web revival: a thought piece
i’ve been hearing of the web revival movement. for context, i recently joined the indieweb space, for i am independent and own a personal website. i don’t have indieauth and all that other stuff, just my website and this blog. i am content with that. learning more and implementing what i feel is best for my site would be better overall than only abiding by the indieweb checklist, in my opinion.
by learning more about the indieweb and what it entails, wondering if i should continue on with the rabbit hole, i stumbled across something else: the web revival. what is the web revival? why are people so interested in it? what’s in it for me?
“The Web Revival is about reclaiming the technology in our lives and asking what we really want from the tools we use, and the digital experiences we share.
The Web Revival often references the early Internet, but it's not about recreating a bygone web; the Web Revival is about reviving the spirit of openness and fresh excitement that surrounded the Web in its earliest days.”
From: “Intro to the Web Revival #1: What is the Web Revival?”
honestly, it has me thinking: “where do we stand with technology in our lives?”
the realization that the newer generations will never know of the world before the internet is a strange one, to say the least. it feels surreal. everything recorded can be used against them, and they wouldn’t think twice because they don’t know any better. it isn’t like the old days of paperback and going to the libraries to be lent books. now, we can access the world at our fingertips.
to a point, it loses its meaning to have access to the world when it starts to weigh on your shoulders. nobody should have the weight of the universe on their backs, let alone people who aren’t even developed enough to tell reality from fantasy. being an adult now—seeing so many young people being consistently distressed, depressed, and angry due to the constant information overload of the internet—makes me realize how toxic our relationship has become.
i see people become addicted to receiving digital attention. several memes about being low to the point of doomscrolling day in and day out, weeks on end. on regular platforms, the algorithms are specifically tailored to get your attention for as many short bursts as humanly possible. beauty standards and new insecurities are being invented every minute to advertise a needless product. we are constantly products to be advertised to, statistics and numbers to be counted as daily user bases. we are just a means to an end to these multimillion dollar companies—more money, the most profit to be made, with the least expenses.
when i see most people recounting the simpler days of the internet, it’s either positive or negative. positive experiences with the old internet where everyone built their own sites and made their own resources. or better yet, built their own profile on existing social media platforms and made relations with people similar to them. on the other hand, i see people recounting how cynicism was seen as a virtue, rather than creating an area of the world where acceptance is key. both are the results of the same circumstances.
the product of an era where big corporations didn’t dominate every area of the internet like they do now. censorship, as many would go on to call it, wasn’t even a word in the internet dictionary. everybody was free to express themselves and they did, through making personalized content toward themselves and those who shared similar interests. yeah, some people were edgy, but some were also accepting. it mostly depended on which area you landed in, and that still applies, but now we just have the billionaires and algorithms overseeing everything.
i see the appeal of remaining on social media. having your own instagram, twitter profiles. you get to personalize your own space without having to, say, learning entire coding languages (css, html, javascript) because those are already handled. they’re popular, everyone has one page as is, and you can easily connect with majority of social media users, or rather most of the world. you don’t have to spend hours upon hours coding something you can just press post for.
if you want some individuality, there’s carrd.co and straw.page. i have nothing against those two, let alone the people that use it. if you use it for yourself and have fun with it, more power to you! i’ve made a carrd for a friend before. personally, i find it better for me to make a personal website. there’s just a certain charm to learning code and how it works, even if it’s through templates (i use them since i’m new) and seeing it come together. to see a community dedicated to that is nice, knowing that i’m not the only person making a personal website.
i was skimming through some forums about this, and stumbled across lots of people on the opposite end, people who opposed it. some said that the personal websites were inaccessible. that, i do think, could be improved and is a point of conversation in the community (from my interactions on the 32 bit café!) i notice that many point out that it borderline romanticizes the old web. sure, it was simpler, but it had its issues like any form made by human hands. i do agree to a point, we shouldn’t romanticize it, but learn from it. we should see where the old web needed improvement and keep it its sense of individuality and personalization, done by the person and not the corporation.
if we only romanticize the past without learning the lessons from it, what good would it do to revive it?
i see themes from windows to geocities to frutiger aero and more, all individualized for each person. even those who use templates individualize it. for example, some may change the colors and fonts, others might make major changes. at the end of the day, the web revival is about passion. not passion for upholding the principles that push people away, but passion for the art and fun without the values that led to its downfall.
rome fell for a reason, and so did the old web. so long as we keep the creativity of the web revival without gatekeeping anything and making it accessible for those who truly want to invest in this community and form of internet. those who aren’t interested will quit quickly. those who want to learn will remain.
like i said, enthusiasm rules all in such a small space where the only thing uniting you and i is the mere love and fascination with creating websites, trying and trying until we get the desired results. i’m a newbie, so i still need a frame of reference, but i feel like that kind of passion is what needs to rule neocities, glitch, nekoweb, and wherever else the indie web and web revival takes place.
i don’t care what layout or template someone uses, as long as it’s individualized to each person and their excitement, interests, and whatever keeps them touching the ground in the morning.
at the end of the day, the power of the web revival is in the hands of the individuals who decide to make their own websites and customize it to their heart’s content, just as people did with geocities. if you choose to make your profile on social media, that’s cool! if you choose to make your own website, that’s also cool! if you make a carrd or straw.page, awesome! but as long as you truly have heart behind your work, you’ll know what you want with it.
many people think that webpages on the web must have a purpose. otherwise, what’s the point? but i feel like even if it’s purposeless in execution, the process was the purpose. many people make art for the sake of creating art, like hobbyist musicians do. not everything has to be done for a reason, sometimes it's just done.
tldr: i like the old web revival, even though i also understand the opposition to it. i give my thoughts and opinions on it and how i will contribute. that's it.