One of the best things about the Internet is that anyone can make a website. On the other hand, one of the worst things is that anyone can make a website. We found that out quite fast in the '90s, when the new frontier that was the early Internet got filled with diarrhea fever dreams -- made both by 11-year-olds with access to rubber cement, lunch bags, and landlines, and by billion-dollar media conglomerates.
And like the Neolithic megaliths of yore, these crappy sites still stand, like an awful stain on the already disgusting tapestry of porn we call home. Here are some of the more inexplicable 1990s artifacts that are somehow still around.
8
The Heaven's Gate Suicide Cult Still Has A Web Page
Heaven's Gate
If you're too young to remember Heaven's Gate, they were a cult who believed an advanced species would arrive with the Hale-Bopp Comet to take them to Heaven. That all sounds delightfully nutty, but the sad part is that they committed mass suicide when the comet appeared in 1997 because they believed it was their ticket for the plane -- they literally refer to it as their "boarding pass." We know this because it's on their website.
Heaven's Gate
Behold: the only website in the world to have ever earned the "space" background.
The site is, heartrendingly/predictably, mostly gibberish, but one thing that jumps out at you in their list of links is a letter titled "Our Position Against Suicide," which is like the NFL having a position against hitting balls (of all types). And in case you still weren't convinced that the truth was out there, they even helpfully include an artist's rendering of what they believe a member of the "Kingdom of Heaven" might look like. Surprise surprise, it's the guy from Signs.
Heaven's Gate
Who must be in his mid-30s by now, since this is clearly his yearbook photo.