It’s been dubbed “digital brutalist” [1] style; as a rejection of the “streamlined, flat” designs of the last decade. Style evolves; Snap is targeting a younger demographic and the best way to say “we’re not Facebook or google; we’re cooler” is to reject all their design principles.
ah then you guys would have loved my home page back in 1998. Pretty sure I used this exact color scheme, although I think I had a really horrible logo in there too.
Fashion moves reliably in cycles of twenty years. It's entirely expected that 1998's visual styling looks fresh again in 2018, always filtered through an ironic-nostalgic lens of varying density.
To me, the Yellow site doesn't really look like an old website at all because HTML's creative possibilities have changed — typography, layout options, etc.
However it does look like a lot like print design from circa 1994-98. Wide font variants for all copy, strong contrast with primary colors, and so on.
I recently learned Doc Martens boots are fashionable again. Makes me regret throwing my pair away in the 90s. Yes, I'm old. But at least back then they were all made in Great Britain.
[1] https://envato.com/blog/brutalism-ugly-web-design-trend-taki...