Miley Cyrus Online
| Website | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Miley Cyrus Online |
| Owner/Maintainer: | Sponge |
| Dates: | 2006 - 2007 |
| Type: | Fansite |
| Fandom: | Miley Cyrus, Hannah Montana |
| URL: | http://www.hannahmontana.net (Wayback) |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Miley Cyrus Online was a fansite for Miley Cyrus, self-described as the "first ever fan site for the Hannah Montana star". The website was hosted on FansiteFreaks. It's webmaster was Sponge.
It opened in February 2006 and was active until late 2007. It had a gallery with various scans. It was not officially associated with Miley, but she was aware and supportive towards the site. The fansite owner was often given backstage passes. While online, it was located at "hannahmontana.net".
History
In 2022, the webmaster for the site recounted the history:
I was a huge nerd from 2004-2007, running fan sites with all my online geek buddies. Among the ones I helped run were Raven Symone, Aly & AJ, Ricky Ullman. It was well known that each of these sites were the “official unofficial fan sites”, meaning the celebrities actually contacted the people who ran them often and gave them backstage passes and stuff.The website that was all “mine” was Miley Cyrus Online. At that time, hannahmontana.net. I had purchased that domain name from even before the first promo was on television. If you know about domain names in 2006, it was HUGE that I had hannahmontana.net. I actually got offered thousands of dollars to give it up many times.
I opened the fan site in February of 2006, before HM even premiered. At this time, I had Miley’s private MySpace, but that was shut down as soon as the show premiered pretty much.
It’s hard to explain for younger people, but there was no Twitter or Tik Tok or Instagram or Snapchat. Even TMZ was just becoming huge. But mainly it was tabloids and fan sites where people got their information on celebrities.
My website became huge. I made $1500 a month by having Google ads on my site. I used the money to buy every single form of media with Miley on it. Every teeny bopper magazine that I could buy and scan and upload to my site. I would spend every free night when I wasn’t in 7th and 8th grade watching the new episodes of HM, screencapping every episode and appearance. Waiting for HOURS for those new Disney Channel commercials to come on just so I could run to my website and upload it! Also, the money was used to pay the cost of keeping a website up. Nowadays, you probably don’t even think about it with so much storage being given away for free. But it cost a good 700-800 bucks a month to maintain my site with unlimited bandwidth.
I got in contact with Miley’s manager sometime around fall 2006. I got to meet Miley and her mother backstage of TRL on her first appearance there in October 2006. I wasn’t even allowed to go into the audience because I was too young!! I had to sit in the break room, watching the hosts get their coffee, and waiting quietly for Miley’s manager to come get me after the show. She was awesome that first meeting.
The second time I met her was a private dance rehearsal in February 2007. I made her a scrapbook with all her accomplishments from the last year. I was able to walk right into her dance rehearsal with no security and met Kenny Ortega as well! This was my favorite time meeting her because as soon as I walked into the room, she called my name and ran up to me and hugged me. She genuinely remembered me and said how much she loves my fan site and how her phone broke one time and she had to have her manager run down to the store to get it fixed and the first thing she did was check my site.
The third and final time I met her was at a hotel after her June 2007 appearance on GMA. She was nice as usual and remembered me again!
Unfortunately, I came out of the closet a few months later and got sucked into being a freshman in HS and my fan sites took a backseat to high school.
But Miley will always be my favorite celebrity.[2]
Awards
They were nominated for the "Unofficial Fan Site" award in the "6th Annual Poptastic Awards" for Popstar! Magazine[1]
References
- ^ a b http://hannahmontana.net/ (Wayback, 28 March 2007)
- ^ The rise and fall of independent fansites on the web on r/Popheads (February 2022)