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Was Flash Responsible For 'The Internet's Most Creative Era'? (vice.com) 72

Posted by EditorDavid from the Hyakugojyuuichi dept.
A new article this week on Motherboard argues that Flash "is responsible for the internet's most creative era," citing a new 640-page book by Rob Ford on the evolution of web design.

[O]ne could argue that the web has actually gotten less creative over time, not more. This interpretation of events is a key underpinning of Web Design: The Evolution of the Digital World 1990-Today (Taschen, $50), a new visual-heavy book from author Rob Ford and editor Julius Wiedemann that does something that hasn't been done on the broader internet in quite a long time: It praises the use of Flash as a creative tool, rather than a bloated malware vessel, and laments the ways that visual convention, technical shifts, and walled gardens have started to rein in much of this unvarnished creativity.

This is a realm where small agencies supporting big brands, creative experimenters with nothing to lose, and teenage hobbyists could stand out simply by being willing to try something risky. It was a canvas with a built-in distribution model. What wasn't to like, besides a whole host of malware?
The book's author tells Motherboard that "Without the rebels we'd still be looking at static websites with gray text and blue hyperlinks." But instead we got wild experiments like Burger King's "Subservient Chicken" site or the interactive "Wilderness Downtown" site coded by Google.

There were also entire cartoon series like Radiskull and Devil Doll or Zombie College -- not to mention games like "A Murder of Scarecrows" or the laughably unpredictible animutations of 14-year-old Neil Cicierega. But Ford tells Motherboard that today, many of the wild ideas have moved from the web to augmented reality and other "physical mediums... The rise in interactive installations, AR, and experiential in general is where the excitement of the early days is finally happening again."

Motherboard calls the book "a fitting coda for a kind of digital creativity that -- like Geocities and MySpace pages, multimedia CD-ROMs, and Prodigy graphical interfaces before it -- has faded in prominence."
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Was Flash Responsible For 'The Internet's Most Creative Era'? More

Was Flash Responsible For 'The Internet's Most Creative Era'?

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  • Anti-Betteridge (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tim the Gecko ( 745081 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @11:12PM (#59304488)
    Yes Flash, you were great. Now take your malware and your on-again, off-again Linux support and disappear for ever.

  • Problem is, he still acts like a 14-year-old. Really. [youtube.com]

    I don't think the internet is any worse off without flash. Can't say I miss those "Punch the monkey and win an iPod!" ads.

    • Can't say I miss those "Punch the monkey and win an iPod!" ads.

      I thought they were just animated gifs.

    • His last album from 2016ish was comprised entirely of Smash Mouth mashups. He's not only stuck being 14... But being 14 in 2001. That said, I did enjoy some moments on the album, in the same way I enjoyed Girl Talk when I was 16.

  • Creative isn't necessarily better(or worse) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bhcompy ( 1877290 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @11:55PM (#59304542)
    Flash allowed the greatest flexibility for accessible creativity, but it also went off the rails a bit(it was the Wild Wild West of web design, after all). With a bean counter/focus group oriented direction for "user experience", that creativity is gone now, but some things are better because of that(though some things are worse). Java was never good enough in browser to drive what Flash did, and other alternatives were never quite there, either. I don't think HTML5 is where it's at without Flash pushing it there, but the limitations of HTML5(many of them deliberate for user experience and security/DRM purposes) also mean that the wave of creativity we saw is largely in the past. The interactive Flash comics of the past are now YouTube videos, where all interactivity is removed.

  • So you think you can drive mel was very funny when it came out.

  • And the world would be pretty much the same (Score:4, Interesting)

    by drnb ( 2434720 ) on Monday October 14, 2019 @12:20AM (#59304564)

    Was Flash Responsible For 'The Internet's Most Creative Era'?

    No, it just happened to be there for the ride when so many people decided they wanted to create a web page. It was just a tool, the creativity (or lack thereof) came from people, people who could have used a different tool.

    If Flash did not exist people would have used something else ...
    If Linux did not exists people would have used FreeBSD ...
    If gcc did not exist people would have used some other compiler ....

    ... and the world would be pretty much the same

    • I'll tell you though, I never guessed that "something else" would end up being "video compressed (that is, the opposite of compressed) as animated GIFS"
    • Yes, it's bollocks. FTFA :

      The book's author tells Motherboard that "Without the rebels we'd still be looking at static websites with gray text and blue hyperlinks

      Bollocks. That's on the same level as people claiming that without Bill Gates we'd still be using command line CP/M on 8-bit 64k machines.

      • Never used command line CP/M on 8-bit 64k machines. I've used TSO on a SysPlex however. The "experience" using a TSO or CMS on a SysPlex far exceeds anything that is available today.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by drnb ( 2434720 )

          Never used command line CP/M on 8-bit 64k machines.

          Not sure I ever touched a CP/M machine with 64K. :-)

      • That's on the same level as people claiming that without Bill Gates we'd still be using command line CP/M on 8-bit 64k machines.

        It's funny because 16-bit CP/M was the most likely option IBM would have been going to, but somehow they failed the deal.
        CP/M would very likely been an OS present in the early IBM PC days.

        The PC-compatible computer would have taken over the world no matter what. This hasn't as much to do with Microsoft, as with IBM being horrendously late to the micro-computer game (with all those pesky 8-bit starting to pop-up here and there in business settings) and thus needing jury-rig something and rush it as fast as p

  • Book website (Score:3)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Monday October 14, 2019 @12:26AM (#59304574) Journal
    I am extremely unlikely to buy a book about design that has such an ugly website.
  • Since the summary mentions Radiskull and Devil Doll, I might as well mention that Joe Sparks has relatively recently returned to making videos [youtube.com] but not many and not often, because hardly anyone noticed and no one is watching them. Still, they're there.

    Second, if you're going to praise Flash then you need to distinguish how it was used. It was terrible for the web, not because of bad web design but because it defeated the purpose. The web is supposed to be a network of hyperlinks, forming a "web," where a

    • Thinking back to my schooldays and messing around with Hypercard, Flash seems like it was an updated version of the same idea.

  • No. Next question.

  • It got everyone going with the idea that web pages weren't just dull academic text only affairs with a few crude GIFs here and there. True it exploded and like any new technology it got abused, and there were some horrendous pages that almost made your eyes bleed. The issue now is there are so many studies and guidelines that paid web designers are almost ordered to follow that they simply don't bother trying anything whacky anymore, they stick to what will pay the bills. Some of it is very good such as the

  • Flash was responsible for a number of things, but I can't say it was responsible for the Internet's most creative era

  • Betteridge's law (Score:3)

    by cjeze ( 596987 ) on Monday October 14, 2019 @02:30AM (#59304728)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no".

    Seems like it applies here as well...

  • It was anti-creative (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Monday October 14, 2019 @02:31AM (#59304732)
    The vast majority of flash websites were actually the result of lack of creativity by website designers. Those early site designers were basically page layout artists. They were used to creating a certain universal fixed layout in books and magazines. Everyone would see the same layout. The whole point of HTML was to distill down the information to its simplest form (e.g. text or a picture), and allow the viewer to decide how best to format that information. If the site was created in regular HTML, the text and pictures will re-flow to fit your browser. So if your monitor was only 640x480, the text and pictures would adjust to fit in 648x480. Basically taking us from paper age to the computer age.

    When the web came about, rather than embrace its flexible formatting and automatic reflowing of text and pictures to come out with better designs, these designers rejected the new flexibility. They sought out a way to return everything to their old ways - fixed format content. So when flash became a de facto standard, they immediately abused it to create websites which were like paper - they could only be views in one possible way (fixed resolution, fixed fonts, fixed layout, fixed colors). If you needed to view a 800x600 flash website on a 640x480 monitor, tough. You had to scroll side to side to see all the content.

    We're still feeling the aftereffects of these lazy designers. Even with HTML5 and CSS templates, most sites are designed to display at a certain size and resolution. As a result, we need two versions of every web page - one for desktop browsers, another for mobile browsers. The whole point of HTML as it was originally designed was to avoid this. The server was supposed to just provide the basic information, so the viewer's browser could render it in whatever format was best for the viewer. So the same web content could be displayed on either desktop or mobile browsers, without needing to have two websites.

    Unfortunately, these designers are spreading their opposition to flexibility to all other aspects of computing and user interface design. Didn't like the ribbon in Office? Too bad - you're forced to use it. Want to rearrange the layout in iOS? Too bad, you're stuck with whatever layout the designer decided was best. Don't like the flat UI in Windows 10? Too bad, that's what someone decided you must use. (Android and lack of dark mode used to be another example, but they're finally giving you the option to change Android's theme). It totally defeats the purpose of doing things on computers instead of with printed paper. These designers are the biggest impediment to creativity and individual customization in computing.

    • I think this is totally true. I worked in advertising from '93 to 2005, and as the web/internet gained traction the creative decision makers and designers were beside themselves that they couldn't treat a web page like either a magazine page or a TV channel.

      They were conceptually unable to grasp a new medium and kind of openly resisted it, often for made-up reasons like "devaluing the customer brand image" and so on.

      Once they got access to Flash tools, they made awful web sites with terrible human interfac

    • Yup++

      Flash as a tool for website design was about control of the experience in a bland, uncreative way. Some interesting things were done, but they were outliers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      So if your monitor was only 640x480, the text and pictures would adjust to fit in 648x480

      In practice, even with the best code, they adjusted poorly, at least until CSS3 added media queries. There wasn't a good way to make a nontrivial style sheet look good in both a window resized to half a 640x480 monitor and a maximized window on a 1600x1200 monitor.

  • Websites aren't supposed to be creative.

    They're supposed to be functional.

    It's like buying a paper calendar where you have to turn each page over in a different (and not obvious) way, half the dates are obscured by the company logo, nothing is in numerical order, you have to turn pages over one at a time to find the "next page" tab or else you rip the entire calendar, all the dates on every second month are upside-down, and some pages you can only see if you're wearing red lenses in your glasses or else you

  • ... still hasn't been reached, by a long shot.

    Disclaimer: Former flash professional here.

    Let me clarify: when it comes to what cs theorists call a "direct manipulation interface" (DMI), look no further than the Flash IDE find the nigh perfect one.
    In a single afternoon I could will up a complex UI simply by drawing it's components into a grid on the screen, using Flashs superior vector drawing tools and turning those that need to be instanced into classes ("symbols" in flash speak) simply clicking on them. L

    • So you are one of the "people" that BROKE the web. I constantly found myself unable to use websites that had a brain dead Flash interface obscuring whatever the useful parts the site may have had. I never found a web site that was in any way made more useful or informative due to the use of Flash.

      A bunch of "designers" showing off how "cool" they are did not (and still does not) make any of their customers' sites "better".

    • That Flash had a great interface for creating content is no surprise since Adobe had been designing creativity tools for many years already. The problem was that it was used to create websites that didn't fit with the spirit of HTML (parseable, accesible, etc.). To playback videos or creating interactive content it was great.
      I don't know why Adobe didn't create a version that compiled to modern web technologies (you mentioned WebAssembly, it could also be regular Javascript and display the content on a can

      • Adobe had nothing to do with Flash other than the fact that they bought it from the company that did make it.

      • I don't know why Adobe didn't create a version that compiled to modern web technologies

        Adobe did create one, but Adobe Animate CC is stuck behind the Creative Cloud recurring paywall, unlike Flash where license transfers on the secondary market were allowed and common.

      • Because "modern web technologies" were in their infancy when this "creative period" existed. DMI is an idea one would get on non-mainstream platforms.

  • Flash was the means, not the reason (Score:3)

    by Chris Katko ( 2923353 ) on Monday October 14, 2019 @04:56AM (#59304890)

    The internet wasn't always consolidated onto about 10 multi-billion dollar websites with strict rules about "Content". It used to be a free form wild west, just like Slashdot used to be.

    Look anywhere with lax rules and you'll see creativity. 4chan for example. (if you can stomach all the disgusting stuff that comes with that freedom.) Half the good memes start there before they end up at Reddit, which then spams them, and then finally "journalists" who get paid write articles... about memes... (k.y.s.) and then parrot them back to the most detached parts of culture.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Qwark ( 6312244 )
      4chan: the people who brought us incels, the most extreme racist versions of the alt-right, and nowadays actual murderous terrorists. And then the people who yell "muh free speech" when talking about jailbait, actual calls for genocide ("a joke" that can't be distinguished when meant or not, and has been proven to cause people to actually try and murder minorities is not a joke), doxxing of any of the following: Jews, feminist, and anyone with an anti-corporate agenda (or, as they're called on 4chan: (((glo

      • I can practically see the drool on your keyboard from the foaming at the mouth, and you're telling me to grow up? Delicious. Absolutely delicious.

  • Wikipedia (Score:3)

    by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Monday October 14, 2019 @07:11AM (#59305066)
    What's wrong with static websites with gray text and blue hyperlinks? I like them.
  • Burned face man was good too

  • Quit asking already.
    Of course, if you are including malware authors, perhaps it was.

  • Yes. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Retired ICS ( 6159680 ) on Monday October 14, 2019 @09:15AM (#59305284)

    Flash was responsible for some of the most creative malicious software ever designed -- who would have thought that permitting untrustworthy code from untrustworthy (and unknown) third-parties to execute without restraint on your computer system would ever pose a security threat?

    It has been replaced by JavaScript which relies on exactly the same shortcoming -- the unrestricted execution of untrustworthy code originating from untrustworthy and unknown third-parties on your computer system.

    JavaScript has quickly surpassed Flash for the creative malice that it has spawned, all of which is defeated by simply turning it off, just as the solution to the malicious use of Flash was to turn it off.

  • Age (Score:2)

    by dtmos ( 447842 ) *

    One of the benefits of being an old person is being able to see things you thought you'd never see -- like people pining away sentimentally for good ol' Flash.

    Gawd.

  • It's facebook that is responsible for the internet least creative era.
    It changed what internet means for people from "a pile of bored people trying to entertain each other" to "a virtual extension of your boring life".

  • Flash? That flash?

    The crap held back the Internet a decade, broke standards, forced us into the terrible JS as the only viable alternative, held back development of HTML5 and SVG and getting rid of it was like finally, after decades of taking the shit, leaving an abusive marriage.

    Mourning flash is an open-and-shut case of Stockholm syndrome.

  • A problem with the flash era was there a lot of variation in things that didn't matter. Conventions are handy.

  • As primarily an end user, the thing that bothered me MOST about Flash was that they wanted to update its player seemingly every single month. As I and a third of the country were still on dial-up back in those days, it would choke my Internet connection. How many times do I have to download the same player?
  • ... finding ways to needlessly consume bandwidth, creating memory leaks, and consume CPU for no purpose other than checking if the image you downloaded 5 seconds ago was changed at the server

    Face it.  Flash really sucked.  Unfortunately it sucked better than the alternative.  But it still Really Sucked !
  • "Was Flash Responsible For 'The Internet's Most Creative Era'?" I'm inclined to say that it was not because Flash was not an open standard, and therefore it was not an Internet standard. My memory of Flash-based web content was that it didn't display properly (or at all) in X11-based browsers.
  • Not sure there has been a 'most creative era', maybe people are doing cool stuff irl that is getting coverage due to YouTube or writing Python scripts rather than making crappy animations! I miss the innocent times when corporate websites were coded by enthusiastic amateurs and color schemes were not designed by committee though. On the upside though, we have websites that are accessible to all, backed up by customer services and rarely show out-of-state information. I don't miss having out-of-date Flash dr
  • That says that any headline that asks a yes/no question can be answered with no?

    I'm pretty sure it's Cunningham's Law.

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