I Spent Last Night Looking At Neocities Sites And Here Are My Takeaways:

I spent last night looking at Neocities sites and here are my takeaways:

There's a real push to keeping the internet weird, open and less corporate-driven -- info on bypassing paywalls, protecting your data, archiving web media and basic coding/tech literacy.

(I found one tutorial on how to make a pop up that detects whether someone has an ad blocker and suggests they install one if they don't! Love that.)

There's also resources on finding the kind of internet that isn't the default experience anymore - alternate search engines I hadn't even heard of, human-made link lists and webrings. (Webrings! Turns out they never went away!)

If any of that sounds interesting to you, by the way - sadgrl.online has a lot of it and is possibly the best thing on the internet????

The "90's web" aesthetic is really fun and nostalgic, but I particularly loved seeing some people bring the better parts of the "modern internet" into it. What if we had weird, eye-searing personal sites BUT with plaintext alternatives for accessibility purposes? CW for flashing lights and unreality triggers?

(Again sadgrl comes in with a lot of resources for making your website accessible.)

Most of all, I'm honestly emotional about all the sites I found that were like, "hi! I'm 14 and this is my website where I talk about stuff I like haha."

It's so good that so many kids and teens who never experienced the "old internet" are still finding stuff like this and making their own weird stuff! Not just because weird websites are more fun, but because these skills are being passed down.

Anyway it's great and who knows maybe I'll make my own site sometime to keep horror media recommendations or something.

"Kill them with kindness" WRONG. drop the opera house chandelier on them.

these are very wise (and very real) words. believe me.

I know it’s really petty but if someone is doing a tiktok bit where they’re portraying multiple characters and they break the 180 rule I go absolutely feral