The Web Archive modernizes its GeoCities GIF search engine

The Web Archive made it simpler to seek for ’90s-era GIFs. GifCities accommodates tens of millions of animations from the last decade of flannel shirts and Soup Nazis. The GIFs had been pulled from outdated GeoCities webpages, which (largely) bit the mud in 2009.

The brand new model of GifCities is way simpler to go looking. Now you can search semantically, based mostly on the animation’s content material. In different phrases, it is more likely to deliver up the subject or scene you are searching for by describing it. In GifCities’ outdated model, you might solely search by file title. (For those who’re feeling masochistic, you possibly can nonetheless entry that model below a “Particular search” tab.)

The up to date GifCities additionally now makes use of pagination. That is factor, because the outdated model’s infinite scrolling might make for gradual looking. It’s also possible to create and share “GifGrams.” Because the title suggests, these are customized e-greetings comprised of these historic GIFs.

The Web Archive launched GifCities in 2016 to have fun its twentieth anniversary. For those who’re too younger to know, GeoCities was the quintessential early web web-hosting service. A precursor to social media, it was filled with embarrassing fan pages, private photograph albums and “Beneath development” GIFs. (You will discover loads of the latter on this search engine.) Yahoo pulled the plug on most of GeoCities in 2009. (Disclosure: That is Engadget’s father or mother firm.) Nevertheless, the Japanese model survived for another decade.

For those who’re of a sure age, you will probably take pleasure in browsing the archive. (Or, study what handed for web humor earlier than you had been born!) Simply notice that many outcomes are NSFW. I made the error of looking for “Mr. T,” and I’ll now go away you to douse my eyes with bleach.