The First Webpage Went Live 25 Years Ago, and the Internet Has Been Going Downhill Ever Since

25 years ago this week, the internet’s first webpage went live. Created by Tim Berners-Lee, it was essentially “an explanation of how the hypertext-based project worked.” Engadget has images of what the page, entitled “Welcome to the Universe of Hypertext,” looked like at the time.

Black text on a white background. That’s it.

But oh, how webpages have changed in the years since. Black and white has gone full-color, text is now accompanied by images and video, and creating a new URL to be immediately indexed by Google is as simple as sending a tweet.

Celebrate 25 years of devolving content by comparing the internet of old to some pages I’ve seen on the World Wide Web today:

There was this tweet:

This resolution to a feud nearly as old as the World Wide Web:

An update on the country’s biggest romance:

An update on a man who’s somehow lower than Z-list:

Video content about two human question marks:

International news:

This relatable moment:

Inspirational content:

Instagram content:

And this truly inexplicable content:

Images via screengrab.