kid, i remember that a lot of the really in depth episode descriptions were also for audiences who only had access to the heavily edited dubbed network anime of the 90’s and 00’s, or had no access at all (see the sailor moon tokusatsu series). older folks in fandom, those with the money to buy vhs fansubs, and/or those who had access to internet fast enough to download subbed video files were kind enough to provide scene by scene episode descriptions to provide a more accurate look into cut content. as a kid with slow dial up internet, i lived for those descriptions and accompanying screenshots and gifs. fan site staff were in a league of their own. this was such a great episode! thanks for all of your hard work.

[@Ranakel]

At the mention of how selfless it was to host pictures and fanart online graciously, flashbacks of dozens of broken imageshack links dashed before my mind's eye

[@ebirahvsgabara6552]

The music you choose is always so perfect. Wario land 4, evergrace, lost kingdoms, yume Nikki. It really enhances already incredible topics... Lain, splatter house, Midwest emo vibes. Hits my dumb niche interests hard. I can't wait for more videos. You're awesome.

[@HellzSaint28]

I think I heard some maple story too

[@nathancourtney94]

I can’t support this sentiment more. I am kind of hurting because I thought nobody remembered this stuff. There’s maple story music as well. Hazel is making videos that are coincidentally pulling parts of my childhood out of my heart so I can watch it fly away.

[@ryanmaidment774]

Pokemon Ranch ☺☺☺

[@Cow-Moth-With-A-CRT-Head]

Oh man this is taking me back to high school. I fondly remember Lemmy's Land, a Mario fansite that was host to all kinds of fanfic, comics, and other stuff. I once submitted an "interview" style fanfic (a whole section of the site was devoted to them) and getting upset when I found that it had been edited from what I submitted without my knowledge! I also remember another site, Scilla's Super Mario RPG, which was where I learned about the game. Still haven't actually played it, though. The early aughts were a wild world

[@doggyspeak]

I've been enjoying the remake, I highly recommend!

[@tabikat]

Hazel, if you make a series out of this that covers random old-web shit you love, I will watch it forever

[@henrybrave2972]

Thank you for putting my hatred of fandom and its stupid habits into words.

[@LazyMaybe]

It's worse than that too because they buy people out! The escape from tarkov wiki got bought by fandom recently and they enforced a much worse layout. And they always show up in google searches due to SEO bullshit, kind of like how the fextralife wiki for dark souls always shows up first despite being way worse than the wikidot one.

[@samt3412]

@@LazyMaybe Honestly I really don't like the Fandom website because of the ads (half of which are for some really strange Webtoon sites), but at least it's convenient for looking up plot details I forgot about

[@annaairahala9462]

The Touhou fandom had issues with it a decade or so ago which led to the creation of its wiki. I'm not familiar with all the details, but there was lots of banning involved and "fandom" tried hard to keep it the only source. It wasn't the only one affected at that time either. Pokemon was also heavily affected and still is with fandom trying to buy out the bulbapedia and copying its information. Many others attempted to leave the site around the same time, but many of the ones with a smaller or less vocal fanbase got drowned out by wikia and thus their attempts failed. Fandom has also been responsible for the destruction of some fanbases as well; they only care about the money they get from clicks If I had the ability to remove a website, fandom would be one of my top choices.

[@johncapet]

eva fandom :/

[@freshlymemed5680]

@@annaairahala9462 Man thats news to me. I absolutely love the Touhou Wiki and its really well made and Fandom's format is often too tedious to navigate.

[@RayOfTruth]

That Fakemon Serebii page really brought me back. Thanks for the nostalgia.

[@skyty0]

Finding and exploring 90's and 00's fansites was such a mystical feeling. It felt like each one was a never-ending maze that had hundreds of weird ass, super niche secrets to discover.

[@freakmoch]

Honestly I could go on a whole Speil about Sailor Moon websites, it's all I browsed for 5 years before social media even started. I miss those days.... Thank you for the video Hazel!!

[@cassandralyris4918]

Me too! I would spend hours at the library (no hourly internet at home) trying to find a site that had images I hadn't seen before. The joy of spotting one or finding an excellent fan artist was just bliss. Good times...

[@elllana]

I recently tried to find one of my favorite Sailor Moon angelfire sites awhile back and was so sad to find it was gone, and nothing on Wayback Machine either. I wish I’d catalogued it somehow, I’m pretty sure I’ve had it bookmarked in whatever browser I’m using for like 15 years.

[@J.Applejuice]

Would spend hours upon hours on old fansites. Zelda, Lucky Star, and Final Fantasy. I found anime through old fansites.

[@puppable]

Fandom is the the single worst thing to happen to online fan knowledge. Fandom buying out Gamepedia is worse than burning the library of alexandria

[@fakename2080]

was not expecting to see "homeless guy eats crap" less than 30 seconds in LMAO

[@theodorotargino5444]

I always found those fansites kind of creepy, it's like I was gonna randomly come across the picture of a dead body while I browsed a One Piece forum or something

[@BlueDragonArt]

This is the third video of Hazel I've watched. I will probably be a "silent" viewer, but I wanted to comment that I love how relaxed, and clearly enunciated the narration is. That and how detailed the research is, and how it keeps my attention. Very enjoyable content. Glad to find this channel :3 Edit: dang it, confirmed Placebo fan XD XD Just caught that. Hilarious (love that band).

[@maxaroni39]

I was born in the early 2000s, so I didn't really grow up with a lot of these sites (though I still use Courtroom Records and Ushi no Tane to this day), but it reminds me a lot of the game "Secret Little Haven." It's about a trans teenager making friends and learning about herself on a fansite for a Sailor Moon-esque series in the 90s. It's an amazing little game that I think captures the feelings of fansites really well. I'd love to see a video on it, it reminds me of your content quite a bit! :)

[@alchemistghost8329]

Hey is Secret Little Haven on steam? I'd love to check it out!

[@IgorDIngle]

Love that she basically played hypnospace outlaw while trying to reach urls

[@gnaat]

Myself and a neighbor of mine were OBSESSED with Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, so imagine my excitement when I stumbled across the early reveals for Diamond/Pearl on Serebii. I literally printed out pictures of the starters and the fake Pokemon and ran over to his house to show him. I got so fixated on that site, its forums, and to all the other fansites I discovered branching off from it. It was like a whole new world had opened up for me. It's what got me into the early-mid 2000's games/anime internet culture which continues to haunt my brain to this day. I really like your videos, thanks for making them :)

[@BlackEyedJester]

This channel is quickly becoming my nostalgic early 2000's memory bank.

[@KuroBloodXArmpitMaiden]

Today is a good day. Hazel video. Mentioning the glory days. Playing Yume Nikki. And shitting on Fandom. Wonderful

[@vashumashu4359]

Yume Nikki! I almost forgot, geez how years pass

[@vashumashu4359]

Yume Nikki! I almost forgot, geez how years pass

[@madpenny2644]

This is definitely my new favorite youtube channel right now ;u; and OHH YESSS Neocities is the coolest!! If you're an artist/writer/weirdo on the internet, consider making a site there! You'll need to know html but they have their own tutorials and its pretty easy to learn the basics. It feels so liberating having a platform to show off your art (that isnt on like, a site owned by facebook) and I'm using it to host my webcomic. Anyhoo thanks for another swag video ;u;

[@grey5626]

Neocities also has its own in-browser HTML editor, so it is substantially simpler to use than most earlier website systems wherein the HTML editing was typically done offline and then uploaded to an FTP server or something similar before having to restart or kill -HUP the web server to get the changes to show up.

[@Y2Kikii]

Great video! I love when people cover old websites. All those fansites and "shrines" (if people remember those!!) evoke such strong af feelings of nostalgia for me.

[@ozmo7771]

My favorite Animal Crossing fansite was Animal X-ing Ahead, which had this adorable section called Diary of a DS Addicted Turtle, which was written from the perspective of the author's pet turtle complete with photos of it next to the chunky original DS and various AC toys. It wasn't very long but I used to re-read it over and over as a kid

[@FuzzyWuzzy511]

Oh my god thank you for bringing up memories of animal x ing

[@bentaphid44]

The TF Wiki is the best fansite. Equal amounts informative and hilarious on every page

[@animewaifu]

There was an FMA 2003 fansite forum I spent most of my early teen years on that I haven’t been able to find. It was the first place I ever role-played and where I made my first online friends back in 2005. I’ve been wondering where they are lately.

[@Skoodle22]

Your voice is so relaxing and cute, I could listen to you talk about ANYTHING all day!

[@saffronthesunday]

i love how seemingly niche the topics you cover are, but they end up resonating even with someone like me who hasn't really expirenced this sector of the web; immensely fascinating and fun stuff!! :)) thank you (yet again! lol) for the handcrafted history lesson and nostalgia trip hazel B)

[@drainedeyes4268]

I love this channel so much. Born in 93, recovering opioid addict, nostalgia and exercise is becoming my top two replacements, and this channel helps me get my fix, I appreciate it.

[@Puddle]

gosh I miss this corner of old internet!! your essays are some of my favorites- I loved spotting the BGM tracks in this as they came up!! very very good stuff!!

[@spookypixels]

I though I commented here already but I guess I didn't. It was cool seeing my stuff in your video, thank you (a friend told me about it), I'm the person who made the DiGi Charat site, the Judy & Mary / YUKI site and image directory, and the Cyber Idol Mink site. I still have my sites, just on decades long "hiatus" lmao. Thanks again!

[@arranr]

As someone just young/sheltered enough to have missed most of the wild west of the 90's internet, but who still remembers accidentally discovering porn for the first time while trying to look up yu-gi-oh, I love these little snapshots from the dawn of home internet.

[@adrianmalacoda]

I was a member and occasional contributor of TRsRockin back in the day (I sent in the emails at 27:36 and 27:40 respectively). I was fascinated by all the glitch Pokemon in the games and made lists of them, which eventually turned into a website of my own, "Professor Glitch's Laboratory" which over the years became "Glitch City Laboratories" in late 2005. I lost interest in Pokemon around 2010 but continued to maintain the website until 2020, when it collapsed under the weight of drama (in part brought upon by the "glgaleak"). The ironic thing is that around 2005 I became envious of TRRose for having "authorative" Pokemon glitches website, but in retrospective I wish I did the smart thing like she did and closed it when I lost interest. The final decade felt unrewarding personally and I feel I was holding the community back. In spite of this the community managed to accomplish amazing things like ACE, but it probably would have happened without GCL.

[@forgottenmoralsenses8357]

Something about your delivery and content is super comforting, I'm happy I stumbled across this channel!

[@Soundwves]

During the section where you talked about not being able to find a certain version of MMKB, perhaps you were talking about MMHP, Mega Man Home Page? I remember it being similar to the way you described it back in the day.

[@hhhazel]

wow it was 10000% this and its still online. wish id caught this while working on the video LOL

[@Soundwves]

@@hhhazel LMAOOOOOO it be like that sometimes

[@joecarter2812]

I miss the old internet soooooo bad!

[@GynBlaise]

Thanks for the gut punch of nostalgia with the Harvest Moon and Rune Factory faq pages lol. A huge chunk of my childhood was spent printing out these faqs, highlighting relevant information (how to marry my favorite bachelorette/bachelor), and separating the pages with sticky notes so I could find info quickly 😅

[@amberisvibin]

damn, I wish I was around for this type of internet. makes me wanna go out and make a shitty website for something I enjoy

[@slowyourroll1146]

You could always join us over at neocities if you're ever up for it!

[@amberisvibin]

@@slowyourroll1146 I may be being dumb here.. but what's neocities?

[@slowyourroll1146]

@@amberisvibin it's a webhosting service which aims to bring back independent sites similar to geocities :D

[@amberisvibin]

@@slowyourroll1146 oh! that sounds pretty neat! I'll have to look into it

[@amberisvibin]

@@slowyourroll1146 wow this is neat

[@beat-man5167]

I remember this Ed Edd n Eddy fansite called los3eds. It had stuff like the map of the cul-de-sac, music videos, and fan dubs. It's also where I found the Beats of Rage game Nightmare on Ed Street.

[@theothertonydutch]

Man, internet where everything was in weird places was great. You really felt like exploring a universe.

[@mari-nn9zc]

This just makes me pine harder for my old Geocities fan webpages that I haven't been able to recover. Ughh ...

[@bb010g]

they're not within the Wayback Machine?

[@chimechofan5]

My favorite old fansite currently is NanoFate.com, a site dedicated to discussion of the Nanoha franchise, specifically of the ship between the 2 main characters. It's been around for well over a decade and still has fan art and forum posts even now when the franchise is basically dead. It was such a treat to find something like that in this day and age. Makes me happy to see stuff like that still around.

[@Astolfo2001]

I actually visit that website and am a user on it and I got into the Lyrical Nanoha franchise in 2018. And the Lyrical Nanoha franchise isn't dead as they held a 15th anniversary event last year and announced a new project during that event. They even have released 2 movies and 1 spin-off anime for the franchise over the past 5 years. Oh, and I guess I am not the only person in this comments section that loves Nanoha. Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, the 3rd season is legitmately my favorite anime. Man, that franchise certainly needs more love in the West....

[@chimechofan5]

@@Astolfo2001 You're right. I just meant dead in terms of the western fanbase. Nice to see a fellow Nanoha fan though :)

[@Astolfo2001]

@@chimechofan5 You're welcome. ☺😊 By the way, even though my username is derived from a fan nickname of Nanoha Takamachi (the White Devil) and the TheLegend27 meme from some mobile game ad, my current avatar is actually of Mio Sakamoto from Strike Witches.

[@Klaus-]

I saw that dbzwarriors splash image and was hit with a wave of nostalgia. This is going to be a good video

[@IceLaic]

I still remember the really tiny communities I was in back then. The Green Cow Message Board was a Harvest Moon site that probably topped out at 20 consistent users at its peak. It’s weird how influential something so small can be…

[@grey5626]

@IceLaic: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."ーMargaret Mead

[@Joel97_]

So about Pokemon Naranja, it was a a Spanish hackrom, probably one of the first ones, originally uploaded in Whack a Hack (Biggest Spanish Pokemon hackrom site from back then and now) somehow it got translated to English and it spread through the internet and flea markets. I do recall playing it circa 06-07 and amused on how much you could change and do with it. I had a completely different experience due to being Spanish Native and my English being literally terrible but, it is still amazing to see these websites and recall how different the internet really was back then. One of my favorites was Pokemon safari, later renamed to Zona Safari, which was basically the Spanish serebii at the time and translated all the news to our language and seeing Gen4 become a real thing and people naming the Pokemon by their romanji equivalents was something i wish i could experience again. Thanks for this awesome video

[@punkitt]

Man, all this made me remember Earthbound Central! That was part of the reason I got into the MOTHER series at all. I used to check it every day for updates. It was especially helpful since EB was still relatively obscure back in the day and with no new games, it was hard to find ANYTHING new on the subject. And yet, Tomato kept at it, keeping the site up for well over a decade. It doesn't get updated any more, but dang if I don't appreciate all the hard work he put in getting a generation of fans invested in the series.

[@punkitt]

The Mushroom Kingdom!!! I used to frequent that site all the time as a kid. I used to download the MIDIs and jam to them off my PC's crusty speakers. That place was an invaluable resource for any burgeoning Mario fan. I hope the Mafia-themed Mario fan film is still up...

[@caliburnabsolute8517]

I remember getting a few Beckett Pokemon magazines back before Platinum even came out in Japan. There were some articles on the mythology that inspired Pokemon like Dunsparce and Shiftry that I still remember to this day. A video on those magazines would be so cool. Also, goddamn, I felt that rant about Fandom wikis deep in my soul. Those wikis are pure ass, and I wish there was a better alternative to them (or *any* alternative) 90% of the time. EDIT: You know what fansite I miss the most? Edtropolis! It was basically like one of the anime fansites you featured, but for Ed, Edd, 'n Eddy, and I miss the fanfics and fake in-universe newsletters it used to host. All that exists of Edtropolis now is a dead forum that I had to really dig to find. It's depressing, but I suppose a fate like that was inevitable.

[@hhhazel]

yo 100% froslass became my favorite pokemon when i read about the yuki onna in one issue

[@PixelRoserade]

fushi no tane honestly helped me out so much when it came to remembering bachelor's favorite gifts and their schedules.

[@ToastyJunebugs]

Seeing websites written in HTML will forever make me think of Neopets.

[@steampunkerella]

i deeply miss the old internet. i blame capitalism

[@WannabeMarysue]

people on bbs in the 1980s would say the same thing, when commercial boards started hijacking their hobby. . . . and they were right

[@Astolfo2001]

Don't blame capitalism for anything Blame governments, dumb karens, and SJWs for ruining the internet

[@marball]

@@Astolfo2001 wtf do SJWs have to do with this

[@laith_iris]

@@Astolfo2001 none of those have anything to do with the centralization of the WWW in a few websites

[@TheMedjed-k9n]

I blame the mainstreaming of websites such as KZbin, Reddit, Twitter, etc. because of them smaller websites just sort of died off.

[@Mcmos9000]

MMKB may be a wikia now but the Mega Man Home Page still exists in all its glory! That was my go-to for battle network walkthroughs and general game knowledge stuff. It even has the snarky first person voice!

[@TheSound0fThunder]

Kirby's Rainbow Resort is something I haven't thought about in a long time. I was a massive kirby fan when I was in elementary school back in the early 2000's and I absolutely loved that site. Great video, Hazel!

[@flyingstaplers]

literally SQUEALED with delight when you talked about Court Records, I spent YEARS of my life on there as a teenager lmao. this video was fascinating and so comfy to watch, thank you so much for your hard work 😁

[@Jamie-sg5in]

Scrolling Mid-late 2000s Internet forums with my older sisters will always be my favorite internet experience.

[@RPG_Hacker]

I loved that TS Rockin site! I vividly remember reading it's in-depth explanation on how the Missingno glitch happened and being fascinated by it. Those were the good days. These old fansites really had some magic that was unparalleled by anything coming after. It's really sad to think that a lot of these sites just flat out don't exist anymore and aren't even arcived much.

[@1i1i1ii1]

OMG when TorHighHeels showed up I gasped. Love the crossover and amazing video!

[@okawesome2746]

Seeing the Court Report on here takes me back. That site got me through some of the harder levels.

[@GoriguiMonke]

The thing I miss the most about fansites is how inspiring they were... passion always inspires passion and knowing there were people out there with such love and devotion to a single subject inspired me to appreciate more the media and interests that were a part of my life.

[@karenerra]

It's amazing to me how this was exactly my childhood, I also just like.... stared at the fake pokemon on Serebii and other sites, even the bootleg games. One fansite I still ADORE is Phantasy Star Cave, it's such an amazing resource even today, there's something incredibly nostalgic and heartwarming about these sorts of sites and it makes me really happy to see several I used to visit brought up ;w; Also wow I ADORE your content, you're becoming such a favorite channel of mine, and collabs with other youtubers I love? Jeez you're gonna hook hard

[@asphyxia8700]

Idk why but noticing that you were using Linux Mint in your recorded footage really made me happy

[@Gobi445]

another banger!! this video was sooooooo good hazel! I got teary eyed looking at a lot of the old pages TToTT so much love put into these pages... definitely inspired to commit to making my neocities website!

[@EmeraldButterfly241]

You said the word "Beckett" and I immediately had flashbacks. I used to love those anime magazines when I was a baby weeb, I'd love a video!

[@annef0x]

Hazels vids are so comforting to me, I cant explain it. I just found this channel from your Lain vid and now I look forward to each upload!

[@Wolfie1262]

One of my favorite fan sites is not dedicated to any one video game franchise, but preserving the art in video games. VGMuseum is still being updated and is filled with all sorts of stuff from various game systems and arcade cabinets

[@imjustdandy9799]

Aaah I love ushi no tane! They were MANDATORY for playing harvest moon!

[@kakakayld]

As soon as you got through your intro I was thinking "Ushi no Tane is perfect for this!" so I was so glad you talked about it. I spent way too much time on that site and it's still in my bookmarks bar

[@dommitchell4319]

"i've taken up way too much of your time" hazel if you uploaded a 10 hour video talking about whatever the hell you wanted i would 100% watch all of it in one sitting, and then thank you for it.

[@doggyspeak]

If you dont already you should watch her stream VODs, they go crazy

[@bikenesmith]

this threw me so far back into the past omgggg. i grew up on kirbys rainbow resort, used serebii as a guide when i was playing the japanese roms of pokemon games not yet released in the us/english, and scared myself silly on tsrockin. literally gasped in recognition at the weird bootleg pikachu game. one of the first youtube videos i ever posted was a recordings of me playing that creepypasta pokemon diamond game and other hacks like pokemon naranja and shiny gold. i was *obsessed* with downloading and playing rom hacks of questionable quality bc i'd already exhausted all the pokemon roms and Required More. thank u so much for this video im so glad other people have such formative memories of old fandom internet

[@kristi_smearg]

This is a really strange question to ask in response to this video, but for no explicable reason I find myself dying to know what your feelings are about mario pinball land I've never played it but it seems fascinating, pokemon pinball was like one of my favorite games I can never tell from footage if it's fun or a trainwreck

[@bb010g]

it's a pinball adventure game with highs & lows

[@alonedownthere47]

TRs rockin was so damn important to my 8 year old self, you have no clue how hype i was to see you include it. dragonfly cave too, but i get you couldn't include them all. this makes me want to learn to code and make my own obscure fansite for like, rave master or something. so nostalgic

[@chrisbigelow7081]

One of my favorites was a final fantasy 6 fansite called the Town of Illuca (or something like that). Basically it was a clickable town made using the tileset from FF6 and you could talk to the main cast, visit the library for fanfiction and stuff like that. They even had a mock fight with Ultros. It was really cool

[@DaemonCorps]

Those Becket DBZ and Pokemon images unlocked a very specific part of my brain. A breakdown on its weird mix of information and oddities would be a good future video

[@xXAlexOrWhateverXx]

I almost spat out my tea at the Austin powers animal crossing design.

[@niccarooo]

This video took me back to my days feverishly checking Serebii and Brawl Dojo for updates on the new pokemon and smash games. This was such a nostalgia trip, thank you Hazel

[@LemmaEOF]

I love old GeoCities-style fansites! I actually made one earlier this year for a tabletop game, and it was super fun to do.

[@Titleknown]

Got a link? I'm curious now!

[@m.e.p.7223]

this is a few years later than most of the stuff in this video but i remember there being a shugo chara fansite that had all the episodes of the anime in beautiful crystal clear HD, both raws and with subs, and also had tons of official art and manga pages with really clean scans. i was obsessed with the pixel art and it's what inspired my early pixel artist stage as a youngling on the internet. that page probably got nuked because of copyright but i can't even remember the name anyways (i feel like it was called kira kira or something like that??) so it's lost to time forever.....

[@lillyclarity9699]

whoa two of the coolest youtubers in one video that's crazy

[@FM-cp6kc]

TR'sRockin was my favorite fansite as a wee child too, but I forgot the name over time and I've searching for it ever since. Thanks to you, a part of me's gotten closure.

[@kodokunoshinseiki]

I was born in 2008, so hearing those stories feels like hearing a story from a old tribal elder or something like that

[@EllieWeaver-nl6ii]

I’m super nostalgic for this era of the internet too. Thanks for making such a beautiful video honoring that era. You talked about some websites I used to visit all the time. I recently revived a fan site of my own recently on Neocities for fun.

[@MysteryCorgi_VN]

I've been finding myself craving that old fan shrine internet so this video came at a perfect time.

[@nothankyou4752]

no joke, something about the layout at 19:05 is so lovely and evocative; it makes me really understand the nostalgia everyone has for these sites despite being like 5 years behind

[@Sprited]

Hey I still use ACC! Wasn't expecting to see the site in here. Shout out to my homies on there

[@hellobringo]

I was wondering if Mew's Hangout would be mentioned. Thank you for making this video. The early internet really was something special

[@MajaroReal]

I feel so happy that I was born in the range of 10-15 years of people that would find these nostalgic. And also fear that kids these days won't have these "special" things to be nostalgic about, just whatever was popular on social media or the older updates of fornite.

[@grapebuilding]

I cannot BELIEVE you started with Rainbow Resort! That place was my JAM back in 2002. Extremely fond memories of that website.

[@grapebuilding]

HOLY SHIT ANIMAL CROSSING COMMUNITY TOO AAAGHHHHHHH (Live reaction)

[@IAmAndrew1]

I legit had an out of body experience when you mentioned Serebii

[@poopoopppppooopooooppoo]

every time hazel uploads i get another ten years on my life

[@Arceus5555]

Holy fuck this one hit me heavy. That exact fake Pokemon page from serebii I spent hours just staring at as an ADHD child and discussing with my brother which ones we thought were cool. Almost makes me want to see a video covering the other fakemons from like Pokemon factory and all of the talk about pokegods and everything because that shit had such an air of mystery

[@Sorrowisyourdemon]

TRsRockin was absolutely my favorite fansite when I was growing up and I've literally NEVER seen anyone talk about it. Thank you so much for shining a spotlight on this classic gem.