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 

[lakes]

I use indie web and sometimes small web.
However I think there's some good ones like Internet Underground that I never heard before. :0
I also always liked the idea someone mentioned of dividing indie sites up into genres but never thought to give them names. It kinda fits with the idea of these sites being art & personal expression.

[Kallistero]

It's taken on a more appropriate life as the "dead internet theory" phrase has continued sinking into the general lexicon, making "web revival" into an unexpectedly precise term as an opposite. It wasn't until very late in 2023 when the "dead internet theory" phrase really started taking off (with its first mention on this forum being in 2024), and it turned the "web revival" term itself into a prophecy.

That aspect of the term isn't really replaceable. It's samsara, it's death becoming life, it's an assertion that decomposition becomes fertilizer becomes flowers, and it is still a prophecy 

[oro_junestar]

I actually like the term web revival. Even if we aren't bringing back all the content of the old web, we're actually bringing back the spirit of it! The principle of the old web was 'make whatever beautiful collage of text and media you want', and that's pretty much what we're doing! Plus, as Kallistero just pointed out, it pairs excellently with the term 'dead internet theory'!

Others I saw in this thread that I really like:
Wild Web - It's alliterative, just like World Wide Web!
Human Web - I agree with Daniele's reasoning for it. Plus, web design is one of the most raw and expressive art forms out there, and everyone's personal webpages are a great window into the nature of the human soul!
Net Positive - Great wordplay! I think it makes perfect sense, too; the fact that we're sick of social media inspired us to create our own beautiful pages, so in a way, the direction of the modern internet was a net positive in our own lives? if that makes sense

I'd suggest the name Webfuck, for those who are feeling real punk. It's a nice middle finger to social media corporations, plus some of the sites we webmasters (webfuckers?) create can get real fucky in all kinds of ways.

[Gakipper]

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.

+1 for the human versus machine thing ! I generally call it hand-made or home-made web, there's an "artisanal" twist to it I enjoy.

Going further than the human/machine thing, I do incorporate brands and capital in the "machine" team. Even if there's sometime (less and less often though) a real human web developper somewhere behing the brand site, it IS made by a brand through a human, for consumption purposes.

I feel like "hand-made" or "home-made" focus more on the process and the creativity than on the consumption and capitalistic outcomes. I like it.

It also makes me a little proud like YEA I handmade this website with my dirty little paws. I webcrafted every line of code and every <div> of it. Its imperfections make it perfect. I MADE this for me, and for other people to connect if they want to! I'm a whimsical and autonomous webcrafter and so are so many other people 

[ValyceNegative]

@Gakipper I second the choice of homemade web or handmade web as a contrast of both AI and big corpos! Even for the ones of us that have incorporated shops/services in their website, "homemade" helps better convey the feeling that it's just a person working on those crafts at a human pace and catering to a more intimate-sized crowd.

[Horsey Chobunso]

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.

This sold me on the term "web revival", which I was lukewarm on before. I feel like a lot of the modern internet, whether that's on algo-driven sites or on personal sites, is really heavily focused on labeling aesthetics and matching those rather than on actions and creation. Terms like punk web, smol web, indie web, etc will inherently become watered down the same way they have in music. We can look at the aesthetic chasing of the music industry in the 80s as an example. Punk has roots in a lot of action-first mutual aid groups, similar to folk revival before it, but the aesthetics became the defining factor as the genre grew, which lead to New Wave and Post-Punk being heavily structured around it's aesthetic. Of course, web design is inherently intertwined with aesthetics, its a visual medium.

I think there's a possibility that Web Revival becomes outdated the same way Folk Revival became outdated, but we seem to be a long way off from that. Maybe even something like Web Arts or Web Crafting will become the go-to terms in the future. They get the point across in terms of "we are making something here", but it doesn't imply that the web outside of it is dead.

[puf]

i personally have a soft spot for "small web", but i also like to call it the "homemade web"

"homemade" makes me think of something imperfect and lovingly put together by a real person, simply because they wanted it to exist.
a page with crooked little decorations, unnecessary buttons, diary entries, collections, guestbooks, strange experiments ..
something made to be lived in, rather than optimized.

i think the homemade web overlaps with the web revival, but isn't quite the same thing.
to me, it includes all the websites made "at home" from scratch, or with the help of little tools made by fellow webmasters,
rather than built around ready-made platforms belonging to big corporations.

while web revival describes the movement of people returning to this way of making and inhabiting the internet,
homemade web could describe the larger world they are returning to.
it would include the new sites being built today, but also the old ones that never disappeared in the first place ( they still exist !! )

we got tired of living in enormous digital shopping centers, so we started building little houses in the empty lots ..
meanwhile, some little houses have been standing there all along. and now we're visiting each other

whatever we call it, that is the story i feel happiest being part of.

[lakes]

i might start using "homemade web"
it sounds so cozy