As social media becomes increasingly automated and full of influencer-bait, it feels like we’re losing the internet we actually enjoyed using. The one where you could disappear down a rabbit hole for hours, stumble across something completely bizarre, or find a tiny corner of the web that felt like it belonged to you. Think old-school Tumblr, Bebo, MySpace, the early days of Twitter… A little less glossy, a little more personal.
But that internet isn’t completely vanished. Beyond the usual rotation of Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest, there are still loads of online spaces that feel weird, creative, and genuinely fun. From obscure music archives and fashion research libraries to DIY personal websites and gloriously pointless projects, consider this a guide to getting lost on the internet again, sans algorithm.
Music
New ways to listen to and discover music that aren’t Spotify, SoundCloud, or Apple Music.
Ninaprotocol
This one is actually posthumous (RIP), but it had to get a mention. Ninaprotocol was an independent platform where artists could sell their music, create their context, and connect with listeners. It sadly shut down in July 2026, and SoundCloud subsequently acquired its editorial archive and genre map.
I am a number 1 stan of community radio and worked in it for the best part of four years, but it can feel overwhelming how many stations there are (aside from the obvious ones like NTS).
CRI is an interactive online tool that maps community radio stations across the globe. It is truly genius and reassuringly cacophonous.
This is so good. Built by former Spotify data alchemist Glenn McDonald, a clickable scatter-plot of more than 6,000 music genres. Want to know what Chilean techno sounds like? Or Russian viral pop? Or South Borneo indie? Or Ugandan gospel? It’s all here, and so much more.
Another online radio station. Select a year and a country, and it plays music from that year and country. Simple. And properly amazing. Opening up the world in a way that feels much needed today.
More brilliant audio. An evolving collection of found cassette tapes from around the world, including voice memos, field recordings, mixtapes, bootlegs, and more. Weird and slightly uncanny. But in a good way. A curation of random cassette tapes with a little backstory; I love this concept.
Fashion, Film & Visual Culture
Fashion and visual research for fashion, film, music, and art.
A wormhole for fashion nerds. Founded in Oslo by Norwegian editor Elise By Olsen in 2020, the International Library of Fashion Research is home to all sorts of fashion-related print material, from magazines and catalogues to more obscure bits of fashion ephemera. Basically, hours of visual research without leaving your sofa.
archivepdf.net
For anyone who loves a good fashion deep dive. ARCHIVE.pdf brings rare fashion publications into the online world, with scans of magazines, interviews, articles, and other bits of fashion history to get lost in. A very good place to start if you fancy falling into a pit of inspo.
The People’s Graphic Design Archive
An ever-growing, crowd-sourced archive of graphic design history, built to document the people, work, and visual culture that might otherwise get overlooked. Ideal for when you need a little inspiration or just want to spend an unreasonable amount of time looking at old graphics.
A New York-based nonprofit library and print archive dedicated to vintage fashion, art, design, and subculture magazines. Basically, a dream afternoon for anyone who loves old magazines.
Film. Sound. Dance. Poetry. Conceptual art. UbuWeb is a sprawling archive of avant-garde culture, with everything from Nan Goldin to Ornette Coleman, Man Ray to Merce Cunningham. A wonderfully chaotic place to discover things you didn’t know you needed to see, hear, or read.
Think Netflix, but for the weird, underground, and gloriously esoteric. Eternal Family is a streaming platform packed with offbeat films, shows, and shorts that you’re unlikely to stumble across on your usual streaming services. It’s subscription-based, but well worth a look if you’re a film buff.
A treasure trove of zines covering everything from politics and art to creative writing and personal theory. Proof that the internet can still feel like rummaging through someone’s bedroom floor and finding a pile of stuff you’ve never seen before.
Your Own Little Corner of the Internet
A return to the personal website that’s not cut from Squarespace and Wix. Skip the corporate slop, right?
Perfectly Imperfect aka PI.FYI
The prototype for online DIY spaces (IMO) is proof that a simple idea can grow into something with real cultural currency. What started as a passion project in 2020 has become a go-to corner of the internet for artists, writers, intellectuals, and scenesters (you name it) to share the personal ephemera they find interesting. As its founders put it, it’s a space to “spiral on bits of personal ephemera.”
An online DIY hub for you to create your own online space. Warning: you will have to learn how to code. Get your nerd on.
Misc
Some random, fun, and silly corners of the internet that make no sense. Life doesn’t always have to be serious.
A beautiful archive of Chinese cigarette packaging.
Almost as genius as the man himself. A website that matches the weather where you are to a suitable painting by Rothko. Pure perfection.
This is pure joy; the website lets you browse Wikipedia via an endless feed of image cut-outs. Great for rabbit-hole activity and visual research.
A personal archive of software, hardware, thoughts, and things, created to share with anyone curious enough to click around. It’s meant for exploring, not merely passing through. Free of ads, pop-ups, and newsletter requests, with no structure or theme, simply a space to discover and browse without purpose. Go figure.
An online community of website hobbyists full of site-building resources, discussion spaces, project sharing, and a newsletter, all aimed at supporting and growing the indie web.
An endless radio station that plays sad, old, gloomy, and obscure music. Especially good after dark, with a single malt and a real fire.
An interactive map that charts the sounds of a number of historical phantom islands. Because, why not?
Perhaps my favorite of them all. A site that lets you pick a city across the world and take a virtual drive or walk while listening to its local FM station. This comforts me in the deepest way, especially when I’m missing home.
