Your experience with MelonLand and the indie web!

[dizzy]

hi everyone... first post! yay! 

lately I've spent a lot of time reading through forum posts and have become really intrigued with the indie web in general. it's such a distinct space from the 'corpo web' that I thought it  would be worth looking into. so I'm writing a paper about it :D particularly on writing and rhetoric over here. it's way different than what we're used to on places like twitter or  instagram or all that stuff.

one of the most important parts of doing research is probably getting firsthand accounts, so id like to ask you guys about your experience with the indie web. if you have no idea where to start, you can try thinking of some of these questions:

how/why did you join MelonLand or the indie web?
is there anything you've noticed about MelonLand or the indie web that's different from the modern/corporate web? what about comparing it to the older web like what Geocities was originally? why do you think that?
bonus points if the answers relate to the way people communicate... :3

you dont have to answer all or any of these of course, but I would just love input on what it's been like living in this corner of the internet. if you're extra-motivated to talk about this stuff, we can totally chat outside of the forum too!

I'll start with mine:
I used to get youtube videos occasionally about the indie web and Neocities, and everyone had such cool sites that I wanted to try for myself! I would spend hours websurfing, jumping from site to site and taking time to appreciate how each one was crafted. I loved learning about things I had never even heard of, or things I would have never seen otherwise. I started learning about the web revival movement while surfing through webrings, eventually found the MelonLand webring, and now I'm here!!!
I really like how easy it is to connect with others in the indie web. most users have walls or chatboxes on their sites, and the forums on here make it really simple to yap your ear off about whatever you want. I think that it feels more personal than the corpo web probably since these kinds of sites tend to be more genuine and informal, so a lot of people talking in them can be informal in their writing too. it's like having a regular conversation with no pressure. :P

[Nael]

Nice topic!

How/why did you join MelonLand or the indie web?
I never left the "web" in general, I made my first site back in the Geocities era and simply never stopped heheh c: Joining MelonLand was a natural continuation of what I was already doing.

Is there anything you've noticed about MelonLand or the indie web that's different from the modern/corporate web? what about comparing it to the older web like what Geocities was originally?

I was a kid when Geocities was on it's golden era and I barely spoke English back then so please keep this in mind. As far as I recall Geocities didn't have a social feature like neocities does, nor any huge forum of sorts where people could congregate about building sites in general. It reminds me of being an artist before the golden era of DeviantArt, of course people were making art before it but communities were small and centralized. Today you can make a neocitie...neosite? and instantly start connecting to others with similar interests.

Corporate web forces you to use your real name and some social media go as far as to punish users from using fake names, I would say corporate web is a bit like your front porch, anyone can see it and they probably will even if they don't want it, someone may be driving in your neighborhood and they will cross path with your house and see it. I don't want to link my 200k words fanfic, "dark" art and furry memes on my social media because I don't trust people's judgment, someone will see it and possible do an entire moral judgment on me based solely on what I like. I think when it comes to corporate media the feeling I have is "why would I post it?" while on indie web the feeling is "why NOT post it?" since we are all here to share the stuff we enjoy even if it's silly, I won't judge your bugsbunny X gandalf fanfic if you don't judge my shrine to pepsi even if we don't understand each other because we are both aware that the indie web is for that and respect generates respect.

I believe communication in the indie web(that includes foruns like MelonLand!) is more free and honest because people are not afraid they will  be judged for it and even if they are, it will hardly have an impact on their offline life. Of course you can use this anonymity to be an absolute bastard but most people on here simple choose to be genuine about what they enjoy and that is so great.

Corporate web rewards you for being a douchebag, you can post a mean comment on somebody's harmless video or picture and see the amount of liked go up while in the indie web such behaviors won't stand because there is no like button to begin with and because being polite is an enforced behavior.

[torrent-empress]

Nice topic!

How/why did you join MelonLand or the indie web?


Is there anything you've noticed about MelonLand or the indie web that's different from the modern/corporate web? what about comparing it to the older web like what Geocities was originally?

I'm... officially old (30) but the indieweb is pretty cool, although it lacks a little bit of the cool stuff that geocities did just because the nature of the web has changed. One of the things that I remember is that websites did used to be co-run sometimes by a few people and people would post submissions they got (like fanfiction or whatever) obviously this was more bc there weren't centralized repositories for this stuff, but I think the indieweb revival is a little more individualistic.... which is a bit of a problem sometimes.

Personally I actually came from corpo tech! I used do work as a corporate User Experience designer and I do genuinely love technology (fun fact I learned!!! Most UX professionals barely use technology and don't play video games  ) kind of sucks..... When i went into tech there was hardly people who loved technology left... just a bunch of dorks looking for their next 100k job which is partially why the internet sucks so much now.

hi everyone... first post! yay! 

lately I've spent a lot of time reading through forum posts and have become really intrigued with the indie web in general. it's such a distinct space from the 'corpo web' that I thought it  would be worth looking into. so I'm writing a paper about it :D particularly on writing and rhetoric over here. it's way different than what we're used to on places like twitter or  instagram or all that stuff.

I'm soooo interested in this paper - also I checked out your website and I love your pixels!!!

[Dan Q]

how/why did you join MelonLand or the indie web?

I've always been part of the "indie web", even before the term first appeared about 1997. But I can trace my journey back even further than when I made my first pages in around 1996:

Prior to the popularisation of the Internet and the Web, I was active on a variety of dial-up bulletin boards (BBSes), including acting as co-SysOp/SysOp on a couple of them (if you're not familiar with BBSes, their history, and its influence on community-building in cyberspace, I highly recommend Jason Scott's comprehensive documentary!). BBSes were somewhat centralised compared to the "indie web", but they were still, without a doubt, fiercely independent: each an entity unto itself and with its own personality and culture.

This experience clearly influenced my ideas on what the Web could be. I absolutely bought into the promise that the Web was a force for free speech and democracy, and that we were moving towards a point at which anybody - and everybody - could and probably would someday have an the very least a "home page" (of the traditional sense).

So I started launching sites around 1996 and starting blogging (although I didn't call it that, either) in 1998. And then... I didn't really stop. There was a big dip in my bloggy output in the early 2000s - hey look, I've got a graph! - and a couple of smaller ones later as I occasionally experimented with centralised social media... but the inevitable and gradual enshittification of profit-making centralised social networks was frustrating to me.

Plus, before long I was discovering that my personal Web presence was beginning to provide value in longevity. My blog predates Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube... and there's no reason to believe that it can't outlive those services too (it existed both before and after Google+!), so long as I live long enough to see their end... and I've already seen changes to every one of those services to show me that a centralised social silo doesn't have to completely die to become... well... useless. So why would I trust one of these services to be the primary home for the things I put onto the Internet? So over the noughties I transitioned to a solid POSSE model: my site is the single primary source-of-truth in my life, and where I choose to syndicate things to other services... that's a convenience for other people: I duplicate my vlogs to YouTube, but I see that as a temporary state of affairs - if in another 20 years a different service makes more sense, I'll syndicate there instead... but my site will remain the "official" copy.

I came to Melonland only very recently. I've skirted around the edge of it for a while, read threads occasionally, but eventually decided I should be more... I don't know... "chatty" with other folks who treat the Web as an artistic canvas and who share my dream of a Web 1.x Renaissance!

is there anything you've noticed about MelonLand or the indie web that's different from the modern/corporate web?

The independent Web has artistic personality, in a way that the corporate web squashes dead.

Over time, big social media silos converge on the optimal design for locking you into their walled garden, for providing the simplest and blandest possible experience for everything, for taking a dull and broad brush and applying it to everything. They do this because they crave the currency of attention, which allows them to be paid by advertisers and to maximise the amount of behavioural data they can collect from you.

The trend is towards cleanliness, simplicity, and uniformity. The focus is on the underlying corporation. The criteria for success are engagement, SEO metrics, and revenue. The insidious nature of this approach infects the creators on these platforms too: YouTubers tell you not to forget to "like and subscribe" because the ones who don't get pushed to the periphery of a window of discovery, which in turn narrows over time as the platform optimises for maximal engagement for the widest possible audience. The mainstream of each filter bubble is uplifted by the algorithms and visitors become more and more tightly-funnelled into the same pigeonholes, unable to see the artistry that comes from dissent.

Whether countercultural or merely individualised, the indie web instead puts personality and humanity at its centre. Because their metrics for success are different from the corporate Web, creators can make exploratory choices that step outside the corporate norms. Don't want your logo always in the top left and the top right is for a login form or search box? That's fine, you can lay things out however you like. Don't care about SEO because your space is for you first and foremost and for perhaps those who surf through serendipity second... that's great! Ignore the "best practices" that Google tries to insist you use and just do your own damn thing. The indie web embraces the fact that the Internet belongs to all of us: a true commons that everybody can speak in, not the curated town squares of the social media silos.

what about comparing it to the older web like what Geocities was originally? why do you think that?

Back when Geocities and the like were at their heyday, the Web was primarily explored by surfing. Search engines were... not great, yet (I mean, they're not great now but for different reasons!), and so you'd curate a collection of links in your Bookmarks folder (or on your homepage) and you'd rely on the pages you visited to provide links to explore elsewhere. But when you did use a search engine... sometimes you'd find a gem! Because the results weren't great you'd sometimes find yourself on the second, third or fourth page, and who knows what you'd discover! You were looking for a song title based on half-remembered lyrics and by page four of Excite or Yahoo! you'd have discovered somebody's personal pages where they wrote a poem with some similar words and now you'd have clicked-on through their webring and spotted somebody whose username seemed familiar from an IRC channel you were in, once, and you're wondering if they're the same person when you get distracted by the timeline they've made of the pets they've ever owned and... what were you looking for again? Who cares.

Nowadays, the search engines drop people on the page they asked for... and that's it. Well, not even that: they drop people on the page they think is best, based on a variety of criteria that are often unfriendly to the pages of individual humans. Actually... not even that: nowadays they give searchers a crappy AI summary of the first page of results, often without citations, and nobody even gets to see the web design of the pages they're reading.

So nowadays some - not all! - individual creators go multiplatform. You can publish on your own site, but if you want the self-satisfied feeling of getting engagement with what you've poured your soul into (it's fine if you do: we're a social species!... it's also fine if you don't care!), you might also need to "pay the game". For example: my longer blog posts get crossposted to a Facebook page that provides a summary and a link back to the original. I don't like it, but there are people who read my blog who expect to find posts there or they won't see them.

So that's the difference today: independent creators are more-marginalised by search engines and need to work harder if they care about being "seen".

Wow, this turned into an essay, didn't it?

Oh, and also:

I'm... officially old (30)

You're only ever as old as you feel. I started writing HTML (just barely) before you were born, @torrent-empress! But it's all just a number, for real.

[Corrupted Unicorn]

I... kinda forgot how exactly I learnt about the Indie Web. But given the chance to make a personal website, I took it. Concept never even crossed my mind when I was younger, and it indeed sounded like a cool alternative to social media. More customizable, more personal... at least screaming into the digital void feels better when you can choose the wallpaper, right?

And of course, there's more people who think this way, and it's great there's a place where we can gather such as here 

I still feel there's remnants of years of social media here, behavior-wise. I have a tendency to reply to threads without reading them thoroughly, and short, disconnected topics and responses are more frequent here. As if social media taught us to scream loudly, but not to listen and build actual conversations together.

With that said, there's an evident feeling of "close community" here, and I'm not the only one. Maybe it's because the Indie Web is inherently smaller than the population of social media? Also means you get more genuine moments of connection here.

[wolfkitty42]

I don't really remember how I got into Melonland at all... And I barely remember how I got into the indie web! I definitely remember seeing indie websites circulate in fandom spaces, primarily Deltarune fandom spaces. For instance, I was really into Huecycle's AU Candleholder so I definitely remember that site! I also enjoyed ARG projects like Hometown Incidents or Sweepstakes (the fandom continuation, not the official heheh....) A lot of those args got me to start thinking more about different looking and feeling web pages and about the web as a medium for art.

I vividly after I really got into the indie web, I clicked an episode of LOVEWEB not really knowing what the whole show was about. It was their episode about independent websites! I paused when one of the websites popped up because I just had to sit there and be flabbergasted that Holy Shit, that's a blast from my past! I used to be in a discord server called ACDS, which I rejoined recently. I recognized the web ring and the user who made the site. It clicked for me that I had sort of been in indie web spaces for a lot longer than I had thought. Even if it wasn't as overt as Melonland, I have spent a lot of time in online places that encourage building community over the past few years. It was really interesting for me to think about how a lot of what I consider the Indie Web was lot closer to some of my past experiences than I had thought.

Ah... Discord is always in a weird spot for me. It's corporate, but I have met so many wonderful people and been in such a variety of communities in there. I never really know how to categorize it because of that.

[MrsMoe]

I first discovered Neocities from lurking on other people's accounts on Twitter and Tumblr. More and more, I started finding Neocities sites in their pinned or linktrees and I was always super impressed by the sheer depth of creativity and customization. Looking at their pages during this current era of cold corporate blandness was like finding a beautiful oasis in a horrible desert, so naturally I wanted in. And I definitely don't regret it!


I wasn't present for the Geocities era of the internet (or at least, not fully conscious. I was a wee baby), but it definitely is different from mainstream social media. Outside of the obvious customization and freer expression, I just feel like the indie web is so relieving because the pressure to make a hit post or tweet is completely gone. No one's fighting over each other to say the next witty comeback or start an argument to make themselves look intelligent, so that already lends the indie web to being a much more peaceful place. I also feel like it's a much healthier environment for artists because you don't have to stress about getting an algorithm to push your work within a limited time window. I've never liked how art in the modern web just sort of disappears when it's not new or relevant anymore, so I like artists having a reliable place to display all their work at once.

[Cele]

how/why did you join MelonLand or the indie web?

Well I was big on website making and forum surfing back before social media, and social media is horrible so of course I wanted to taste a bit of nostalgia and my old hobbies.

is there anything you've noticed about MelonLand or the indie web that's different from the modern/corporate web? what about comparing it to the older web like what Geocities was originally? why do you think that?

MelonLand is fine. General indie web? Not immune to the cultural changes that social media brought. It does not feel the same as before during Geocities times. In addition to that, back then, I could surf sites based on interests, now it feels like 99% of sites are personal sites just like one's own social media profile. Many interactions happen on Neocities profile pages which is yet another social media like feature. I sound like a super downer but my bad experiences can be blamed on that. Yet I am here because I like websites. (And because I have no issue with MelonLand.)

[musicobsessed107]

How/why did you join MelonLand or the indie web?

I was a teenager who was severely dismayed with the state of the current mainstream web and with modern electronics in general. I had already had my issues with the state of the web and seeing what it was becoming as a child in the mid - late 2010s, but I believe my tipping point came in 2021 when I was almost 15 and had seen just how slowly but surely terrible even websites like YouTube had become by then, not to mention my immense disappointment when I tried to register an account on Blingee only to see how that part of the website was broken.

I was never really a big fan of these modern mainstream social media websites to begin with (except for YouTube) and found them to be creepy to say the least (especially so with Facebook after I had heard about how it spies on its users and could never see it with the same innocence and curiosity again).

In 2022, I started to join a few older but still somewhat active message boards and was looking for more to join. I had already lurked through a few online message board sites when I was a kid (if I wasn't looking through random Blogspot sites, playing online games, or watching videos on YouTube, of course), so I was already pretty familiar with how these types of websites work. Then, in October 2022, I created my account on Spacehey, which felt really amazing to do as someone who wishes she could've been old enough to have had a MySpace account back in the day and this was the closest I'd ever be able to get to that.

I slowly went further down a rabbit hole of indie websites since then and during my senior year of high school in March 2024, I created my own Neocities website dedicated to my favorite decade and to share advice on achieving an actual 2000s lifestyle from the countless hours of research I've had to do.

I just so happened to have stumbled upon this particular website after I saw it in a YouTube video shortly after I created and started working on my website.

Is there anything you've noticed about MelonLand or the indie web that's different from the modern/corporate web? what about comparing it to the older web like what Geocities was originally?

Definitely. Even though I wasn't old enough to have experienced Geocities, I can still say that the current indie web is still a much needed reprieve from the corporateness, toxicity, and homogeny of the enshittified modern mainstream web and makes you feel like there's actually somebody behind the screen as opposed to a bunch of soulless bots (which is becoming more and more true each day, unfortunately). It's a place where people can have actual conversations with one another, aren't fed the same old slop by some intentionally addictive algorithm, and you sure as hell aren't feeding the greedy billionaires over on this part of the web either.

[zomboid]

hi there !! this is such a compelling thing to ask... ive been thinking about it a lot lately with out even realizing tbh!

how/why did you join MelonLand or the indie web?

i've always liked customization and "having your own thing" and it really showed in how i loved customizing tumblr themes, but the idea of designing and running my own website was honestly always really intimidating! a few years ago i commissioned a friend to design & host a site for me and they did an amazing job but eventually moved urls and hosts and all.

eventually (in recent months) i've gotten really sick of the corporate web and the culture of it all, and i figured the best way to opt out of it without leaving the internet i love so much was to just... shift gears and kick my own butt into learning something new. when making my website, i let myself go down dozens of rabbit holes to see other sites, and probably a dozen of them had melonland listed in their webrings!! ^_^ ive been wanting to join and i finally got incentivized on a monday of all days so i had to sit and wait for a few more hours !!

is there anything you've noticed about MelonLand or the indie web that's different from the modern/corporate web?

don't think i can really weight in on the geocities comment (just a tad too young for that one) but it's just ... so much more personable, first of all. having the space and time and ability to customize your profile and choose how your posts will present. i also appreciate, ironically, the sometimes lack of flow/coherency with sites on mobile. i miss the era of desktops being the priority, even if i have to use my phone half the time! i think it's charming in a strange way when you can really tell someone was doing something on a nice big screen, and doing everything in their power to fill out that space and make it fun.

there's no polish and streamlining and minimalist nature; even minimalist-style indie sites still have meat to them. they may like a clean look but they still have something to say and share and they just find a way to adapt it to that cleanliness! it's not restricted by character limits and a light/dark theme switch - even if you want to keep it clean, you can still add decorations like a floating png or similar to add more flair to it ^_^

it has been a lot different getting to interact and communicate with people on the indie web! it's absolutely delightful getting to explore and see people's sites and leave compliments on their work, and now that i've finally set up a guestbook, it's been thrilling to see people dropping by to leave similar messages... it's equal parts delightful and saddening for me, because i love having long-winded conversations with people, but it's still nice having this culture of leaving each other letters and post-it notes on the internet! it's a nice thing to notice in your inbox or when you go to check your guestbook, rather than feeling disappointed that you missed a friend's want to conversate because you were busy. it's less demanding even if """"less engaging""""""" so to speak!

[stephan_e_perez]

Growing up, I remember using AIM, visiting homestarrunner.com and posting on video game forums regularly (I loved the Chrono Series, so I frequented Chrono Shock *and* Chrono Compendium)... I also joined a variety of blogging/social media sites: myspace, blogpsot, livejournal - many of my IRL friends joined them too and we enjoyed reading each others' blog posts. I also shared my first musical compositions on myspace. My favorite of those sites was Xanga because the custom themes were quite powerful and you could have music play automatically (it didn't require a user interaction like it does nowadays). I remember that another user made a beautiful Boogiepop Phantom Xanga theme for me, which is sadly lost to the sands of time.

During university and into my late twenties I was focused mostly on music, though I did learn some basic programming as part of my courses on electronic music.

On the web side of things, Xanga died and I moved to tumblr, using a custom domain to make a very simple website/blog, sharing links to my musical recordings there. After university, I began learning more and more programming (mostly C#-Unity-C++-openFrameworks) before eventually getting into web dev about two years ago. During this period, I also got more involved with performance art, and found some overlap with internet: I met artists using video-calls or the live-editing of Google docs for performances.

Having taken note of the deep artistic potential that the internet has and learned about older instances of internet art, like the works of John F. Simon or Mark Napier, I feel like I've missed out on a lot! And when I once showed one of my web artworks to another web developer, he said "Oh, this is nice. It reminds me of when the internet used to be fun..." That fun spirit seems to be alive and well in melonland.

[alienhospital]

is there anything you've noticed about MelonLand or the indie web that's different from the modern/corporate web? what about comparing it to the older web like what Geocities was originally? why do you think that?

The modern/corporate web has a focus on Being Online All The Time. Sure, it wants you working! It also wants you to go on Amazon every second of every day or use Spotify or argue on Twitter or talk to your grandma on Facebook. It relies on obsession. Now, obviously this is a harmful thing, but what's also harmful is when you go about the opposing opinion in a way that either judges modern internet usage or judges excessive internet usage all together, forgetting about the good things modern social media can offer.

Like, okay. I've been thinking a lot about how I would have no one if not for Tumblr and Discord. I'm disabled and housebound. I don't leave the house for anything besides medical appointments 99% of the time because I Can't. If I stop using these sites, I will wither away from loneliness. I find that a lot of the indie web is not sympathetic to the housebound and therefore internet-focused experience.

The emphasis on being outside/IRL and significantly minimizing computer usage and not using social media is great in theory. It works for a lot of people. But something I find frustrating is when people apply that too generally and across the board, as if there are no upsides to current web or social media. It is very often a tool for the disabled---for housebound/autistic/etc people to socialize, for disabled people to make a living selling digital creations/etc, for disabled people to thrive. I feel like a LOT of the indieweb ironically acts as if being online too much can Taint you, even if it is a web-focused movement. It's a frustration I've had with it for a long time.

I love Melonland, but being closed Mondays " to remind visitors to slowdown and take a break from always-on online life <3"" is what first got me thinking about all of this. It hurts because I live my life online for a reason---it is a lifeline.

Overall though, I do love the Indie Web. It's a movement that stands for a lot of things I find incredibly important----stepping away from the mainstream sites and cultivating your own space on the web, a space of freedom, away from the toxicity of digital capitalism. But I often find that many of its members lack insight on how the internet is, very often, an accessibility tool.