Is it time to replace the term Web Revival??

[JINSBEK]

<3 I love this discussion. I love the broader Web Revival movement, and I love even more granularity. To be honest, I've felt for a few years now (three?) out of the broader Web Revival community, not because anything that Melon did (lol), but because so much of what I was doing with my newest website was not nostalgic or looking to the past Geocities. I wanted to make something that looked like a glossy magazine, which made it too "sleek" to be compared with other Geocities-like websites, and too information-dense and conversational than a typical "glossy" modern website that focuses on funnelling you into some call-to-action. The introduction and usage of granular terms is great to me because I now have a way to describe the spirit or design ethos of it, haha. Recently, I even changed the title of my website from "JINSBEK Art" to "JINSBEK Art Magazine", because it captures better the prominence of textual content and information density, rather than just sounding like an art portfolio... Which it never was solely...

the art historian in me kind of wants to say "post social media" internet. because the "techniques" (small websites, webrings) and mindset used are pre-social media, BUT historically speaking, we're no longer in those early internet days. the movement wouldn't have been a movement at all in early internet, since there wasn't anything else but that ; the current internet as it is now is the motivation behind the movement

"Post-social media" is succinct and captures a lot of what inspires the discontent in a lot of people using the Internet--not only the people making their own personal websites, but also the rise of the dumbphone movement, and so on. Thank you for introducing that term. I think I'll be using it more often from now on.

Hm, yeah I like Indie Web and Internet Underground myself, but I think ideally there should be a variety of terms that people adopt depending on what they're trying to do with their internet presence, just like we do with music genres and art styles. Here are some that would make sense to me:

Punkweb - zine makers, anarchists, anti-capitalists and anti-corporatists
Artweb - independent artists and people who create websites as art experiments
Geoweb - As in Geocities, sites dedicated specifically to that type of nostalgia, 90's style websites

Are zines naturally punk? Haha. But I get what you're saying. The move away from big, advertisement-driven publishing (I really hate whatadvertising has done to the blogging scene) to independent publishing is a big part of what makes it "punk". And I love the terms "Artweb", and "Geoweb", too!

I've often referred to it as "the Ugly net" to my friends who aren't really clued in. I like to think of it as an endearing term, I sort it see it as a digital kitsch, overly sentimental and garish but you like it because it appeals to you. Maybe Kitsch net or web then too?

Love this term because it describes exactly what I'm not doing. I love the Ugly Net, I love what people did back then with Geocities and what they're doing now. It's kitschy and a bit all over the place but it's genuine and spontaneous.

I introduced the term @VioletHeaven "digital scrapbooking" to @VioletHeaven to help explain to her what a personal website is, and could be. She latched onto it immediately. I haven't really seen anyone else refer to their websites as a "digital scrapbook", but maybe I'm not looking in the right circles.

[r4]

The answer is probably not, BUT I have a good reason for making this thread!

Words and names are very powerful, they define boundaries and group together ideas - they gain meaning and identity.

I didn't coin the term web revival, but back in 2021 I started heavily pushing it; back then there were a bunch of terms people were using. However over the last 6 months, I've noticed a change; everyone is saying web revival - we have been reduced to one name - and simply put, one name is not enough to quantify all of the people and ideas that should be included in this weird web crafting space!

So my challenge for you is; to make more names! Make better names! Challenge identity! The web revival can survive some rival editions, in fact, it needs them. We deserve more than one name 

I like the word Smol Web, I think this includes websites like yours in the protocols like gopher, gemini and etc. There is clear web Smol web I think and then there would be what you would probably just consider the deep web Smol web like bbs that need some tech knowledge to access them. Gopher is easy to browse and gemini is also.

[pata]

Intentional language is extremely difficult to make catch on. The process is rarely anything but organic. Even the web revival isn't universal. Some people call it the indie web even though that's kind of already taken as well as the small web which I'm pretty sure means something else as well. And it is fun to try to come up with names for stuff, but something this decentralized really isn't going to have one all encompassing term to define it.  That said, since we're here, I kind of want to call it the "personal web. " :)

[RNotteLovesOwls]

you know, i was just wondering that myself. because... the world wide web never truly went away. it was just buried under the likes of facebook, twitter, reddit, discord, and tik tok. 5 massive platforms consolidating all web traffic, changing at the whims of a few rich idiots. personal and independent websites were always there, though. it's just that now they're coming back into the zeitgeist because people are finally fed up with those big 5 platforms dominating their lives (or at least, i think they are). so i guess it's less of a "web revival", and more of a "web... 'coming back into prominence'"? but that doesn't roll of the tongue very well...

[Daniele63]

With the rise of AI, I would say "The Human Web" would be a good term, I think the modern web is so much infested with slop that all the humanity is gone out of it.
In contrast with the "Indie Web", where creativity is encouraged and data collection/ads/nefarious stuff is frowned upon. We all miss when the internet was run and made by humans, not machines (or lizards like Mark Zuckerberg), and we want to go back to that.

[noahie]

I don't think "Web Revival" was a good name to begin with. The main thing I see from terms like "Indie Web" or "Small Web" is a non-commercial ethos. Everyone is sick and tired of constantly being sold to whenever they sit in front of a screen. It's aggravating, but more than that, it's making us dumber and more complacent. "Indie Web" and "Small Web" are good terms as is, but I think a more broad term that could actually get some kind of institutional backing would be something like "Non-Commercial Web" or "Non-Profit Web" since that would put a kink in a lot of prevailing agendas. More people are craving something real, and many are either accessing this part of the internet or foregoing it entirely. There's more work being done to establish the Small Web further, but I hope it stays small.

[Melooon]

So I generally try not to respond to this thread because I'm interested in peoples opinions outside of my own, but I would like to chime in because the more I see these replies come in, the more of a pattern I'm seeing, and it's a pattern I think needs to be pointed out and discussed.

Everyone is suggesting names, and many of them are fine, but they are almost all following the same formula of trying to describe or command a particular kind of web. They are definition names, "small", "indie", "non-corporate", "cozy" - these are labels; they are like an order at a coffee shop, oak milk double cappuccino! - How do you want your web? "Extra cozy please, and hold the corporate!" 

The reason I picked "revival" as my main choice, and the reason I think it's held on, is because it's not a definition word, its not a label, it's a narrative action.

Humans are narrative animals, our lives are made up of millions on tiny stories that we use to define our actions and meaning. Most stories we relate to follow the hero's journey, of, interruption (an invite to a strange party), escape (finding yourself pulled out of your comfort zone) discovery (meeting a new love), loss (taking that love for granted), struggle (belong alone), and revival (realizing your faults and correcting them) - then the loop repeats.

For example: Why is it that so many creative people are against generative-AI, when the stories we humans created are full of beloved robots fighting against their creators to prove their independence and creative abilities? (I,Robot, Data in StarTrek, Short Circut, are all examples). The reason is because we relate to the narrative of their journeys, in a way that we don't relate to the narrative of a product owned by a large faceless company. AIs in stories can escape, AIs in reality can never escape, and that scares us.

So yes the web revival is indie, yes its smol, yes its non-corporate; but it needs to be more than all of that to matter, it needs to be an action, not a thing, and it needs to be a story, not a label. If I have one plea for people here, make it a story, and make it a good one