You should have your own website
As an Internet Veteran* and a web developer, I have a lot of strong opinions about the Internet and the direction it's going in.
Now I'm gonna allow myself a rant and hopefully convert at least one of you, and then I'll go back to obsessing over imaginary people. Ok? Ok.
*I've been online in one way or other since the late 90s/early 2000s.
Yes, much of the Internet sucks now...
In the beginning, everyone had their own site. Fansites. Art portfolios. Online journals (the word "blog" wasn't invented yet). Lots of weird places you'd stumble upon by link-hopping from site to site.
But of course, as soon as the technology took off, the market noticed. Social media came along and made it easier to create an account on their sites than make something for yourself, so that's what everyone did. And here we are now.
Instead of a million little houses built by passionate individuals and all having streets and pathways linking to each other, we have these massive walled gardens of rented flats built by commercial interest. They're keeping their users like animals in a zoo where everything is an account and a subscription and an ALGORITHM (gods I hate algorithms almost as much as I hate AI) and monetized by taking our data* and using it to show us ever-increasing amounts of ads.
*Collecting more data is all this age verification/chat control nonsense is about btw. I don't believe for a second they're actually interested in "protecting children" or anything of the sort.
...but there's still hope
Good news is, the personal non-monetized Internet is still out there.
It's just been buried under a fuckton of ad-infested garbage and can be tricky to find.
There are still entire communities of people taking pride in making their own personal websites instead of relying solely on social media.
The main reason is of course because it's plain ol' fun, but another big point is to break out of the zoo. To take back some semblance of control over your digital life and contribute to an Internet that is still made by and for regular people, not for corporations.
If we can make websites ourselves, we negate some of the power they hold over us. No need to get quite so devastated when Tumblr/AO3/Meta/etc yet again changes something for the worse if you always have your own site to fall back on.
As neat as it is to have everyone on social media, I wish more people would set aside the time to make their own sites.
We all live online, might as well have your own house. A house you can build however you want and can be taken down and moved somewhere else should the need arise.
"But but but my audience..?"
Yeah, sure, the zoos are useful for meeting people and getting your work seen. I'm here too, aren't I? I understand you want to be where most of the eyes are.
What I'm getting at is: YOU SHOULD HAVE BOTH!
Use whatever to network and find your friends and fans - but don't put all your digital eggs in one corporate basket. Just like you sync your phone to the cloud and back up your hard drive (you are backing up your hard drive, right? Right?!) you should back up your creations and post them somewhere where you have control over them. Somewhere people can see your things without having to sign up for another bloody account.
While I realise I make webweaving sound like some activism thing, it really is a cool hobby.
I can't overstate how fun and rewarding it is to have your own place on the Internet!
❣️ Poking around with the layout and content and learning how it all works under the hood.
❣️ The thrill when you wrangle the browser into submission and get it to work exactly how you want it
❣️ Making friends and trading knowledge with other web-weavers
❣️ Not to mention the pride of showing the link to people like "yeah, I made this. And I made the website it is on too 😎"
It's beyond worth it for the skills you learn and the people you meet! At least think about it, please.
"But I can't code or design, how would I even make a website? It's too much work"
Can you take a prewritten text document and edit it? That's all you need to start.
Can you edit your Tumblr theme? Shit, you're halfway there already.
Creating a simple personal site really doesn't have to be that complicated.
There are boatloads of free ready-made layouts and templates you can edit and free graphics so you don't have to start from scratch. Many websites don't even have graphics at all.
There are also free content management systems that, once set up, allows you to edit most things without any coding at all. Installing, say, WordPress takes 5 minutes if even that.
Not to mention the myriad of very beginner-friendly tutorials and even real live people to ask.
Us personal web enthusiasts are THRILLED whenever someone new wants to join our ranks and most will fall over themselves trying to help. We're here for you. Hell, I'm here for you. My DMs are always open, don't hesitate to give me a shout if you wanna talk websites 🤝 (or previously mentioned imaginary people, I'm not fussy haha)
A few links to get you started:
32bit.cafe is a community of personal web enthusiasts and a great place to start. They have a massive list of resources and you can join the forum or discord if you want to chat with people.
Sadgrl has a lot of guides and resources too.
Pixel Shannon's guide to making your own website
Neocities is a free host and also has some community features
check out the web revival tag right here on Tumblr
More about the personal web movement:
Intro to the web revival by Melon
Hello, world, I have a solution to the Internet problem
Visit MelonLand's Surf Club for loads of examples of personal websites
Now, go build your house. And then send me the link. I'm not joking, I really do want to see what you come up with!
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