About

The Museum of the Lost Web aims to collect, curate, and comment on memories of online communities in the ~20 years spanning the emergence of the World Wide Web and the dominance of social media as the primary form of connected togetherness.


On this site, you will find personal histories, preserved documentation, elusive imagery, and fond recollections of bygone forums and closed chatrooms. Though the communities themselves may have closed their doors or fallen victim to link rot over the years, the connections and friendships made on and through them have been preserved, and this Museum plays host to demonstrations of that fact.

Some commonalities emerge through the attestations in the Museum: Neopets, Gaia, AOL Chatrooms. But there are more, by far, of the tiny, obscure, extremely specific special-interest sites that once dominated online culture. Forgotten boards abound— or not forgotten, for as long as there are members of communities around to remember them, and hold fast to connections made through them, they will not be completely gone.


To contribute your own memories to the Museum, please fill out this form.


The Museum of the Lost Web is the USC MA+P undergraduate thesis project of Allegra Rosenberg.