My web site turns 20 years old this month! So I went through a bunch of old media in case I might include it in a 20 years on the web video I'm working on. If you've shared about yourself online, maybe you can help!
I shared these old videos of me so now you can see my old face and hear my squeakier voice:
Francis W. Parker High School Graduation 1993 speech Justin Hall - big thanks to my classmates, they elected me to deliver a speech at our high school graduation.
This was June 1993; I was 17 years old. I worked on the speech for about 10 months; I delivered it better than I did this next speech in 1995!
Web Publishing Empowerment 1995 Justin Hall at RAND Corporation - the video for my Web Publishing Empowerment speech. I've had that speech text on the web for 19 years! Now the video joins it January 2014.
Gosh I sure wish I would have memorized more of the speech so I could have looked up. But I was 20 years old here, I cut myself a little slack.
Justin Hall interviewed by Denise Caruso 1996 on The Site, MSNBC
Thankfully my brother popped a tape in the VCR and recorded my appearance on MSNBC in September 1996. I had just come off my 29 city web page evanglizin' road trip; we can see my wardrobe at that time: sarong, toolbelt, caucasian-colored wrist-gloves, electric minds t-shirt. And a vertical dreadlock - yowza.
Justin's Links from the Underground - 1998 interview with Justin Hall for Filmpoint Sweden:
This film crew came from Sweden to interview me, at my house in Oakland when I lived with Amy. I had just graduated college and then been mugged, and I hadn't yet been fired from my job in television. A moment in time! Like July 1998. They insisted I drive this big boxy old white American convertible. My car was a blue 1988 Honda Civic. Amy and I felt weird about it, but we played along. Funny how those things go.
"Justin Hall & Home Page make it to Sundance" 1999
Filmed in Park City Utah, at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, when I accompanied filmmaker Doug Block to the Sundance showing of Home Page, a documentary about early webloggers and netizens and online diarists. Doug hasn't got a post-VHS copy of Home Page out yet; this is actually one of the few clips from an early movie about web pages that you can see on the web in 2014 hah.
Watching these is a reminder that I wore my hair in distinct variations during 1994-1999. I remember telling people during QA at Sundance that I had the dredlock in a plastic bag in my closet; it's still true. They would ask about it. I would ask about it, looking back. In my 1995 speech I look so feminine! It's wild - I forgot I looked like that - hah! Was I wearing nail polish to speak at the RAND Corporation?
Then by 1996 I look like what the who knows. Whoo wee!
Now I express myself more through my ear hair.
Methods
Ahoy! A pile of old video tapes in personal storage.
Let's activate, while the media is still good!
I used the 20th anniversary of Links.net as an excuse to dust off my refurbished Magnavox ZV427MG9 DVD Recorder/VCR Combo and convert a bunch of old VHS tapes into DVD. Then I use HandBrake to make a digital file from the DVD. Then I upload that to YouTube and post it here! By uploading it I figure that the video might survive the specificity of my personal data storage. I'm still working out the reasons why I think that's worthwhile.
