how do we get the word out about this side of the web?

[xandra]

thank you for your insight, melon! i do want to touch on this part of what you said:

However, there is another side to this discussion and that's What does MelonLand do to promote the web revival itself? Particularly for people who are not forum members and who might not want to be? - I have mixed feelings here; on one hand I don't really like the idea of being a web missionary who goes out to save people from their Twitter feeds  However I do like the idea of giving people the information they need to learn about website making and to get into it as a hobby or art medium if they think it's correct for them.

...

After that I really believe in promotion through example; if we make sites that are creative, and interesting and weird and chaotic (Chaotic above all else!); then people will be intrigued and the ones who want to know more will come looking for more information. I don't think we can or should go around explaining the web revival to every passerby; we should just enjoy making great websites - the world is so starved of good original creativity, it has no choice but to pay attention

as someone who was heavily involved in the '00s making websites, i had no idea this entire side of the web existed (again? or still? — either way) until i saw it on twitter in 2021, and then found spacehey through twitter. you could argue that folks might be out there who want to do this stuff, but have no idea how to start or that it even exists. there are people who think that the internet begins and ends at 5 websites because that's the way modern internet usage has gone. i think promotion by example is a great way to help capture people once they are here, but getting folks to see that this part of the internet still exists is the first step. if folks don't know something is out there, how do they know to seek it out? if the only SEO done is by squarespace to create a new website because we're anti-SEO (for example), then folks who are searching for "how to create a website" aren't ever going to see that they can express themselves fully by creating a website by scratch for free rather than by drag and drop templates for $30/month.

i'm a big proponent of meeting people where they are, because that's generally how content and media consumption goes. people do not go out of their way, especially if it's hard, to discover something brand new that they may not even be aware exists. if folks are on tumblr and don't know that this exists, then it makes sense to have information available on platforms like that.

also, for what it's worth, not a fan of calling this a "moment" as it makes it seem fleeting; this form of self-expression on the web is decades old at this point — it's definitely more than a moment! :) in the grand scheme though, doesn't really matter. xD

[Memory]

keep in mind i'm talking about this side of the web, not melonland in particular. i want more people to make personal sites and deplug from social media. i don't want to hang on to the side of the internet like a secret — i want more people to get involved and take back the internet from corporations having a stranglehold on it. keeping it "secret" is a great way for this entire "movement" to be snuffed out eventually by folks moving on/deplugging from the internet/growing up/etc.

I am also talking about the personal site web.
The more this would become mainstream, the more "premium hosters" would push things like Neocities off the market in favor of ads, hosting plans and stricter terms of service, the more strictly copyright infringement would be policed, the more negative and dangerous people would browse our sites and perhaps endanger vulnerable people (say goodbye to posting your emails publicly), the more scams would pop up, the more toxic behaviour people would automatically bring to the interaction here, and the more boring sites would clog up things until it's not fun at all anymore to browse our corner of the web.

I think the obscurity we have is building this entire subculture, and if we were popular, many would be forced to move on.

[Melooon]

These @xandra @/home/user/ are both excellent arguments and interestingly polar opposites! I honestly think I agree with both of you simultaneously, which is very confusing...

Firstly, I didn't mean "moment" in a diminishing way! I meant it in a more ethereal way; a movement is very heavy, and its tied to all sorts of facts and dogmas; but a moment floats, it can be gone in a second, but it can also last forever.

Maybe let's look at the facts if we can;

Firstly; am I right in assuming that most subcultures are destroyed if they get too popular? SpaceHey itself falls into this category? The Hippie movement got very silly when it got too big. Underground comic books turned into today's Marvel movies - that's kinda a shallow analysis, so please feel free to poke holes in it!

Secondly; let's look at the Yesterweb itself; it followed a policy of mass outreach, and it resulted in it growing exponentially - however it also became unmanageable and did a lot of damage to the mental health of its mods and created a space that became very negative. (I hope that's a fair assessment!)

Maybe a valid question is; assuming the web revival continues to grow at the rate it has been growing; how are we going to stop people from finding this side of the web??  Ok that's a joke, but it's also not; last month, after 5 years of my Guestbook being totally public; I had to switch it over to approval mode because it was getting nasty comments for the first time ever. Even Neocities itself does not feel safe in the way it did when I first joined; and honestly, this forum has kinda become a life raft for my online life.

All that said; I do agree with @xandra - hiding away behind our own walls like some sort of web revival version of Constantinople is not a particularly great plan. There are people out there who could make awesome sites if they knew about this place, and it's also important not to over-dramatise; hand-coding websites can never be totally mainstream because it's just too hard.

So what's the balance there? How much outreach is too much? If individuals want to promote the web revival, then they can and no one can stop them! I've done so much myself, to promote it; and I will continue to! However, I don't think it's an obligation for anyone, and I think people have the right to desire obscurity too.

I hope more people reply here though, I'd like to hear what people think about this topic, maybe Iv just gotten jaded 

[sig]

Everyone is raising good points here! What mostly seems important to me is that for now it's best that people trickle in so they get the general vibe of what's going on before they decide if they wanna be a part of that or not. A culture can shift quickly if a large influx of people suddenly flows in: a large group crashes the party and the whole mood changes. I assume this is what happened with SpaceHey? Not to be all gatekeepy about it by the way, it just seems like a delicate balance to me so let me put it this way: everyone is welcome, but rather not at the same time!

Now, how to keep the rate of new arrivals under control is another question entirely...

[Memory]

Am I right in assuming that most subcultures are destroyed if they get too popular?

I'd say so, yeah.

Most subcultures blink into existence because their members are struggling to find somewhere to fit in in a world that fundamentally does not allow or encourage a part of their identity.

Punk is for people who refuse to conform to conservative and middle class social and political norms. Emo/scene is for people who felt like their depression and calls for help were not taken seriously. Hippies (as you mentioned) were trying to make free love and world peace a thing in a world that was still very tainted by strict militarist and oppressive social structures. And this web revival is a thing because people feel like social media and the corporate web limit their expression or are a danger to their mental health.

As soon as something becomes popular, that indicates that the mainstream is able to adapt the style and aesthetic as their own freely without repercussions: that people who are not outcasts but actually part of large swaths of society reduce the subculture to their aesthetics and looks. From counterculture now grows pop culture, which dilutes the original character and reduces it to surface level traits. Like what happened to punk, when suddenly large corporate music labels pushed "punk bands", or scene when suddenly Hot Topic was a major corporation, or hippies when it was reduced to drugs and flowers.

For example, what would the web revival feel if Facebook or Twitter started adapting blinkies and retro looking themes to appeal to this new popular trend? If suddenly companies start marketing to us? It would be a far cry from what we want.

[lulu]

late to the discussion, I hope it's alright if I respond!

I do want "this side of the web" to be found by the people who want and need it. I want people to know that they can make sites, and I want them to find a community. Whatever makes them feel happy and connected. I don't know if the campaigns are strictly necessary ~  I found Neocities through google! I just kept rearranging keywords until I found what I was looking for. I didn't even know "this" existed, so it was kind of a blind-faith deal.. still, it's not like we're in some some ultra-underground community where you need a special key, just some curiosity and patience.

But wait - which community are we talking about again? How do you become part of the community? Who is included? Does it require forum membership? Is it a webring? Yesterweb? Having someone else link to your website? How do you define THIS site of the web?  Is it only personal sites? Neocities? Anything non-corporate? What about personal sites with ads? Do wordpress blogs count? Or does it have to be fully hand-crafted? What if you're using a template? Etc, etc.. I know I'm dropping more questions than answers here, and they're largely rhetorical.. but there's a theme in there somewhere.

I remember the heydey of personal sites. I wasn't around for the very first wave, but by the early 2000s it was pretty crowded. Pretty noisy.. Sort of how social media is today, if I'm being honest. There were some big-name personal sites that everybody hit up, and then a bunch of smaller sites that didn't have many visitors, it sort of felt like you were creating into the  void at times. I still did it, because it was fun to create, but it wasn't this utopia where everyone was free and connected. Not that anyone here is saying that it was! I just want to point out that the personal web could be a lonely place back when everyone was doing it. Heck, sometimes I feel that way now! I weirdly felt more connected before I ever joined a server, before yesterweb, etc. Granted, I come to the small web to hide out from the big web & am grateful my site isn't big enough to need to moderate my guestbook. I'm pretty shy and self-concious so getting hate comments would probably destroy something inside me.. not a trait I'm proud of, but it's there. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm perfectly content with it staying small :O

[Melooon]

which community are we talking about again?

I think this is a really good question, but I also think it's one we can and must never answer! The idea of "the web revival community" comes from the idea of "The Yesterweb" community... but as that community starts to fragment, I find myself wondering if it ever really made sense. Maybe the mystery of not knowing is part of what ties it all together, like magic!

When we (lulu and I, we've been web pals for AGES!) got in contact way back in 2016; back then "the community" was more like an amorphous feeling... if you had a site, and it kinda fitted the vibe, then you knew you had something in common, but everyone was also very separate. Yet even tiny interactions back then felt profound and vast, I dunno why that was exactly! I suppose we all knew there was only a handful of us doing this stuff, so even a small site was like a landmark!

Today the landscape is very different and I don't think it's fair to newer people to dwell on the past too much; why would a bigger audience make the magic less magical, or the mystery less mysterious? I still want everyone to be a landmark.

The web revival is like a big freeform piece of theatre; you're part of it if you're brave enough to get up on stage and stand out; everyone is welcome to join! Just don't shine the lights too brightly, and don't steal the spotlight too long - no one knows the plot, but no one wants to know it, we just want to keep playing 

[Y2KStardust]

A person on my Tumblr dash was hyping up the whole creating your own website thing, and since I was both a website making kid in the past and very annoyed by a lack of customization and personality everywhere adult in the present, I resonated with that. Someone in the reblog chain linked Yesterweb, and from there it's a very short trip to finding Melonland.

So there are indeed people getting the word out, although amongst the more widely known websites I would guess you have the bigger chance of running into us on Tumblr than anywhere else.

This is about how I found the webring, and I found Melonland when YW shut down! So, I think it is a thing of making ourselves known on social media to an extent; I'm sure a lot of us already use modern-web social media (I'll die before I give up Tumblr, personally) and it's nice to come across posts about topics like making your own website ^.^

[doubleincision]

But wait - which community are we talking about again? How do you become part of the community? Who is included? Does it require forum membership? Is it a webring? Yesterweb? Having someone else link to your website? How do you define THIS site of the web?  Is it only personal sites? Neocities? Anything non-corporate? What about personal sites with ads? Do wordpress blogs count? Or does it have to be fully hand-crafted? What if you're using a template? Etc, etc.. I know I'm dropping more questions than answers here, and they're largely rhetorical.. but there's a theme in there somewhere.

The web revival is like a big freeform piece of theatre; you're part of it if you're brave enough to get up on stage and stand out; everyone is welcome to join! Just don't shine the lights too brightly, and don't steal the spotlight too long - no one knows the plot, but no one wants to know it, we just want to keep playing 

i pretty much never refer to the web revival as a community when i talk about it and this is why— "community" makes it sound like there are certain requirements you must meet to be considered a "member", and in the case of the web revival there's no neat way to define what those requirements might be. and that's part of the appeal! i don't want to feel like everyone participating in this thing thinks the same way, uses the same tools, or has the exact same interests, because the pressure to fit in with everyone else is exactly why social media is boring and ugly i much prefer the word "movement", if i have to describe what the web revival is.

[The_Phets]

I'm really new this is like my first post, but I came here because I was so fascinated by all this old stuff from when I was growing up on the web.

Now I found this place by google searching the words 'Oekaki board' somebody had made a post here about having one in this day and age and I wanted to try and show my GF what they were and what they're like. I don't have a page yet but I'm interested in learning and picking up HTML again and making my own page. The last time I touched the stuff was like 2007 lol and it was a preset page someone had made that I made some mods to.

I think I might be the anomaly here and finding this place by chance and not word of mouth as that what alot of y'all are saying or you found neocities. 

[cyberwaffel.wrl (dizzy)]

⚑ Moderators Note ⚑

This thread has been merged with an existing topic!

Ive been kinda worried about this since I've been seeing this movement get slower recently, and Im worried that people will stop making their own websites and go back to using youtube. I dont know why, but its near impossible to get people to move off of the old sites. Ive seen some positive development with Mastodon since people have noticed caveats with Bluesky and its also got good communities. But when it comes to bringing back things like IRC, smaller websites, tildes, BBS, and expanding usage of the aforementioned mastodon and other activitypub apps, Im sorta worried that us alternatives could be halting to a standstill and let our websites die off, making the whole "big tech" web issue worse. I dont know exactly where to get news or anything about this topic, so Im sorta clueless about how we're doing right now. The whole "age restriction" thing was like the smoking gun or Cuban missile crisis for the old web, but as far as I can tell, it kinda just stopped. I mean, Glomble got pretty popular, but now its back to being little used again and has stopped getting uploads 4 days ago for some reason, and thats a shame because I was really hoping for Youtube to get its butt kicked for once. Some websites like SundaySites have been inactive since last year.

I really think we need to stop waiting for a reason to move to the old web, and get people to move here on their own. And we need to up the pressure too. We need ways to circulate people to the more obscure corners of the net, and we should do that by telling people about these sites in the first place. I think we should also do more public info campaigns in places like the US South, Africa, and India. These places could really benefit from things like open source software and open web ideals. And we should also stop appeasing those who still use Discord and Youtube. If we force them to try out our sites and apps, then theyll start using them more through contact, and their friends will use them too, and so on and so forth.

How do yall think we should help rejuvenate our cause? Or is there anything you know that is helping spread the word about us?

[fairyrune]

i think with niche communities like this one, the population increase/decrease seems greater than it would be with a larger community. if you see 1000 people drop a hobby in a community of 3000, then that's massive; in a community of 3 billion, however, it's a drop in the ocean. and getting news about it is kind of the inverse of what the movement achieves, in some ways... but there might be newsletters out there.

i agree though, education should be a massive focus! "web literacy" has decreased massively over the last decade. with many of us dropping social media as a part of that movement, there's a bit of a conundrum... for the remainder who still use it, i do think it can be a valuable tool to spread word of what the movement is. alternatives? library meetups are a fantastic idea to help educate and demonstrate in one place, as many libraries have pcs available to the public. i'm also thinking about making posters and stickers to be printed for free by anyone, but that might take a while. i am a bit slow about these things. 

i found out about html.energy's html day from neocities a bit ago, actually... it looks like tons of fun and a brilliant way to spread the message. but unfortunately, that's all i've got for now! so i would love to hear about other events and such that people know of.

these days i also think people don't really know what websites are capable of. i follow a couple websites because they're super inspiring to me, so i think having good examples to point people to when they show interest is super important! i've only become more and more interested in the movement after browsing webrings and neighbourhoods and places like melonland and seeing the amazing things people make. (though, some people might be daunted by trying to make that themselves; that's also where education comes in, i suppose. you can make amazing things even with just html and css!) hope that isn't too rambly. but i do have a lot of hope for the future of the movement, despite its population waxing and waning.

[Blue]

And we need to up the pressure too.

And we should also stop appeasing those who still use Discord and Youtube. If we force them to try out our sites and apps, then they'll start using them more through contact, and their friends will use them too, and so on and so forth.

This will just do the complete opposite though. Forcing people for whatever reason or putting them down will just make them not do the said thing. I know that very well, because that's how humans are.

Realistically, we will never have people completely move towards old web because that's just how things are. Some people might try it out and see it's not for them and leave, some will stay, some will be there from time to time, and some might just drop most internet things in general if it doesn't do well for them in all online places. The most you can do (which I do think is good mind you!) is tell people what indie/small web is like, how it works, why it is fun to be there instead of other places and that's about it. Forcing will just make them not come and hate people who are like that.

Unless the entirety of modern popular web somehow collapses, we will not see people move towards this side of the internet, and that's okay. It isn't for everyone and really, most people do not care about the indie web and do not like it. You can't make people like something they know they won't enjoy.

[caracalled]

Ive been kinda worried about this since I've been seeing this movement get slower recently, and Im worried that people will stop making their own websites and go back to using youtube.

I might not be representative, but I moved off all/most of my social media and that necessarily meant also finding other, offline things to do. I read a lot more now, I learn languages and coding, among other offline hobbies. I still check in here every once in a while, and I read all the posts that get made here, but a place like this is bound to be slower-paced by the nature of it not being designed to experience rapid commercial growth or keep its users glued to the screen.
Unlike you, I've been seeing more people get into making their own websites lately, and the activity of around 50 posts a day on Melonland has stayed very consistent. So maybe it's a thing of different environments?

This will just do the complete opposite though. Forcing people for whatever reason or putting them down will just make them not do the said thing. I know that very well, because that's how humans are.

Realistically, we will never have people completely move towards old web because that's just how things are. Some people might try it out and see it's not for them and leave, some will stay, some will be there from time to time, and some might just drop most internet things in general if it doesn't do well for them in all online places. The most you can do (which I do think is good mind you!) is tell people what indie/small web is like, how it works, why it is fun to be there instead of other places and that's about it. Forcing will just make them not come and hate people who are like that.

Unless the entirety of modern popular web somehow collapses, we will not see people move towards this side of the internet, and that's okay. It isn't for everyone and really, most people do not care about the indie web and do not like it. You can't make people like something they know they won't enjoy.

I agree with this, and I think wanting the indie web to be a mass phenomenon is neither realistic nor something I necessarily even want. I also agree that using pressure and bad faith to move people here is not a great idea and will lead to the opposite of what you want - people don't like being in spaces that make them feel bad, and they can arrive at wanting to drop these services for themselves and don't have to be forced to (which i think is in line with how the indie web sees the user - as an autonomous actor who can make their own decisions and is allowed to mess around and see what works for them)

[Corrupted Unicorn]

I don't know, I don't think this is a "us vs them" kind of thing, even if sometimes you can be led to believe that.

We're not a ragtag bunch of charismatic misfits fighting against Big Corporation, or at least that's not quite the way I see it anymore.

There's people who have made their virtual home on social media, for better or for worse. It's a case-by-case basis, but I understand I can't quite demand my favourite Youtubers/streamers to pack things up and move to a small video/streaming indie service of choice, and take their fanbase along with them  But I'd love to see that happen 

I do appreciate the indie web as a place for people who don't do well in social media. It's kinda the online equivalent of the nerd club where you can gush about your interests without fear you'll get awkward looks. Everytime I'm on social media I feel I need to "behave" in a certain way to be noticed/appreciated by others, but here I can just do my thing