Site Manifesto

A lot of my beliefs surrounding today’s online ecosystem and the benefits of web 1.0 are explained a lot better on the yesterweb page than I could explain it, so I highly recommend taking a look through their summary. One excellent point they mention, and where I think is an excellent point for me to begin, is anemoia. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows defines it as follows;

anemoia - n. nostalgia for a time you’ve never known

I feel this way for a few reasons. The first being that, despite being born in 2005, I was raised as a 90’s kid due to my mother being on the older side and never particularly tech savvy. A lot of things you might find in Buzzfeed’s shitty “only 90’s kids would remember” lists are things that were a massive part of my childhood. I only got internet access at a time where web 1.0 was well on its way out, so I think a big part of me longs for that time that I so nearly got to experience.

The second reason is, if only partially, the aesthetic. Webcore as an aesthetic is the catalyst that brought me here. I saw it on Pinterest and reflected in the art of some people I followed on Instagram, and it very quickly grew on me to the point where I now consider it a special interest.

Like any special interest of mine however, it led me to do a lot, and I mean a lot of research. I wanted to know everything I could about what the old web was really like. Something I often see a lot of people talk about is how much more individual the web used to be, whereas now it’s so much more corporatized and commercialized. Of course there were corporate websites back in web 1.0, but they weren’t the main focus of the web and were more like hubs for individual companies compared to what it's like now. There also weren’t complicated algorithms or SEO to worry about, so you could find people’s personal pages much easier, whereas now you either find them through the website owner’s other social media or by adding ‘neocities’ or something equivalent to the end of your search.

The fact is, no one looks for personal pages anymore, and that’s kinda sad. A lot of people in my demographic, myself obviously included, want to see a change. Whether it means somehow getting the web to an improved and more human-friendly version of its current state, or by simply encouraging more people to make personal sites, I feel like bringing back the more positive aspects of the old web like the kind of individuality it supported, instead of relying so heavily on Big Media, could really improve things in the long run. We won’t be forced to see upsetting content that we never wanted to see, and we can take things at our own pace instead of needing an endless supply of mind-numbing videos spoon-fed to us for six hours a day.

That brings me to my third and final reason (that I’ll explore here anyway), which is the current state of social media and the web as a whole. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate TikTok and Twitter with a passion. Twitter seems to only be a cesspool of anger and discrimination, and everything has only gotten worse since good old Elon bought it. There really isn’t much for me to say about it, the whole platform just makes me angry.

TikTok as a whole isn’t much better, but functionally it’s only worsened by how much it seems to simply exist to steal and sell your data, and the fact that no one seems to care. When I still had it installed, I hadn’t used it for a month, and I was checking the app’s settings when I found that it had used 1% of my battery that day, despite again, not having used it for at least a month. This might not seem like that big a deal, but apps shouldn’t be using any percentage of your battery if you haven’t opened them in a month.

I won’t even touch on the effects of how awful both social media and its algorithms are design to be, not taking into account the individual’s experience but prioritising conflict and shock value because it keeps people in the app longer, getting your work you spent hours on maybe flung into the endless stream of content others are seeing only to be seen for a few seconds, and the fact that the positives that do come with social media feel like they exist despite its design, not because of it. The only reason I won’t say more on this is because it’s exhausting, and there are plenty of other people out there who explain it much better than I could. I’ve linked to some really good manifestos that get my point across next to this section, as well as some I just like.

To step away from my disdain for now, I’m really glad I came across Neocities and finally got into html. It’s one of the more fun hobbies I’ve had outside of my usual pastimes, and it’s one I can see myself continuing with for a long while. This has also made me feel a lot less weird about this particular interest, since I haven’t really met anyone else with a similar fascination in what the internet used to be as I have. That said, I’ve already seen so many positive communities and webring groups here, and I hope I can be a part of them soon!! So many people here are pushing for a future that I would love to see, and I’m so glad to be participating in that effort alongside y’all :]