This oral history collects recollections from a generation of artists who learned to make work on the web. They remember early moments of experimenting in browsers, forums, and personal sites; the culture of gifting and circulating files; the thrill of glitchy code and unexpected browser behavior; and the slow, consequential shifts as platforms and business models reshaped how work is shared and valued.

Contributors describe building communities on IRC, GeoCities, and forums; swapping source files and techniques over email; and the intimacy of small-scale, self-hosted projects. They recall the influence of net art pioneers, the rise of social media, and the tensions between openness and monetization. For many, the internet was both a medium and a commons — a place to prototype new aesthetics, politics, and collaborations.

The interviews emphasize material practices (HTML, Flash, GIFs), the importance of archives and preservation, and how access and gatekeeping changed over time. Several voices discuss burnout, platform dependency, and the difficulty of maintaining ephemeral, experimental work in an attention economy. Others express optimism about new toolsets and the return of niche spaces.

Ultimately, the piece traces a lineage from playful experiments to professionalized digital art, showing how personal histories map onto broader technological and economic shifts.