In 2009, after purchasing GeoCities for $4.6 billion a decade prior, parent company Yahoo! terminated the wildly popular web server overnight. An estimated 3.5 million sites were lost within seconds (Scott 2009). Although GeoCities comprised only a slight portion of the self-made Internet, its abrupt foreclosure was an effective microcosm for wider trends toward total deletion.
When comparing the gURLs to past counter-culture movements, their surrender under economic pressure seems inevitable. The riot grrrls, their closest relatives, experienced a similar erosion. However, gURL sites were not the sole targets of a gender-based backlash. As the World Wide Web conformed to a commercial infrastructure, an entire amateur environment was deforested. Academic retrospectives commonly refer to this event as ‘Web 1.0’ becoming ‘Web 2.0’, the former being a static text-based system and the latter a social one. The terminology is reductive. ‘Web 2.0’ did not invent novel social pathways. So-called ‘Web 1.0’ was exceptionally collaborative, as evidenced by the expansive gURL neural networks. Freely accessible examples of positive personalization encouraged a generation to hyperlink their own experiences back and forth across the Net. Comradery is core to zine production, a foundational layer for Web 1.0 as a productive ecosystem. The optimism of automatic publication and novel interactivity also injured gURL longevity. Then-fledging Silicon Valley start-ups caught wind of the profit potential from communicating online. Jacqueline Rhodes mentions this shift as early as 2002 when acknowledging that while “internet technology lends itself to temporary literacies…increasing commodification, copyright legislation, and anti-content laws, suggest that the network may soon become inimical to social activism” (135). Methods previously unmonetized were packaged and promoted as a simpler “way to share” without having to “spend [your] time customizing [your] own page” so the pitch reads, laid plain by Yahoo! ‘technological evangelist’ Tom Hughes-Croucher following Geocities’ demolition (Grabham 2009). That a user should have substantial agency over their own online presence seemed ludicrous. The “slow poisoning of the public Internet”, in the words of tech journalist Parminder Jeet Singh, went unchecked for too long (2010: 18). Ambivalent government agencies released legal parameters for the glory of a ‘free market’, not acknowledging that a non-neutral Internet actively suppresses innovation. Distribution limitations emerged as a result of increasingly sponsored search engines, an artificial barrier in contrast to the natural hindrances of circulating print publications. The industry dogma ‘move fast and break things’ is emblematic of a general antagonism towards sustainable development and, conversely, a callous motive for social Internet. Interestingly, the motto originated within a fetal Facebook - arguably the most infamous ‘social network’.
A climate check on the current Internet exposes that since the sunsetting of so-called ‘Web 1.0’, oppression has been systematically scaffolded into its social infrastructure. Social networking opportunities are restricted to a dubious coalition of applications who demand payment in exchange for free communication, either as ephemeral data or material wealth. Personal websites have been recategorized as career development tools. Vague aspirations towards kinship are less rule, more ruse. Meta, a tech company valued at over $1.5 trillion dollars, purports to “build the future of human connection”, tracing its virtues all the way back to their 2004 launch of Facebook, claiming to have “changed the way people connect” (Meta 2025). Their boast is not incorrect; the social network did change the way people connected, specifically by restructuring online engagement into an obstacle course. Facebook was predated by its less ethical sibling Facemash, a website that featured “photos compiled from the online facebooks of nine [Harvard] houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the ‘hotter’ person” (Kaplan 2003). Zuckerberg was a college undergraduate at the time. Recall that the gURL founders were also university students. All had access to the same technologies, yet their inventions drastically differ from one another. Both purported to be social networks. Out of the two, Facebook is the one who took advantage of a user’s private information - quite literally their facial profile - for profit. Although Meta has since sterilized this origin story, both Facebook and Facemash are inarguably the bastard brainchildren of CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Modern Meta products are not independent of their forebearers. The company continues to prioritize its inherited sexist infrastructure, eliminating content moderation and internal diversity programs (Duffy 2025).
Social networks subsist on a standard userbase, facilitated both structurally and visually. As ‘girls’ magazines’ were to Riotgrrrl zines, social networks are highly controlled environments in comparison to self-made websites. Each maintains a uniform aesthetic code. Think of Instagram, a Meta application, with its tri-cube structure and limited orientation formats. Think of X (formerly Twitter), with its character restrictions and minimal customization. That X, once considered a vital news source, has now become a hub for political violence and conspiracy should caution online citizens against overreliance on manufactured social platforms. After technocapitalist Elon Musk purchased the company in 2022, the recognized atmosphere and ambition transformed almost instantly. The majority of its users were caught off-guard by the relative ease of his deconstruction, losing their primary tool of communication - and, for some, financial stability - without a breath of retribution. Unfortunately, Musk converting X from social network to soapbox was inevitable. Without tangible agency over the online lands we inhabit, colonization is to be expected. The rigidity inherent to social networking sites, in the words of Kim Barker and Olga Jurasz, “acts as an echo chamber for those with anti-feminist agendas…encourag[ing] ideas that are acceptable only to those who ‘shout the loudest’” (98 2019).
The main rot root is subtler than explicit misogyny. General Culture promotes routine self-discipline, and social sites only amplify this harmful dynamic. Akane Kanai identifies the progression from Girl Power to an individualistic focus on upward mobility as through a “mutual surveillance…within which identity is practiced” enforced by the exclusionary scaffolding of most social medias (91). Third-party tools that request/require intense user interactivity reinforce neo-liberal concepts like self commodification, as an individual must perform for an audience of unknown number or origin (96).
It is unsurprising that general antagonism towards female-centric virtual spaces has only intensified. Simultaneously, so has the need for such spaces. There are few options for a female user seeking comradery and creative freedom. When considering contemporary attempts, projects lean in two directions: career-focused or creative-focused. Both attempt to build coalition. Both embrace the visual ‘DIY’ qualities of past gURL webzines. The majority focus on the economic and demographic benefits that are generated when young femmes connect with computers. A primary example is Girls Who Code, an international non-profit organization, who functions as an auxiliary computer science course for communities otherwise unreached. While increasing diversity in the workplace is a necessary ambition, Girls Who Code is nowhere near embracing the self-made and spontaneous ethos of past gURL sites. Their intention is not a pure introduction to the emancipating powers of programming. GWC makes clear they are career-centric. Their ‘About Us’ page identifies three core values, the last being activism; GWC describes this as “not just preparing our girls to enter the workforce - we’re preparing them to lead it” (GWC). Career development is not the sole solution to deconstructing coded oppression. The companies have immense jurisdiction over web action. Being a woman and going to work for one of them will not solve deeply systemic and systematic issues.
Girls Who Code promotional materials communicate through an old-net aesthetic, embracing the collage tactics of earlier gURL projects but leaving the politics behind. The contradictory dynamic between their industrial focus and their chosen visual language further underlines the gaping gURL-shaped hole in the contemporary online. To celebrate the organization’s ten-year anniversary, Girls Who Code hosted a three-day ‘Codefair’ in March 2024. The event homepage features bright, eccentric web-safe colors and pixel art, haphazardly placed to mimic the unregulated design of a past Net. Even the cursor is costumed. The Codefair schedule leaves little room for non-commercial creative development. Some activities offered include “The NFT Art Studio” sponsored by the banking platform Synchrony and “Color Code Your Vibe”, where girls can “get a unique digital color palette” to “apply to your personal brand, or choose your next nail color” (2024). The ‘girl-ification’ of tech conference standards pedestals stereotypically femme interests while eliminating any nuance or critical engagement. Finally, the girl coder is hollowed out into girl consumer. Maintaining a healthy relationship with daily technology is not an autonomous goal but a potential byproduct of becoming an ideal worker.
Marketing tie-ins and motivated sponsors proliferate the Girls Who Code site. The blatant economic backing is not abnormal. As Web 2.0 took hold, final-stage gURL sites deteriorated into ad pages. Many were absorbed into institutional strongholds years before the death of Geocities heralded a new era of Internet. In fact, there reveals arguable lineage between the two girl-focused digital communities: a profit motive. The main neutralizing agent was internal site-creation. gURLs had become eager teachers for movement proliferation, often featuring intersite how-tos and margin design tips. A user guide published to gURL.com opens with an appealing scenario: “So you just read through all the new stuff on the site and now you want to post a shout out to the folks at gURL” (1999). By publishing accessible HTML guides, gURL encouraged both open-source information and user interactivity. With the introduction of ‘the gURL connection’, the site began prioritizing audience integration as opposed to independent, off-shoot creation. ChickClick and gURL.com both featured heavy promotion of their respective containment features through which “...girls [could] easily join a wide-reaching and vibrant online community” by removing technical and social barriers-to-entry. Although the sites maintained “a resistant kind of writing”, contradictory advertising and content ownership guidelines simultaneously perpetuated “certain forms of anti-feminist ideology”. On gURL.com, users were confronted with “advertising every step of the way”, from hotel discounts to menstrual products (Duncan & Leander, 2000). As early as 1998, two years beyond its initialization, the gURL.com homepage devoted a significant amount of screen space to affiliate links. The site had been purchased by clothing retailer Delia’s years before, inevitably evolving into a pseudo-circular (Ryan, 1999). Terminology once utilized as a bulwark became a battering ram, targeting “women as consumers instead of as agents of social change” (Rhodes 131). Cybergrrl promoted itself as a proprietor of femme solidarity. In reality, the site openly admitted to curating traffic for advertising purposes primarily; “Clients have the opportunity for broad exposure in our wide range of online ventures with features like chat, forums, webcasting…” (1999). Previous corporate sponsorships included deals with shady cosmetic schemer Avon and Chase Online. Creating a site on ‘the gURL connection’ was free and one could click gURL.org without spending a cent. All the while, user data was being unconsciously traded. That kind of currency is common now. But the gURLs, preaching political freedom and self-expression, were taking advantage of the structural harms they purported to deconstruct. Sites became “spaces of both resistance and conformity” accumulating “contrived interpretations…that mediate behavior and…inform participants’ outlooks” rather than encourage autonomous identity development (Duncan & Leander 2000). For the small fee of surveillance, girls could access what they could code independently. In other words, the pigs began to look a lot more like people. gURL.com now automatically redirects to Seventeen Magazine. That alone is evidence enough.
The desire for a girl-centric digital space never disappeared. Women were coding to revive the movement even before its last breath. Slackgirls, a digital zine spear-headed by two college-aged women, despairs over “the whole ‘grrl site that’s also a really friendly tampon company’ invasion” on their ‘about’ page (2000). The relief inspired by their frank recognition of gURL commercialization quickly dissipates upon realizing that Slackgirls vanishes from the net less than a year afterwards. The e-zine demonstrate a common pitfall of amateur projects: dissipation. Without sustenance from a broader, thriving community, self-made sites are often finite.
Unfortunately, more recent attempts are sparse. A rudimentary search through Neocities, a Geocities descendant that hosts approximately 1.5 million static sites (Belanger, 2026), dredges meager results. To be located in the database, creators must tag their sites with relevant keywords. As of January 2026, 20 sites internally identify as ‘riotgrrrl’. The majority are largely incomplete or entirely abandoned. One with considerable code appears to be a historical timeline rather than a movement work itself. ‘Girl’ and ‘girls’ contain within their results a plethora of sites dedicated to artificially-generated or anime pornography. The polarity recalls Dr. Pamela Takayoshi’s point, who observed in 1999 that “the result of using the girl search term is a representation of the Web as a male domain where girls exist only as objects for men to consume” (97). Two decades later, conditions have not improved. This depressing exercise is only escalated when taken to externally-based search engines. Google is flooded by commercial sites whose product promotion leans on popular slang terms like ‘that girl’ or ‘it girl’ to successfully engage the algorithm. The top result for ‘grrrl websites’ is a sportswear brand (GRRRL Clothing). ‘Career-driven women’ and ‘girly-girls’ can page through site after site of guides centered on pop culture and consumption. The “consumerist society immersed in complex youth advertising campaigns”, as warned of by Duncan and Leander, has completely subsumed any ‘girl’ subversions (2000). ‘Girl’ itself has abandoned all cultural specificity. Trendy hashtag names like ‘girl dinner’ and ‘girl math’ begin as attempts at reclamation but quickly give into furthering an etymological degradation. ‘Girl dinner’, for example, originated in young women posting meals made for one. Filling despite being aesthetically unpleasant, ‘girl dinner’ stood contradictory to assumptions about women and their place behind a kitchen stove. The hashtag quickly devolved into a viral method for promoting barren snack plates as full fuel replacements; to be a girl is to eat little or nothing at all.
Actual spaces for the emotional and artistic development of girls have been replaced by listicles with an audience of women. Sites that purport to focus on a younger audience are often STEM-related, like the previously analyzed Girls Who Code organization. Non-profits in this category are akin to educational reservoirs, intended as a supplement for school and study. The manufactured distance of academic knowledge required to enjoy computer programming has similarly distanced any girl-centric project from embracing the awkward, curious aspects of youth. Industry-focused initiatives are remnants of what is now referred to as ‘girlboss culture’, a period in the early 21st century when popular feminism pushed for strict adherence to capital as an effective escape from oppression. Rather than demonstrably alter the system or propose one wholly new, girls were encouraged to enter male-dominated workfields in order to balance the demographics - computer science specifically. Unfortunately, retaining an oppressive economic structure did not revolutionize the way women are treated in the workforce.
Amidst increasing surveillance and social sterilization, there is an emerging counterculture who rally behind a better Internet. Although a myriad of smaller subgroups exist to claim allegiance with, the best-defined community are the ‘Indie Web Revivalists’. The project takes its name from the ‘Folk Revival’ of 1960s America, when musicians returned to raw instrumentation and class-conscious lyricism in the face of heavy technologization. Web Revivalists do not strictly rely on mimicry of past Internet aesthetics. They approach the modern Net with a fresh optimism, combining new and used techniques to reclaim virtual reality (Melon King, 2023). As defined by the database Indieweb.org, the movement is “a community of independent and personal websites based on the principles of: owning your domain and using it as your primary online identity, publishing on your own site first, and owning your content” (2024). The mantra itself is a hyperlink amalgam, each statement leading to its own extensive subpage. The statement stretches beyond a singular border, textually and structurally embodying the movement ethos through compilation of various community-generated links.
Melon King is the alias of an Ireland-based net artist named Daniel. Melonking.net, his primary site, is an altar to old net aesthetics. He lists eight core tenets of the Web Revivalist movement, including “Creativity is First”, “The Internet is Fun/The Web is Friendly”, and “Corporations are Boring”. He elaborates that “most [web revivalists] see the ability to design, decorate and graffiti digital spaces as essential and powerful…most want the Web to be a playground that’s free to explore and enjoy” (2023). The site also features an extensive database of similarly-minded web projects. The two lists are equally important; materially enacting a thesis, as demonstrated here, is essential to successful argument. King’s summarization recalls similar words coded by past gURL projects.
There are a few significant examples of contemporary girl-oriented action. None directly identify lineage from the gURL projects. Despite the citational gap, their contributions to digital femme existence deserve recognition. The following case studies were uncovered through use of both external and internal search engines. The first, Valerie Zine, is hosted on a free .neocities domain. The Valerie logo features letters stylized to appear as if cut from a magazine. By leaning on a familiar collage aesthetic, the zine automatically aligns itself with a grassroot feminist past. Dually physical and digital, Valerie publishes themed zines in a PDF format. An issue can be downloaded based on a tipping system, allowing users to choose what - or if - to pay. The creator is physically located in New Zealand, but its contributors are international. A specific highlight is the ‘Resources’ subtab. When clicked, a user is redirected to a hypertext page categorized under headers like “Cybersecurity” and “Anti-Sexual Exploitation Resources” (2025). The breadth of topics recalls the explicit messaging of many gURL publications, demonstrating a particular resilience against censorship and gender-based suppression. The similarities are undercut by a fairly barren site structure. The zine is restricted to a printable format, removing possibility for interlinked articles or immediate call-and-response. Valerie also prominently advertises their social accounts on Instagram and Tumblr. Both are pseudo-artistic, having initially prioritized user expression and steadily eliminated freedoms in the following years. The zine is one of many current mixed-media publications exploring secondary options to the typical web. Valerie leans in a more material, ‘grrrl zine’ direction.
Let’s move further along the gURL evolution. Girlhood, hosted on the handle thegirlhood.org, is an exemplary collaborative blog and message board designated for young women. The site embraces amateur visual aesthetics, with images and text code-collaged atop one another. Scrolling down their homepage supplies a stew of cartoons and newspaper clippings. The clippings are often references to promotional articles published about Girlhood. One headline refers to the site as a “viral agony aunt”, a magazine archetype essential to original gURL publications. Although the cartoons are charming, the girls depicted are of a specific type. Rather than lean on abstract, animated figures like gurl.com or create diverse clipart like chickclick.com, the figures on Girlhood are all white, skinny, and well-dressed. There is a clear emphasis on material reference; high heels and lipstick litters the site, leaning into superficial girlish stereotypes. Although Girlhood plays with the concept of collage, the site structure and format is overall more streamlined than the idiosyncratic gURL. By standardizing the format of each blog, regulating each piece to the same visual language regardless of origin or author identity, smothers their “every girl” goal (2025).
Both the blogs and the message boards are largely user-submitted. Girlhood boasts about a hundred volunteers, all of whom identify as high-school-aged young women, who shift through submitted drafts and perform routine maintenance. The blogs are contained briefs on various age-related issues, often seeking or giving reassurance to readers. Writing featured under the ‘Our Team’s Blogs’ category feature titles like ‘The Unheard Melody of Self Love’ and ‘What I Wish I Had Known at 13’. User-submitted blogs are less editorial, detailing personal stories about struggling with sexual identity and toxic best friends. The sheer volume of writing featured demonstrates there is a definitive audience for contemporary girl-centric sites. The topics addressed above are written about in a near identical fashion to previous gURL sites. For example, a Girlhood essay titled you are not your insecure thoughts petitions its readership to spend less attention on their insecurities and more on their personhood. “Growing up surrounded by social media…has damaged millions of girls….” author Sophia Rundle writes, “you are not your insecure thoughts…you are your mind’s endless capacity to love and to be kind. To seek laughter and experience all that life has to offer” (2025). Curvy & Proud, a gURL essay published in December 2000, expresses almost the exact same thought: “I was fucked up. Developing a healthy body image in our society is tough when you’re growing up female…” (Emily, 2000). Another essay, AFRO, featured alongside echos Rundle’s second sentiment by concluding that once the author “stopped seeking approval, [she] got more than [she] sought.” Having let go of physical insecurities, her “identity’s no longer rooted in [her] hair” (Adrienne, 2000). 25 years in between, girls are picking up where the gURLs left off. The Internet, embedded with a dynamic timelessness, is uniquely suited as a medium for supporting this intergenerational dialogue.
The volunteers are also responsible for monitoring the embedded ‘Girl Chat’ forum page. A bold red header encourages users to “ask advice, give advice” (2026). As of January 2026, 14,688 comments have been posted to said page. Many posts have been supported by a barrage of comments from other young women. Names begin to appear at a greater frequency than others, evidence of a regular userbase who return to the chat often for advice and companionship. Although a majority are about classroom crushes or relationship issues, some are jarringly serious. User ‘Faith’ writes: “So I am under 18 and my parents got divorced…it’s just a lot feeling…I just started middle school and I don’t really fit in with the other girls because they are skinny and I am fat…I’m like a weird kid in school and I just need some help”. An empathetic ‘sakura’ replies “I’m really sorry that you have to go through so much all at once. First of all, your body is perfect the way it is. You’re still growing and your body is going through a lot of changes…I have bad social anxiety, too, and it’s so exhausting…so yeah, you are not alone”. The interaction was uploaded a week from research date, and ‘Faith’ does not appear to directly respond. Regardless, the comradery is evident. But the lack of systemic support for nuanced discussion of more intense issues - like dealing with divorce - leaves ‘Faith’ with little options to continue. The blogs published by Girlhood are heavily focused on body image and ‘mindset’ support, rather than concrete advice for girls in difficult, uncontrollable situations. Being a girl is not only pink - often, it’s red.
Without the preceding example set by Web Revivalists, TodaygURL would not have succeeded. The current Internet is an insular funnel; regardless of where on the feminist spectrum these inspiring amateur sites would place, their sheer precedence has enabled a new revolution. While organizations like Girlhood are providing young women space to discuss, and Girls Who Code space to study, neither fully embraces the amateur, anarchist ethos of the gURL movement. There is no room online for girls to play with code and creativity. There is no ability for girls to curate their own publications rather than rely on older, more institutionalized companies to supply content.
The previous chapter identified the various generative traits unique to gURL projects. In closing this chapter, the negative effect such an absence has wrought on the contemporary digital landscape is obvious and unsustainable. Current computer science leadership promises a century of suppression and surveillance. What the gURLs left behind conceal lessons on a more optimistic perspective. Through fully embracing a handmade web, Internet users can reclaim their stolen selfhoods. The next chapter will act as a secondary introduction, not to the thesis scaffolding but to the thesis culmination: an introduction to todaygurl.org.