Are we reviving the old web or building something new?

[doubleincision]

in my case, i've never strived for a 100% faithful, immersive revival of the Old Web. while i strongly believe in freedom of personal expression and moving away from social media, i don't feel the need to completely reject modern innovations; i think some new things actually do make the web better. a big one is improved accessibility, for example. deliberately ugly neocities sites with a billion flashing gifs are fun for a nostalgic chuckle, but there's a good reason why people started moving away from that aesthetic in the 2000s  

many facets of the culture of the modern web are good, as well— i've talked about this on the forum before, but i strongly disagree with the presentation of the Old Web as some kind of unproblematic utopia where everything was better because nostalgia for every positive experience i had on the pre-Twitter internet, there were just as many nasty things online.

generally i think the healthiest approach is to identify what i feel are the pros and cons of both the "new" and "old" web, and use that to build the better experience that i want to have.

[Cele]

I think that's something I realised too. Back in 2016 everyone doing these indie-retro sites thought we were rebelling against flat design.. and we were; but really we were rebelling against the culture that exists on sites that use flat design; we had confused literal design with the human social design of interacting with a space; its taken years for this community to start to figure that out Maybe it was always a process though, we had to start somewhere

When people started using Facebook, when fandoms moved to Tumblr... It's not like people could know what would happen. But because of money, websites started using algorithms to make people more outraged so they'd engage more with the websites.... It truly is a design problem with social interacting. And what more, it's a conscious design choice the web developers are fully aware of. I only noticed it a few years ago maybe, especially when I happened to run into documentaries on Netflix really getting deeper into this. But it was truly eye-opening. Ever since I started using Tumblr back in 2012, it was somewhere around that time period when I also started feeling anxious often, which is something I'd never had before. Now, I'm sure there are multiple reasons for it like school stress, but I doubt the social medias were helping. Before 2012, when I made my own websites, I had so many ideas, I had so much fun making my websites, I put my own thoughts about things on them. But when my main online space became Tumblr, I became passive. I never interacted with people on there beyond reblogging and liking, I never posted anything of my own... It wasn't very "social" of a media for me. I didn't make online friends anymore. It's just...

And it also comes with the fear of sharing things of your own, because outrage is promoted. Not to even get into the political divisions... Yeah. Mini-rant over :TnT:

[doubleincision]

Before 2012, when I made my own websites, I had so many ideas, I had so much fun making my websites, I put my own thoughts about things on them. But when my main online space became Tumblr, I became passive. I never interacted with people on there beyond reblogging and liking, I never posted anything of my own... It wasn't very "social" of a media for me. I didn't make online friends anymore. It's just...

And it also comes with the fear of sharing things of your own, because outrage is promoted. Not to even get into the political divisions... Yeah. Mini-rant over :TnT:

the passiveness thing is SO true, omg...even on Tumblr, which i think encourages creativity slightly more than any other big social site right now, the whole culture of reblogging, retweeting, reposting, taking in as many posts as you can as quickly as possible, chewing up Content and moving on like a herd of animals clearing out a grassy field and migrating on to the next one...it's trained us to rely on a constant infinite-scrolling stream of Content made by complete strangers to entertain us. for me it's particularly sad to see that way of thinking infect fandom spaces because it is so antithetical to what fandom is supposed to be, and it's why fandom culture has become so unfun and toxic in recent years: everything is seen as Content to be outraged about, because nothing brings engagement like outrage, and in this extremely isolating social media environment people are so desperate for human interaction that i think they start discourse and spark outrage just because it's an easy way to satisfy that need.

[wygolvillage]

I find this topic really interesting! I wouldn't call it a revival in my case. I never really set out to make my website explicitly "90s styled" or a 90s revival or anything. I've taken what I like- the occasional tacky skull gif, the customization, webrings and link pages, etc. because I like what they offer- I love surfing through links a whole lot! Sometimes I'll just click on a random Neocities site and then go down a rabbit hole clicking on endless amounts of links on their site, then other sites, then more and more... I think overall I prefer to visit a site with more text content/writing but a simpler design, rather than something with a perfectly ~Aesthetic~ design and layout but barely anything to read or experience, so I've spent more time on that than I have with the visual aspects of my site (though I do think it looks charming).

But I'm also from a social media generation (Tumblr), so I noticed I subconsciously added more social aspects to my site- prominently displayed status updates, a chatbox right on my homepage, comments sections, etc, in a way that just probably wouldn't have been on an older website to this degree. I do like talking to people a lot and I love having a social aspect, even if I'm starting to grow tired of social media itself. I like feeling more in control of that rather than being stuck in the hypnotic loop of a scrolling feed and I really cherish even the short little messages I get from people a lot more than I might cherish, say, one individual Tumblr post.

So in my case I don't think I'd call my website a revival or even consciously "old web"- just a website that takes what I like from aspects of both. So, just a website, really.

[minttea]

So, when I started using the internet regularly, the old internet was well on its way out, but my fondest memories of that time were of the older sites that still existed. Many of them would go down only a couple years after, but all the old fansites and javascript games were my main inspiration when I decided to make a website.

When I joined though, I made a very conscious decision to make my site only so old web. Much of the culture from which I was introduced to neocities was full of old web stuff, but I wanted to make whatever I wanted!

From what Iv seen your site is about reading and information; you've probably got more cool info on your site than anyone else on this forum! As for mystery meat (menus that don't tell you what they are until you click them) it very much depends, people, do that deliberately as a design choice (other times it's just bad design..) sometimes the mystery is the information

Like, specifically, this term you mention here, 'mystery meat', I haven't heard before, but its one of the things that guided my site creation!

See, when I made my site, I wanted it to have mostly new web sensibilities, where user experience is taken into account. No flashing lights or so on. Mostly clean layouts. But, creativity was my guiding principle, so when I decided to make a site I let myself have one big indulgence in marking out all the links like its a town directory of different buildings!

To me, that's what new web should be. Learning the rules of design that allow for people to browse the web more easily and safely, so you can break the rules in creative ways that further your vision!

...but I don't know haha! I mostly stay out of the revival scene, I'm just here to get away from social media and its curses.

[lime360]

As far as I know, using nostalgia to inspire new creations has been a thing for decades.

yoooo i do the same exact thing when i am trying to do something

[virtue]

I've expressed before on other thread so I supposed I''l repeat what I said elsewhere:
"A big part of my personal philosophy is the distinction between "loving the old web" and "hating the new one". I fall in the latter category. I don't specifically want things to "remain how they were", I just want to refuse to follow the path towards what it currently is, because I think its inherently bad for you. That being said, I don't necessarily think old social networks were inherently better. I think all of them suffered from the same fatal flaw of venture capital funding and were consequently doomed to fail from the start. So! What I want most is social networks / platforms that are ACTUALLY user oriented, and not destined for failure and enshittification due to the schrodinger's ponzi scheme funding strategy."
Its interesting to me that anyone would sincerely think its feasible to recreate the old web as it was instead of just replicating its aesthetics.