This report on the Sleepover from Scott Kellum's blog offers a good no-BS account:
Over at Eyebeam this past Friday there was a great internet sleep-over. Many web surfing clubs showed their stuff. The "dirty" style was everywhere with ultra bright colors and trippy animated GIFs in pages that look like your mom, the dog enthusiast, designed. Projectors were pointed every which way and a seminar was held at which the groups discussed what exactly their web art was about.
While this particular style is not one I particularly follow, or even enjoy that much being the CSS guy that I am I did gain a new found appreciation for it. There is an irony behind this web art and a humor of re-appropriating the stuff found on the deepest, darkest, and strangest corners of the web to pull them deeper into the absurd.
See also his flickr set. In the photo above, someone I don't know is using my PC (the copper-colored laptop). Possibly because it is the only non-Apple product in the room.