Men Va Fan! 2001–2016: what this site used to be

Before social media, punk scenes built their own corners of the internet by hand. Men Va Fan! was one of them: a Stockholm site that went online in 2001 and stayed up, in one form or another, until around 2016.

Hand-made HTML and a quote about modems

The front page opened with a quote from a former head of the Swedish Data Inspection Board warning that kids “just want to break into other computer systems” — “buy a modem, get problems”. It was the kind of joke the site ran on: half political, half nerdy, never entirely serious.

The pages were written by hand and, as the old about page proudly admitted, tested in Opera first. Netscape and Explorer were supported, but grudgingly.

What was on it

The old menu reads like a map of what a punk scene cared about in the early 2000s:

• Mp3 Punkers — a collection of more than 200 MP3s, from Swedish bands to UK anarcho-punk.
• Ultrahuset and Hunddagiset — tribute pages with photos and music from two Stockholm venues.
• Punkrock High Library — longer texts in electronic form, including zine material and a hacker’s dictionary.
• PunkStuff — a punk FAQ, flyers, reviews and oddities.
• Nördigheter — GNU, Linux and computer stuff, including Swedish translations of free-software texts.
• WorkingClassPride – Fotboll! — pages about AIK, Celtic and St. Pauli, “the sport that gave us Oi!”.
• Punksån Pirates — pirate culture from a punk perspective, sea shanties included.
• Makaronimonstrets Kokbok — recipes for drinks, baking and other things that might taste good.
• FlameWar Heaven and Tjöta! — a small forum with a web front-end to alt.punk, and the site’s own IRC server.
• I am an antichrist, I am SportySpice — The Anarchist Melanie C Fanclub.

The footer carried the badges of the time: the EFF Blue Ribbon campaign for free speech online and a SETI@home banner.

Why it matters

Sites like this were how a lot of people found punk outside their own city. They were messy, personal and full of in-jokes, and they linked to each other through webrings and guestbooks rather than algorithms.

Today’s Men Va Fan! is a new project by new people. We kept the name, the sections and the attitude, and we’re writing about the same things: the music, the scenes, the books and zines, and the football. See screenshots and the full timeline in the Men Va Fan! museum, or read more about the site.

FAQ

When did Men Va Fan! start and when did it stop?

The site went online in 2001 and stayed up, in one form or another, until around 2016. Today's Men Va Fan! is a separate new project by new people.

What was on the original Men Va Fan! site?

It had more than 200 MP3s in its Mp3 Punkers section, tribute pages to the Stockholm venues Ultrahuset and Hunddagiset, zine material, a punk FAQ, flyers, reviews, football pages about AIK, Celtic and St. Pauli, and its own IRC server.

Where was Men Va Fan! based?

It was a Stockholm punk site, with pages devoted to two Stockholm venues, Ultrahuset and Hunddagiset.

Is today's Men Va Fan! the same site?

No. The current site is a new project by new people who kept the name, the sections and the attitude. The original ran from 2001 until around 2016.