An HTML tag created in earlier versions of Netscape to provide blinking text analogous to that seen in ANSI art on BBS's back in the 1980's. To use this tag is widely known as the worst stylistic decision a web designer could ever make, even worse than specifying Times New Roman as your default font or hard-coding your table widths in pixels, not percentages. Blinking text is hard to read, is not supported evenly across all platforms, and is generally annoying. Anyone who uses this tag deserves to die. I myself have used it to make exactly one word blink. I beg your forgiveness.

Something which is alluded to, but not explicitly stated, in the above writeup:

The BLINK tag is not part of "official" HTML. It was included in early versions of Netscape (which postdated HTML itself considerably) as a "feature", or an easter egg, depending on who you ask, and in later versions of Netscape, presumably, for back-compatibility purposes. Internet Explorer (as tested by me on IE 6.0 about five minutes before the time of this writing) does not support it.

Of course, it was quickly decided to be as close to the most annoying thing on Earth as you can get without breaking some kind of copyright agreement. Hey, nothing's perfect.

There is actually a use for the blink tag. I kid you not.

Back in the days when I still lived in the Netherlands, hardcore Gabber house music started appearing. This is music that goes at about one million beats per minute, and is thoroughly obnoxious.

In a review posted on an online discussion forum, Michiel Vries, then a rather famous music reviewer, wrote something along these lines:

As for that new gabber-house style; Some of you - especially people not from holland - might not have heard this type of music before.

Allow me to illustrate what it sounds like: <blink>BONK BONK BONK BONK</blink>.

... which today - 10 years later - is still the most accurate description I have ever read of the genre.

-30-

There is one, one other use for the blink tag. Not that I can think of a good reason to use it, but imagine:

A web browser window that is completely black, save for the following text, in amber, or perhaps, green:


A:&gt;<blink>_</blink>

 

The cold, painful DOS prompt, long forgotten by so many... set the window to resize to full screen for real fun with those who barely remember what to do at one of these.

 

But that seems to be about the only use for it. Worth creating a whole new tag? Why not just use an animated .gif?