Build Date: Tue Mar 18 23:50:12 2025 UTC
I don't let cops and judges tell me what I ought to think democracy is.
-- Dashiell Hammett
Goodbye, Musical Yahoo
2000-06-28 19:53:44
Yahoo's interface has always lacked one thing: mandatory MIDI music in the background. One webmaster had a dream to change all that... Here's his crazy story.
On June 13, a San Francisco webmaster registered MusicalYahoo.com. It reproduced the search engine's familiar interface, cluttered with all the usual pointers to Yahoo's auctions, classified ads, and messaging client. But the slick corporate HTML also played rock classics.
And disco classics.
Y.M.C.A. The Batman theme. Stayin' Alive. Funky Town.
There's an implicit criticism of e-commerce here -- something about how dotcoms colonize what was a democratic medium. I love the web, with all its trashy glory -- and it's the kitschy web pages that re-affirm the freedom of the internet. Monstrosities rise up from mis-placed sincerity, genuine devotionals to grass roots heroes. And MIDI music has always been a symbol of that. Though it's shunned by every web-design pundit on the planet, there's always some starry-eyed believers who can't resist shoving music into their page's code.
So there was something moving about stumbling into the online moment when Wall Street favorite Yahoo.com apparently met the real yahoos at trailer parks across America. The ones who thought Yahoo wasn't complete without "Iron Man" playing in the background. Those dreamers who know that any time is the right time for "Werewolf of London." Who could object to this web-based nod to the dreams of the common man?
Yahoo's lawyers, that's who. You've got 24 hours to enjoy this portal-with-percussion... Thursday, June 29 will be the day the music died.
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