User:Loganrobert96/Obscurity hunting
 | This is not a Wikipedia article: It is an individual user's work-in-progress page, and may be incomplete and/or unreliable. For guidance on developing this draft, see Wikipedia:So you made a userspace draft. Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Obscurity hunting refers to the practice of searching out and often sharing with others obscure or forgotten "parts" of the internet in the forms of blogs, websites, or even obscure Wikipedia pages. This practice most often takes place in internet forums where users will send each other links to different "obscure" webpages such as blogs for unused security software, websites containing internet tutorials from 1994, and abandoned Chinese dental websites.
Uses[edit]
Humor[edit]
For many, obscurity hunting is a form of entertainment; they find humor in how bizarre or useless certain websites seem. However, obscurity hunting is not simply looking for websites that are bizarre, for a website can be bizarre without being obscure. True obscurity hunters, rather, look for websites that are obscure because they are bizarre.
Challenge[edit]
For some others, it's a challenge, to find places in the internet heretofore undiscovered, like finding buried treasure, or being the first to make footprints in a fresh layer of snow. These hunters see the internet as a landscape, and themselves as truly a hunter tracking some rare beast, blocking out the background noise to find their prize.
Anonymity[edit]
And for yet others it's another way to stay anonymous; with the increasing public awareness of and paranoia regarding internet surveillance, the popularity of sites like Startpage and DuckDuckGo and programs such as Tor have increased exponentially. This frenzy has added a third branch to the obscurity hunting community; those who look for outdated or unused websites with forums or chat areas where they can communicate with others unobserved. Almost like a chat room with a password, only those who know the link to the site would ever find it and so obscurity hunters of this third type will find such websites and send the link to whatever few people they want to communicate with privately.
Examples[edit]
Obscurity Hunting Forums[edit]
Here are just a few examples of forums where members discuss and share obscure websites.
http://www.cavestory.org/forums/index.php?/topic/5107-the-obscure-websites-thread/ http://forum.starmen.net/forum/General/Discussion/Obscure-Websites http://www.ipmskalamazoo.org/clubnews/meetings/obscure-websites/ http://zandronum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=4853&pid=65787 http://www.facepunch.com/threads/showthread.php?t=1040763
Obscure Sites[edit]
A handful of currently obscure sites.
http://www.sewingandembroiderywarehouse.com/embtrb.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lezuza http://robotehcnolgiees.webs.com/ http://www.theuselessweb.com/ http://www.wwwdotcom.com/
References[edit]
External links[edit]
- http://jp.techcrunch.com/2009/02/07/20090206imoim-is-the-best-im-web-service-youve-never-heard-of/
- http://www.cavestory.org/forums/index.php?/topic/5107-the-obscure-websites-thread/
- http://forum.starmen.net/forum/General/Discussion/Obscure-Websites
- http://www.facepunch.com/threads/showthread.php?t=1040763
- http://www.barracuda.co.jp/column/detail/6