The Pompeii vs. GeoCities Paradox
The "Blind Spot" is quantifiable. A 2025 survey of Google Scholar revealed over 875,000 results for "Pompeii archaeology" but fewer than 2,500 for "GeoCities archaeology"—a disparity of over 350 to 1.
This disparity persists despite the fact that GeoCities represents the "Pompeii of the Web"—a complete, frozen civilization of millions of people that was destroyed in a single "volcanic" event (the 2009 shutdown). The Blind Spot dictates that because this civilization left no potsherds or stone walls, it is not a subject for archaeological study.
The Two Fallacies
This Blind Spot is maintained by two distinct but related fallacies:
- The Physicalist's Fallacy: The belief that historical validity requires physical substance (atoms > bits).
- The Preservationist's Myopia: The focus on technical file integrity (saving the .html) while ignoring the cultural context (saving the meaning).
Field Notes
The Incomplete Archive: The result of this Blind Spot is an archive that is technically robust but culturally hollow—a warehouse of files that no one knows how to read.