## Definition
Boing Boing is a venerable website that bills itself as a “directory of wonderful things.” Born in 1988 as a print zine by Mark Frauenfelder and Carla Sinclair, it migrated to the web in 1995 and became one of the internet’s earliest and most influential culture hubs. Think of it as the cool older sibling who discovered the internet before it was mainstream and never stopped sharing the weird, wonderful, and occasionally worrying things they found.
The site covers technology, science fiction, civil liberties, and internet culture with an editorial voice that’s equal parts enthusiastic curiosity and righteous indignation. Over the decades, it’s been home to voices like Cory Doctorow (who writes about digital rights with the fervor of a prophet), Xeni Jardin (who brought punk rock energy to tech journalism), and David Pescovitz (who seems to know everyone worth knowing).
## Why it matters
In an era where most websites from the 1990s have long since turned to digital dust, Boing Boing’s continued existence is nothing short of miraculous. It matters because it represents an era of the internet that was genuinely weird—before algorithms, before influencers, before everything was optimized for engagement. Boing Boing was sharing memes before they were called memes, covering surveillance capitalism before most people knew what a cookie was, and championing Creative Commons licensing when the RIAA was still suing college students for sharing MP3s.
The site has also been a consistent advocate for digital rights, privacy, and open culture. When other tech blogs were writing press releases, Boing Boing was explaining why DRM is terrible, why net neutrality matters, and why you should care about encryption. They’ve been right about a lot of things, often years before the mainstream caught up.
## Example
A typical Boing Boing post might read something like: “Check out this vintage Soviet arcade game cabinet someone restored” followed by a deep dive into Cold War-era entertainment technology, then a sidebar about how the same mechanical principles show up in modern pinball, capped with a reminder that you should be using a password manager. It’s the kind of serendipitous, rabbit-hole content that makes you lose an hour without realizing it.
## Internet Angle
Boing Boing is essentially the godparent of modern internet culture blogging. The site’s format—short, link-heavy posts with strong editorial voice—directly influenced the style of countless blogs that followed. The phrase “directory of wonderful things” became a sort of informal mission statement for a whole generation of curators and aggregators.
On social media, Boing Boing posts regularly go viral, particularly their coverage of absurd technology failures, bizarre copyright cases, and Cory Doctorow’s increasingly specific predictions about how tech monopolies will ruin everything. The comment section, when it existed, was legendary for attracting both brilliant insights and spectacular flame wars.
## Related Terms
– **Cory Doctorow**: Science fiction author and digital rights activist, long-time Boing Boing contributor
– **Directory of Wonderful Things**: Boing Boing’s self-description and ethos
– **Zine culture**: The DIY print publication tradition that birthed early internet culture
– **Creative Commons**: The alternative copyright system Boing Boing helped popularize
– **Early web**: The pre-social-media internet, when discovery happened through links and blogs