why neocities, and the old internet
Before algorithms and outrage dictated so much of what we saw, the internet felt more like a place of personal exploration. There was no endless river of short form content, AI, or tools that instantly handed you whatever you wanted. You had to dig through forums, make your own posts, find AMVs, meet people who loved the same games, or stumble across some incredible website coded by a random Newgrounds user. It felt like engaging with an ecosystem instead of consuming a feed of sludge.
As the digital world became part of everyday life, systems designed to capture people's attention took over, especially post-COVID. Instead of exploring, you could doomscroll or stare at outrage for hours and by the time you knew it, your day was done. That behavior existed before, but now it exists at such a massive scale that the old internet survives mostly in small bubbles outside the mainstream.
Due to that, I figured to learn HTML and CSS enough to create this website. Yes AI could have all this to some extent, but where is the fun in that? What if I want to create another website in the future? What if I meet someone who knows HTML? But say I used AI to create this website in a day. Ok! Now what do I do knowing that I've learned nothing? Be lazy as fuck and doomscroll and vape and doordash and disguise laziness and a lack of real effort as progress?? Make the only "work" in my life be a boring ass 9-5 because I did not develop any skills and interests of my own when I had the brain capacity too? Where's the joy in that??
My main sources of inspiration were the old aesthetics of technology and a trip I took to Singapore and Indonesia in 2011. Singapore is a rapidly growing technological hub, while many parts of Indonesia had far less access to that technology. What is now known as 'Frutiger Aero' was everywhere at the time, creating this beautiful contrast in my memory. There was the sleek glass architecture of Singapore, Windows Vista, and my iPod; then the natural greenery, hospitality, and BlackBerry phones I encountered in Indonesia. They felt like two different visions of technology interacting with the world, both extremely beautiful and human. Much more beautiful than whatever the fuck we have now
