@kimberlyhirsh Thanks for writing this. I'm of a similar generation as you, so I share a lot of the nostalgia and internal conflict with current Internet life.

I remember the "weird Internet" very well; indeed I used to make those kinds of websites, and I'm still invested in making them. I also think those Web 1.0-esque websites and communities are still around, even with linkrot they've never quite gone away. But with the increasing centralization and prominence of social-media giants, I think the average user of the Internet has been schooled into seeing and engaging only with the giants (and thus, to think about websites under a certain paradigm), and have been schooled out of the methods of finding and engaging with the small independent websites. We're now used to having links served to us by the silos and just scanning a random blog post but not engaging with the entire blog (person). We have to school ourselves back into how to walk off the beaten track and discover the Internet for ourselves -- by following links and engaging deeply with websites and blogs.