im back hehe @fangirl-screaming - Tumblr Blog

you can click on this button once daily to help palestine and support other causes in the middle east for free. it takes literally 5 seconds and could help save lives so please take the time to click and share this link.

grelliam

#oh it raises money thru ad revenue and ur click confirms the value to advertisers. neat

the-cassquatch

Ok but like. What the fuck is there to do on the internet anymore?

Idk when I was younger, you could just go and go and find exciting new websites full of whatever cool things you wanted to explore. An overabundance of ways to occupy your time online.

Now, it's just... Social media. That's it. Social media and news sites. And I'm tired of social media and I'm tired of the news.

Am I just like completely inept at finding new things or has the internet just fallen apart that much with the problems of SEO and web 3.0 turning everything into a same-site prison?

dj-of-the-coven

Long collection of resources under the cut.

You're right that the internet is smaller than it used to be, but there's still some cool stuff left in the corners. I'd recommend checking checking out Neocities if you haven't--it's an independent web hosting platform like Geocities of the old web, and there are hundreds of interesting and active pages discoverable both through their search function and through web buttons (links attached to small pictures with the title of a website) within the websites themselves. Here are three examples of web buttons you may find in link pages:

Most Neocities websites have link pages or button collections with anywhere from tens to hundreds of these. Don't be afraid to explore!

If you're looking for something more like a search engine, I can point you towards Marginalia. It's not a particularly smart engine, but it's perfectly usable if you've ever been taught to use search engines back when they were mostly run through keywords instead of full sentence comprehension. There's also an "about" and "tips" section on the front page with more information. The algorithm of Marginalia can be filtered by the user to allow, disallow, or require JavaScript depending on your needs, plus there are filters designed specifically to prioritize web 1.0 sites or mostly text-based ones. It is possible to search for modern websites with it, but it can return websites from just about any decade (since the invention of the web, obviously) so long as they contain the information you're looking for. For example, here are some random interesting sites I've found using Marginalia:

Native Languages of the Americas: Native American Cultures

BASIC HTML COMPETENCY IS THE NEW PUNK FOLK EXPLOSION!

Earthbound Text Labs by Bill Eager

The possibilities for discovery are truly endless.

Now you might want to know about directories. These make browsing for websites easier, but require you to read through and judge which ones to visit, as there aren't algorithms ranking the sites besides the whim of whoever coded the directory. Some of them have themes, others don't. Here are two that I've used:

Yesterlinks Directory

Ichigo Directory

Directories can be harder to come by just by surfing the net, but they aren't impossible to find. Many personal websites have their own directories of interesting sites hidden within them.

Webrings are similar to directories, but are actually more community-based. You have to register your website to be a part of a webring, usually by sending an email to whoever runs it and meeting some kind of entry criteria. For example, my personal website used to be a part of a webring called Sweet Dreams, which was for websites that heavily utilize color palettes and images of cute things, particularly sweets. Webrings will give you access to a widget upon entry that allow visitors and other members to browse between the registered websites in a massive ring, ergo, where the term gets its name. Webrings can have any theme or criteria for entry. If you can make a website about it, you can find a webring for it.

Now, you might be wondering about social media alternatives. I can't offer much, but I can nudge you towards the idea of forums. Here's one I found that could really use some traffic. I also browse a bit on MelonLand forum, which is actually closed right now--it's currently closed on Mondays--but on any other day of the week, you can find a fun community there dedicated to web revival. You can find it through MelonLand's main page. I'd also recommend checking out SpaceHey, which is a MySpace clone that's customizable and easy to use.

I hope this is of some help to you. The internet may feel less magical than it used to be, but that doesn't mean that the spark has completely died out. These types of indie websites need more attention if we ever hope to reverse the damage done to the internet by centralization and corporate interest. People are trying to make the web a cooler place to be, but we're going to have to do the work of finding and interacting with these projects in order to get them off the ground someday.

xerxestexastoast

ALSO you should consider browsing Virtual Pet List and seeing if there are any pet sites you might be interested in playing. There is a whole genre of browser games right under your nose

biothreads

Another one that I just found recently is this, which is a whole collection of blogs, organized by topic!

A collection of 1,966 blogs about every topic

derinthescarletpescatarian

Look guys the real internet IS STILL THERE I'm going to cry

cloudyeveniing

Getting off of twitter and onto neocities has really healed me and I am so glad to see it is healing other people too ;u; let's retreat into the self-made digital woods and away from corporate bs pls, I am so tired

nyx-shifts-222

REBLOGGING

#save

updating my age 3 months after my birthday #punctual

#stfu fang

i’m working 6 days a week now fucking apparently

#stfu fang #ohhhhhhhh my god

manuciruja

awww the like button turns into a rainbow when you press it! that's so cute...hey staff what's with all the trans women you keep nuking?

jenny-holzer

peachfromcmbyn

People on Tumblr love sharing information about themselves no matter how asinine it is. And I'm the same way. Everybody tell me what the last thing you drank was.

#liquid cheese

gayteensupreme

"queer-owned business" means nothing anymore. OpenAI and Palantir are both queer-owned businesses.

gayteensupreme

if this is how you find out that both sam altman and peter thiel are gay im sorry

#this is in fact how i found out

lesbianjaxsondart

if you put the new harry potter show on my dash in any way it's gonna be an automatic unfollow from me, guys. like. it's 2026. come the fuck on

batmanisagatewaydrug

I'm gonna be so real with you guys. I'm gonna be 100% honest. I really don't care if writing HP fanfic or rereading the books or buying unlicensed merch actually I directly benefits Joanne. my objection first and foremost is that anyone who knows that woman's politics and still refuses to get that wand out of their ass is just an insufferable dork.

batmanisagatewaydrug

the people trying to "um actually" and give me their crybaby sob story about why it's impossible for them, personally, to move on from HP are so funny. like. I don't care. you can't appeal to emotion or logic me out of this my principled philosophical stance is that I think you suck.

were--ralph

finding out jk rowling invited epstein over more than once is really the least surprising thing out of them

were--ralph

at this point i expect hp fans to delude themselves more into thinking somehow its not what it looks like when theres literally no other way to look at it

magicalgirlagency

Your "comfort franchise" was created by a bigoted bitter ass bri'ish old hag who was besties with an infamous pedophile; what's YOUR excuse?!

imagibunny

forever a reminder if u still like harry potter i'm BEGGING YOU to read a better book

read the worst witch. it's the better school of wizards series

#READ EARTHSEA IM BEGGING YOU

directactionforhope

Btw big tip about how to get better at noticing dogwhistles (defined and explained: x, x, x, x, x, x, x) and making sure you don't accidentally reblog or spread them, from a professional editor specializing in sensitivity and an erstwhile professional fact-checker:

A lot of dogwhistles hinge on very specific phrasing and/or typography.

Because we also use very specific phrasing and/or typography as a way to convey things like tone, sarcasm, and memes over text, a lot of people see something in a post that makes them lowkey go "huh? what's that about?" But this happens all the time with online linguistics and communication so people just brush it off for various reasons.

So if you see something that pings you as unusual, idiosyncratic, or overly specific, and you're not sure why, make it a principle to not reblog (or repost, on other sites, etc.) any posts where you're like "Hmm. I think this post might be doing a Communication Thing but I'm not sure what it means."

Examples/specific things to be careful of:

Alternate spellings. For example, variant spellings of women/woman are often a TERF dogwhistle, such as womyn and more rarely wombyn (x, x, x, x). (In contrast, though, womxn was specifically intended to be trans/nonbinary inclusive, although it gets a mixed reception in practice (x, x))

Portmanteaus and suffixes (that you don't know the specific meaning of). A lot of acronyms are textspeak, but a lot of them aren't. Examples include "sheeple" and any words that seem to be derived from sheeple, which is very broadly associated with conspiracy theories, especially in far right and anti-government movements (x, x, x). Be especially cautious of anything that's a compound with the suffix -gate or the word pill/pilled. These both have legitimate uses: For -gate, it's used in mainstream politics and jargon to signify a conspiracy or scandal, named after Watergate (x, x), but since it specifically refers to conspiracies, it is often used in far-right conspiracies, such as pizzagate, a conspiracy theory that resulted in a targeted mass shooting (x, x, x). For "pill"/"pilled," the term refers to radicalizing as an MRA/Men's Rights Activist and is now associated with far-right radicalization across the board - it is used both by members of those groups, and critically by outsiders to refer to the process of such radicalization (x, x, x, x, x).

Anything that compares people to animals, or overly associates them with animals, especially BIPOC. Examples of specific dogwhistles include associating Black people in particular and now Latinx people with alligators or depicting BIPOC as being eating by alligators (x, x, x, x, x), and associating Jewish people with lizards and reptiles, especially references to "lizard people" (x, x, x, x, x)

Any unusual numbers or typography that you don't know the specific meaning of. Examples of this include the Nazi and antisemitic dogwhistles of 14, 88, and 1488 (x, x, x), as well as using three sets of parentheses around the name of a person (((Like This))) or profession, e.g. (((banker))) to indicate that they're Jewish/assumed to be Jewish and deliberately indicate belief in giant antisemitic conspiracy theories (x, x, x) (though this one has been somewhat reclaimed by Jewish people (x), so evaluate context)

Terms that sound like they might be academic (but you're not familiar with a specific academic meaning). A lot of bigotry is deeply rooted in and reinforced by the history of science, particularly in the context of biology, pseudoscience, and scientific racism. And also, a lot of bigots like to dress their prejudice and hate up in fancy bullshit pseudoscience and pseudo-academic theories. (And just in case I need to mention it: the prefix pseudo- very specifically means false, not "unproven" or "eh something we're kind of vague on.") Examples of transphobic dogwhistles that sound like academic theories (or are absolute bullshit "academic" theories) include "gender critical [ideology]," "[male/female] socialization," and "rapid-onset gender dysphoria" (x, x, x, x).

tl;dr: If you see something in a post, esp. typography or phrasing, that pings you as unusual, idiosyncratic, or overly specific, and you're not sure why, don't share it without doing some research.

dispatchesfromtheclasswar

biglawbear

Good for this person. This is exactly what you do. Screw the job.

I had a job that made me work an all nighter, 30 hours straight, over Thanksgiving. I resigned that Monday and it was one of the most satisfying decisions I’ve ever made.

running-in-the-dark

Part 3:

invaderxan

Please pay attention to all the manipulation tactics this boss uses, because they’re pulling out every trick in the book.

“I’m not your boss, I’m your friend”

“Other people will be hurt by this and it’s your fault and I’m going to tell them all that”

Mocking language

Jobs are important too

“Be a team player”

“We’re your family too”

Talking as if this is a thing you must do

“We all make sacrifices”

Undermining your authority

“You caused all of this, really”

Accusing you of being “unprofessional”

“Look at the money you cost us”

“Just laugh it off and come back to work”

This is like a 101 course in how employers use guilt trips to coerce you into putting up with their bullshit. This is precisely why you should never trust those employers who insist that they’re “like a family.” They are not. It’s just a ruse so that your boss can neg you into putting your job ahead of your actual life.