What happened to the weird internet?

Not everything on the internet needs to make sense.

There was a time when websites were weird. Not optimized. Not strategic. Just strange little digital experiments spinning out in cyberspace.

You’d click something and you didn’t know where it would take you.
There were scroll-jack sites. Flash labs. Things that blinked. And honestly? It was kind of amazing.

I saw one the other day. A floating collage of images wrapped around a spinning globe.
You could zoom in. Zoom out. Scroll up. Scroll down. No CTA. No funnel. No purpose.

It made me emotional. Because it reminded me that UX doesn’t have to mean clarity.
It can mean tension. Emotion. Mystery. It can make you feel something without explaining itself.

We’ve become so obsessed with best practices. We forgot the internet used to be a place for play.

Form follows function? Sure. But what if function followed curiosity and function?
What if a homepage was designed to be wandered through like a dream. Instead of marched through like a sales funnel?

Zaha Hadid didn’t design straight lines. She made buildings move. She made architecture feel like rhythm. And you’re telling me websites can’t do the same?

We’ve made the internet useful. We’ve made it beautiful. Now can we make it strange again? Especially now. As AI starts listening, watching, responding. Shaping space around us in real time.

This is the moment to go weird again. Not for nostalgia. But for the future. Because in a world run by machines, the most human thing we can do might be to build something that doesn’t make sense. But makes you feel.