Sometime in 1994 (yes, Virginia, there WAS a Web back then) I encountered "Kenny Z's CD list" during a late night search session. Its utility was nil, its style banal, its content embarrassing, its unintentional humor value high. Through Usenet I brought this to the attention of other like-minded sorts who experience pleasure through the ridicule of others, who deluged me with pointers to ever more useless creations.

And so the Useless Pages were born, christened with approximately the following text, inaccurately preserved for posterity (it is uncertain just how much this has mutated from its original form).

The discovery that someone had typed in his entire 30K CD collection for WWW consumption prompted me to generate the useless pages page. I have since found that this 30K list is a pale imitation of far more useless efforts -- see below. Since you're wasting your time even now, the useless pages page is first on the list of useless pages.

I don't mean to preclude those outside the Americas from beingconsidered useless. Actually, they're quite well represented. I just thought the subtitle was amusing. [Note of explanation -- for a while the Useless Pages were subtitled 'America's Funniest Home Hypermedia' but we've moved on.]

"Useless" in this context doesn't mean poorly done or of no value at all, it just means that there isn't any point in making these things available on the Web. [Note -- we've expanded the meaning of "useless" quite a bit since then, it's more of a Zen thing now: If we have to explain, you'll never get it.] If you see a page and think "Good God, WHO CARES?" you have found a likely submission. If you see your own pages here, don't come after me with a pickaxe, I didn't choose all these personally. (I have been amazed at the number of people that submit their own pages for inclusion. Research into that phenomenon is left for a future project.) Furthermore, some of these pages are intentionally useless: that is, they poke fun at their own subject matter. Some aren't. If you can tell which is which, you're one up on me.

I knew I couldn't keep it up. The pressure started to wear on me early in 1995; fighting through media throngs and angry picket lines to get to my home was wearing me down. Okay, so maybe "throngs" overstates the one time somebody took my picture, and maybe I did request it, and maybe there were no picket lines. I was weary anyway. Can you imagine trying to come up with new and creative ways of insulting people, every day? I know, it sounds like a walk in the park (Central Park, anyway) but let me tell you, kid, it wasn't.

So maintenance lagged, update frequency diminished. My "pending" mailbox grew even as the volume of submissions finally started to subside. It was at this moment that someone who was simply BORN for this job stepped forward and said "Hey, you stupid twit, the Useless Pages are not cutting it any longer. Hand 'em over." Those were not his exact words, but paraphrase is not my specialty.

That man, as I'm sure you've guessed, was Steve Berlin. So he took over, and uselessness blossomed anew. The pages moved from their longtime URL at Primus Consulting to their next longtime URL at Chaco Communications. I stuck around as a sort of "Useless Emeritus," which in a happy coincidence was (and is) an accurate description, however parsed.

Most of the content before you is the product of Berlin's mind, not mine. The inconsistent use of 'I' and 'we' and particularly the way that 'I' changes meaning on the same page and sometimes in the same sentence is easily explained by the haphazard evolution of the Useless Pages combined with our belief that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Not to mention the enjoyment we get from the confusion and puzzlement of the readers.

Fast forward to present day at the moment, late 1996. I've got a nifty job at a company called Go2Net that admires the wit, wisdom, history, and of course established audience and borderline cult following of the Useless Pages. Naturally we just had to have them here, so I ask Steve and he says "sure, but only if you write a history for them." Okay, this time I'm not even paraphrasing, he didn't say anything like that. I just decided to do it, and now it's almost done.

A final anecdote. I attended a party at Jamie Zawinski's house in late October. He still introduces me as "Mr. Useless," so I politely informed him that Steve Berlin is Mr. Useless now, and he can stop calling me that. Without missing a beat he replies "OK, as soon as you do something notable." Ah, what a two edged sword is obscurity.

Go forth in uselessness.