allen hansrisuk

Product of the Internet

For better or worse, so much of who I am today was shaped by the countless hours spent on the internet in the late 90's well into the 2010's. Granted, I still spend a lot of time on the internet but the landscape has changed considerably since then and with it, we seemed to have lost the unrestricted sense of self-expression the early internet was known for.

Geocities

Geocities was a web hosting service that allowed users to create their own web sites for free. It featured a web directory of all sites based on their topic so users could browse all websites dedicated to tech or greyhounds or guitars. There were dedicated communities to all hobbies and interests, no matter how niche.

Much of what we think of when we think of the early web design and 2000s aesthetic can be traced directly back to what was happening in this corner of the internet. The sites were flashy, laden with gifs, word art, brightly colored Comic Sans, custom cursors, and blinking marquees. Responsiveness was non-existent, because 800x600 was dominant. With 38 million pages published on Geocities over it's lifetime, this practically WAS the internet. And we all could have had an equal part in contributing to it, even my 11 year-old self.

My first websites were made here. With their built-in WYSIWIG editor, I've built at least a dozen websites dedicated to all manner of my childhood interests: Dragon Ball Z gifs, scary stories, a collection of images and sprites of chocobos from Final Fantasy, cool screenshots from Chrono Trigger, and so on. The layouts and design were something out of a fever dream and they were abandoned as quickly as they were stood up.

Enter Neocities

Neocities, an obvious play on Geocities, seemed to be born from a longing for nostalgia before social media giants and the omnipresent algorithm dictated how and what you posted. From their site:

Neocities is a social network of 1,354,000 web sites that are bringing back the lost individual creativity of the web. We offer free static web hosting and tools that allow you to create your own web site.

The platform provides an in-browser text editor, file upload capabilities, social networking features, and hosting. However, there isn't anything stopping you from moving off the platform and hosting the site yourself.

By browsing the featured sites, it's clear that these sites do not fit the "modern web" mold. Many of these sites are not created by professional developers at all, but by people who wanted to express themselves in ways that social media does not allow for and the results are astounding. In a world of web frameworks, there's something beautiful about going back to basics using HTML and CSS to build a website. You may find that you actually have MORE freedom by keeping the tech stack minimal. Constraints really do foster creativity.

Your Own Web Property

Whether you are a web developer or not, I'd encourage you to make a site of your own either on Neocities or elsewhere. The journey will be long and difficult familiarizing yourself with coding but if you stick with it and create a "web property" you can call your very own, you may find that it will be entirely worth the effort.