Five Years (plus: Longer Forgotten Websites)

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Long-Forgotten is today five years old.

In a few weeks at most we will witness the return of

the Hatbox Ghost to Disneyland's Haunted Mansion.

Just one of those cosmic convergences, I suppose.

Had to get the above up before the day ran out. The real chills came later (below, written the next day).  It's a very strange post I've got for this occasion. We're going to visit a different kind of haunted house.

In the Beginning

Hard to imagine a world without the Internet, ain't it? In our case, we would never have known that the Haunted Mansion had a fan base without it. Until the 'Net, we were just individuals with a peculiar affection and interest in this one ride, unaware that we are legion. I've said this before, but I haven't said anything much about the pioneers, those who have gone before us. I'm talking about people who set up Haunted Mansion tribute pages back in the 1990s. Nearly all of them have gone the way of the dodo. One of them, however, flourished: Doombuggies.com, founded in 1997 and today practically an institution. There's little need for me to talk about DB.com to you guys, I'm sure.

It's the others. The long-forgotten ones. Many were obviously set up by young teens. They were amateurish and puerile (and gruesomely spellcheckless), but they brimmed over with enthusiasm. Some were of high quality and ran for years before dying. Sometimes this was because the creator moved on to bigger and better things. Christine Foxx, for example, is today the erudite and insightful mistress of Passport to Dreams Old and New, one of the most literate Disney blogs around, but she was naught but a talented, giddy teenager when she put together the now-defunct GrimGhosts blog.

Other sites closed down when the owner went to work for Disney (or aspired to). You see, the Mouse don't like its people chattering on chatboards, let alone running blogsites. Still others were one-shot tribute pages that just sort of laid there. After you'd read it, you were done. These perished from lack of sustained interest, I suppose.

Some of them no doubt fell prey to the dread URL King.

 The URL King

There are still a few worthwhile HM sites in operation besides DB.com (see the list on the right), but this is not about them. Strange sort that I am, I decided one day to gather up some of these long abandoned urls and paid some of the old sites a visit.

Haunted Houses

This right here that you're looking at is a public discussion likely to be read by hundreds of people (and I sincerely thank you all for coming). It's frequently—too frequently—visited by me the owner. The lawn is kept trimmed and neat, weeds are pulled, repairs are made to the house as needed. Unfortunately, the sense of utter desolation I am about to describe is lost in such a format.

You have to imagine the feeling of sitting alone before your screen (late at night is best), summoning up an old site that hasn't had a click in years, feeling like some sort of sorcerer employing just the right conjuring spell, beginning with http. The apparition appears. You wander about among the ruins. The analogy to a haunted house is irresistible.  You visit black, empty rooms, currently occupied only by small, white question marks in a square of blue. You find many a locked door (links that go nowhere), but occasionally a link will call up another ghostly page, and you ascend to the second floor. You find random images, like so many pieces of furniture left behind in an abandoned house. Ghostly writings appear on the walls, messages and information no one has read in years. You realize that you're utterly alone in this place, exploring something left derelict by its owner. It is as silent and melancholy as a mausoleum. I suppose you have to be a certain kind of person to actually enjoy this.

In some cases a date is there to tell you roughly when the house was abandoned.

My personal favorite among these desolate places? "Arooooo!"  It's like looking at the blueprint

of an abandoned building. This place was once bustling with activity. Now look at it.

Memento Mori

Inevitably, one wonders if Long-Forgotten will one day join the ranks of the long-forgotten and drift forever through cyberspace, like a ghost ship.

I'm going to blog about the new Hatbox Ghost when he appears, naturally, but after that I expect to go into a state of hibernation. I'll blog something if and when something turns up, so LF shan't be abandoned, but expect things to be quieter. Currently, I have no posts in the can. Haven't had anything to talk about worth talking about. When there is, I'll be back at the keyboard.