Like beanbag chairs, lava lights, plastic lawn flamingos, or an old showing of Clutch Cargo, kitsch is all things tacky yet irresistable. Although some say that today's digital world is a soulless age, devoid of the sort of down-to-earth charm of yesteryear, I have found that the web itself is a treasure trove of kitsch, if you just have the right frame of mind. In the silicon realm of switches and routers, 1993 is as good as 1953; a new culture and world, just beginning to take its first tenuous steps into a modern era, not quite matured but gloriously kitsch all on its own.

An excellent place to start is here, a "home page" dedicated to Greece. Take particular note of the embedded midi, a popular choice for web-kitsch enthusiasts. This site makes good use of frames as well as animated buttons and various .gif images.

Although this site incorporates a hit counter, this one is actually functional, and thus ranks somewhat low on the kitsch scale. However, additional points are assigned for the dying but charming practice of having several dozen banners and award icons at the bottom, as well as being part of a web-ring.

Ah, now this is a cornucopia of kitsch delights. The first thing we notice is the background, a tiled pattern that makes text difficult to read. From top to bottom, this site is chock-full of rainbow scrollbars, animated "Welcome!" banners, running doggies, broken links, and clever but deliberate misspellings. The content itself is truly a gem for the kitsch connoisseur. From the endless song lyrics to the cut-and-pasted jokes, from the doll-maker to the pithy quotes; one look confirms to the viewer that the self-styled "web master" has little to nothing to say. Seekers of kitsch will be most delighted to note that all content is on one large unbroken page, and everything is between < center > tags, a common practice in the homepage world.

The creator of this goth site truly understands the wonders of web kitsch. Dripping-blood underlines combine with dozens of laughing, animated skulls to create a surreal and spooky experience for the uninitiated, but a feast of kitsch treasures for those in the know. The burning fire lettering, which goes hand-in-hand with the animated torches, rounds it all out for an especially nice touch to this fine page.

In fact, goth sites in general are worth checking out for their appreciation of truly hip kitsch. Here we have again the tiled, dark red background which makes reading the red text a virtual impossibility. The designer took an unexpected turn here and opted for the Quicktime music rather than the traditional embedded midi - keep a sharp eye and ear out for this trend in the future. The hit counter is broken - a sure sign of kitsch - and at the bottom, almost unnoticable to the untrained eye, a single spinning pentagram, a practice that is sadly being phased out in favor of the more esoteric rotating anarchy symbol.

I myself am quite fond of banners that do their best to clash with the background. This homepage displays an excellent execution of this concept, and as a bonus, an midi of Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" is heard for your aural pleasure while you browse the, er, content. Actually, the lack of content may be overlooked, for the thrill of the kitsch-seeker upon discovering the "Under Construction" image, carefully hidden, will overshadow any other concerns.

"Under Construction" sites are gemstones amid coalsacks to the web kitsch hunter. This page chose to go with the quietly understated graphic approach, while the CPCUG Build Team used the ever-popular stick figures shovelling dirt. Still others find various ways of letting people know that to them, writing HTML is much like road construction and that they make loud whirring machinery noises while working on their page.

One commonly underappreciated aspect of cyberkitsch is the cursor trail that follows the movement of the cursor with cute blinking icons, animated trails, scrolling text, and other imaginative features. Still others have discovered that with a bit of tweaking, the cursor itself can be altered to something other than the run-of-the-mill arrow. Crosshairs are popular among kitsch enthusiasts, but even this takes a backseat to custom cursors which must be downloaded before the site is viewed.

No examination of web-kitsch would be complete without delving into the practice of site requirements. When a site declares up front that it will only render correctly in a certain browser under a specific resolution, you know then you've struck a kitsch-laden goldmine. Still others go the extra mile and announce all the things that went into making their page. It's a way for the webmaster to tell their viewers that they really care, and that the viewer better damn well appreciate all that the webmaster has learned in order to make the experience as retro-kitsch as possible.

So go make a cup of coffee, sit back, relax, and enjoy the wonders of cyberkitsch, the twenty-first century homage to the early 1990s, like seeing a Coca-Cola ad from 1940 or chuckling quietly at an old Burma-Shave poem. Perhaps you've got your own special corner of the web you look to when you're feeling nostalgic for the more simple times of home sweet homepages. Whatever your memories, do not feel ashamed. You're not alone. There's a little kitsch in all of us.