Retro Rabbit Holes, NeoCities, and the Accidental Summer STEM Project
- Rich Washburn
- Jun 12
- 2 min read
So here’s the story:
I was minding my business—probably watching a YouTube video about something I wasn’t going to do but felt better having watched—and someone casually dropped a reference to NeoCities.
Now if your brain just made the leap like mine did, you're probably already dusting off memories of <marquee> tags and animated construction GIFs. Because yeah—NeoCities is exactly what it sounds like: a modern, lean reboot of the glorious mess that was GeoCities.
And I couldn’t not check it out.
Turns out, NeoCities is still alive and kicking, loaded with user-created static sites made with good old-fashioned HTML. No frameworks. No bloat.
Just vibes. And the second I saw it, I got smacked with a wave of nostalgia so strong I could hear the whine of my 56k modem calling out from the past.
That’s when the idea hit:What if I spun up a retro site… right now… using nothing but ChatGPT, a browser, and my microphone?
What Happened Next
Two hours later, I had a fully built, fully nostalgic retro terminal-style site up and running at: 👉 rwashburn.neocities.org
It's called Enriched Retrovation, because of course it is. A play on my name, a nod to the aesthetic, and a guilty pleasure I will absolutely not apologize for.
It’s not meant to be anything other than what it is: a low-key throwback tech shrine. But it was absurdly fun to make—and shockingly fast thanks to GPT handling the coding while I riffed out loud like a caffeinated radio DJ.
Why This Matters (And Why You Might Want to Try It)
This kind of thing used to take days. Learning HTML. Debugging in Notepad. Refreshing until your eyes crossed.
Now? You can just tell the AI what you want, and it'll handle the scaffolding while you play designer, dreamer, or both.
And you don’t need to be a coder to enjoy it. This is the summer project if you’ve got a kid (or a niece, nephew, friend’s kid, random neighborhood genius) who’s even slightly curious about how the web works.
You could:
Build a homepage together
Make a silly joke blog
Turn it into a school project
Teach them to edit and style things with GPT’s help
Or hell—make a memorial blog for your goldfish (You’ll really love it after it dies. Too soon? Yeah… that was preemptive. Sorry. I’m out of line. Still true though.)
Look—the point is: this is low-friction, high-reward creativity. It's the kind of stuff we used to dream about being able to do someday. Well… someday is now.
AI meets nostalgia. A browser meets your voice.And somehow, it all just works.
Go build something weird. And if it makes you laugh? Even better.
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