Since 2020 I was actively trying to move away from the modern Internet experience and towards old style forums and blogs and things. I deleted my facebook and tried to limit my use of other social media sites.
I started a business in 2022 and knew I didn't want to use a corporate site builder so I looked into building a classic HTML website. I used to dabble with that sort of thing when I was a pre-teen in the early 2000s and the thought of digging up my old HMTL skills made me really happy.
I think I found Neocities while looking for places to host an HTML site. This thread has made me realize how old Neocities really is. It was founded in 2013?? Crazy! I thought it was a newer thing and it's kinda nuts to me how long it's been around. When I first discovered it, I figured I'd be lost for hours browsing sites through their main portal... but I never did and still never do that. I feel like I discover more sites by just clicking links on other peoples' pages like you used to have to do back in the day. I pretty much just use Neocities to host my own stuff.
Anyway, when I first started making the site for the business, I would code in a text document on my laptop while riding the train to and from work and then upload everything I was working on when I got home. I felt so cool and hip coding my own website like that.