What introduced you to Neocities?

[TheNothingMonster]

I couldn't find a topic asking this question, so I decided to create one!

In case you are in the dark about what Neocities is, I suggest you read this. I would have explained it myself, though I reckoned the official info page would certainly be more accurate!

Here's my story with Neocities:

Back in 2020, I found a piece of fan art on DeviantArt which would catch my attention. I searched up the media it was referencing and I soon stumbled across the "Randal's Friends" (Ranfren) project by captainhowdie through the official website. If you have browsed Neocities for a while, you must have seen it somewhere.

Believe it or not, up until this point I had no interaction with static websites and this came as a total surprise! I used to use specific social media sites I liked the most and browsed the web for mainly art-related guides. In short, I was completely unaware of what I had stepped on.

As I engaged with the project, I gradually became a fan myself. I commented on captainhowdie's DeviantArt profile expressing my enthusiasm for the comics, including a side note asking how the website was made. I was lucky enough to receive a reply which went something along the lines of: «I used HTML and Neocities has some great tutorials for beginners». You can pretty much guess what happened afterwards.

This singular random comment had such an important impact on my life. Not only was the discovery of Neocities a fresh change, but also a provision for brand new skills that would help me to grow as an artist. I would have missed out on so many great things if it wasn't for all of this.

How were you introduced to Neocities? Did it made an impact on your experience with the web or life in any way?

[glitchlynx]

I found neocities through tumblr - specifically I was following a lot of webcore and weirdcore blogs, and I saw that a few of them had made websites on neocities for nostalgia / aesthetic. I decided to make my own, and I watched a few Khan Academy videos to learn basic html. For a while my site was just one page with a few pictures and a link to my own aesthetic tumblr blog. Eventually I found links to various webrings and fell down the rabbit hole, so to speak. I was already limiting my own social media use for mental health reasons, but realizing I could make a website to host my photography and other creative projects is really what convinced me to start deleting accounts. In otherwords, I came to neocities for the 'old web' aesthetic, and ended up sticking around for the 'old web' experience.  Discovering neocities definitely has had a positive impact on my relationship with the internet, and pushed me to learn a few new skills.

[wygolvillage]

My story is kind of boring, I had always been aware that Neocities existed since I had a few friends who had dabbled with it and stuff, and around the beginning of the year I saw a post circulating on Tumblr about making your own website that linked Neocities and some resources by people in the community, and I saw that post a few times (each time being like "well, coding a website is probably too hard for me...") before eventually just randomly deciding to check it out.

The funny part is that I don't even remember what made that time different and made me click on the tutorial links compared to all the previous times I saw the post... But it was a good decision

[Bingus_Baby]

Raining Starss!! The creator had some really good weirdcore playlists on YouTube that I listened to a lot. (Not just generic stuff, like actual good music.) I wanted to do HTML as a kid but never had a good chance to learn. I think I first found Neocities through petpetpet.neocities.org, but Raining Starss is what made me cave. I was sad to miss out on Geocities, so I did NOT want to miss this once in a lifetime chance!!! I only knew a few basic tags, but I got *marginally* over time!

[azure]

like others in this thread, i also saw a post circulating around on tumblr that described why you should build your own website + linked neocities in the process! after that, i lurked on neocities for a WHILE until i finally felt brave enough to jump in and start creating whatever i wanted.

[Neonriser]

The earliest Neocities site I visited was about Scientology, what the believe, and how to avoid their influence, back in around 2015. I had no idea what Neocities was, but in hindsight it was actually hosted on Neocities because it had its name in the URL.

Several years later, I was studying the history of the internet when I came across Geocities. Upon further research, I have stumbled upon Neocities. Or so I thought: I am struggling to remember how I stumbled upon Neocities. Perhaps it was motivated by my drive to make a website. Perhaps it was motivated by 2000's online nostalgia. Or perhaps it was a combination of the two, but it was clearly the reason why I made my own site in the first place, back in 2019.

Before making my own site, I recall going around on Neocities sites a lot several months earlier. The notable sites I remember going to were https://fauux.neocities.org/, https://districts.neocities.org, https://castlecyberskull.neocities.org/, https://10kb.neocities.org/, and last but not least, https://melonking.net/!

[choiyoona]

like others in this thread, i also saw a post circulating around on tumblr that described why you should build your own website + linked neocities in the process! after that, i lurked on neocities for a WHILE until i finally felt brave enough to jump in and start creating whatever i wanted.

This is the post I found, also! I still use tumblr and other social media but I'm happy to have my own website and general 'place' on the small web ^.^

[Guest]

I'm actually quite unsure where I first heard of neocities.
I know that a year ago or two while trying to reinvent myself stylistically, I was reminded of the "scene" aesthetic of the early 2000s, and through that stumbled on SpaceHey. I already had some websites until then, but I was unaware of the web revival movement.

I think through SpaceHey I found... yesterweb? Or maybe some other site, not sure; and through that, Neocities and Melonland.