How has the web revival community changed your relationship with the internet?

[milo]

I have been thrilled to discover this whole scene. For a long time I was lamenting the fact that the Internet got slowly taken over by corporate types and techy executives shareholder types with no creativity. All social media got distilled down to a minimalist layout and you get to pic a profile pic... yaaaaay.

It's been super refreshing to discover an Internet that actually gives people control of what they create or post.

[di]

I think my relationship with the internet is happier. I find more interesting and neat artistic websites. I feel more inspired by what I see, and I find a lot more stuff that actually makes me feel glad to be alive. Then when I find something I don't like, or I feel burnt out, I just log off and do something else. I don't feel "tethered" to any web revival things as I did with social media, and things don't feel as urgent on the small web.

[tetrisk]

The internet now feels a lot bigger, creative and alive than before. I knew it was possible to make your own website but thought that 1) the learning curve for web dev was way too steep, and 2) that I'd need money to do it (undergraduate lol). There was a time that I so badly yearned for a personal website and tried out Wix and Wordpress, but I just felt really restricted by their drag and drop tools, not to mention the presence of ads and promotional headers since I was using it for free. I was considering opening a Blogger site instead. Months later after giving up, and I accidentally find out about neocities.

Up until that point most of my internet usage was Youtube, Twitter and some Deviantart and Newgrounds. I quickly got in love with the Web Revival. Each website emanates so much personality and genuineness. Building something that is completely yours from the ground up, sharing what you love and care about in whatever way you want, with no algorithmic intervention and optional metrics. I particularly love reading people's About pages and their blogs.

I feel like I'm building a house next to a bunch of other people. If I get tired of working on mine I can always take a stroll and see what other people are making. It's fucking sweet

[Zombiethederg]

It really helped me realize the scale of the internet for me personally, as I was stuck in the slog that was the majority of the internet, being that of Twitter / Tumblr and the slop of "content" that it just constantly shoved into my mouth, but seeing the web revival community has made me realize that ive taken such an infinite, vast canvas for granted. I could have made my own little corner for YEARS, but instead I stuck to regular social media and rotted away without having any kind of fun.

I feel like I had this robbed from me in a sense, yknow? But now that ive discovered it im happier than ever :D

[SiLver]

I think the web revival community has really positively changed my outlook on the internet as a whole, before I was really getting slogged down in the social media loop, Constantly scrolling through my handful of apps, But now I pretty rarely touch those areas, I think this forum and the web revival community as a whole has really helped me stop some bad habits and it has been much better for my mental health and approach to the internet as a whole.

[Junebug]

The answer is that it hasn't. Personalities don't change over the decades, and in any given year the same kinds of people inhabit the web. Web technology is a mere means of expressing such personalities, and most old web technologies have existed with some amount of popularity all this time. Since the web is a means to an end to me, I find websites more desirable than social media, for reasons such as the way the medium forces people to express themselves, the longevity of the information that is expressed, and the aesthetics that are typically involved.

I'm actually pretty indifferent toward web revival as a movement since philosophically it's not particularly aligned with me, but since I have a taste for websites rather than people's Reddit posts or Twitter threads, I go where the sites can be found. More important to me is whether I can find people who have the same interests as me. I just use web revival forums and sites to direct me to those kinds of people, or when I'm looking for web building resources, or need help troubleshooting.

[JINSBEK]

it rly helped me to not take the internet for granted as much and actually appreciate it, it's like the online equivalent of sitting outside and appreciating the world and ppl around you despite everything

like. u just kinda stop and realize that despite how the mainstream net may be, the internet still makes it so that u can buy things overseas, make lifelong friends, and even make a videogame or webcomic in your own home and then just post it online, among many other things, and i think that in itself is cool as hell

I think this is a really cool metaphor. Appreciating the Web Revival community is like sitting outside and appreciating everything around you. It's funny, I've known about Neocities for a very long time (I think over a decade??? Wow, has it been that long?!), and I've used it for half that time to create my own personal websites, but. You know, as fun as that was, I still felt fairly isolated up until I joined the MelonLand forum. Maybe because I wasn't really interacting with other users and webmasters as much as back during the heyday of online forums being everywhere. My websites were largely for myself, and I didn't get anything more than a handful of interactions. Ironically, Neocities made me feel even more acutely how lonely the Internet had gotten for me since the demise of blogging ! Luckily for me, I was still a writer through-and-through (I'm not entirely convinced that writing isn't a pathological disease for me), but I missed the online bouncing back of ideas, experiences, and feelings.

Coming back into Neocities and finding this forum has been such a massive boon to my feelings of "online isolation". I don't feel that way anymore. I can tie a website to a "familiar face" on the forums, and even on status.cafe I feel like things are "more connected" as I see how people have customised their Status pages, and linked their websites, and so on. It's been so neat to see everyone share their email addresses, too. I wonder if or when I'll get an email from someone as a result, haha.

[Yoylecake420]

I think the web revival community has really positively changed my outlook on the internet as a whole, before I was really getting slogged down in the social media loop, Constantly scrolling through my handful of apps, But now I pretty rarely touch those areas, I think this forum and the web revival community as a whole has really helped me stop some bad habits and it has been much better for my mental health and approach to the internet as a whole.

Same, the web reivial made me realize that I was stuck on social media and that I was surrounded by nihilists/pessimists. Now I want to inform others about the web reivial.

[ValyceNegative]

First and foremost: I rediscovered the joy of creating for myself rather than for others.

I've luckily never been a "pathologic" trend chaser making art solely to achieve viral status, but back when I was on DA (and we're talking a while back!) I was just about to fall into the trap of "if this doesn't get this exact amount of favs, then it's not good enough". I'm really glad I snapped out of it and decided to take more than one step away from it all.
Granted, I still create art for others: it's my job! But what I do for others is for them only and caters to their interests based on what they bought. When I finally open the canvas for my stuff I know I can take all the time I need without the fear of becoming "irrilevant due to inactivity" and once done, it's posted on a place I love. And who cares if it's seen by one or a hundred people! What's most important is that I managed to get an idea out of my head. xD

Secondly, it has made me less shy and I'm much more keen to throw myself into discussing groups and chats. There's a lot more will to communicate in the web revival! Ironic how socials allow so easily for comments yet they are extremely scarce within art circles. No one leaves feedback under art on social media anymore; if you're lucky, at best, you get one-word comments. That's not how you appreciate stuff :/ So I'm happy to see discourse is flourishing here.

[Vidknight]

To keep it short my idea about the internet completely shifted. But to get into a bit more depth before like everyone else here I was primarily browsing the same 3-4 sites with most of my time being on Reddit and Youtube. The worse part was that I wasn't really enjoying myself there Yea there are some good youtube videos, but back then I didn't know how the algorithm worked so I couldn't manipulate it to show me stuff I actually wanted instead of endless e-drama , and reddit has some good stuff, but most of it is just  .

As such my idea of the internet was mostly it was just nothing more than a time sink filled with people trying to sell you things. But then I discovered Neocities about a 2 years ago and at first I thought it was the exact same as everything else and didn't think much about it until sometime last year where I saw it again on some fourm I was on and decided to look a bit more into it. It grabbed my attention I was mostly an observer who just clicked around on some sites. It was that moment where something inside my brain clicked with it. For the first time since I was 7-8 I was enjoying my time on the internet . Overtime I became more and more bored with main stream social media ever since I decided to click around on neocities. and than just a couple of months later I created my first site which went through 3-4 changes before I settled on an idea finally just a couple of months ago. (Truth be told I'm actually thinking about changing the frontpage again ). It was also thanks to the indie web where I learned about so many cool websites to share art or play some games . I'm honestly in a state where I love the internet right now and its thanks to the indie web.

[invader_gvim]

My time on the internet is based a lot more out of creating things than destroying them. There isn't a group of 'bad people' here for me to focus all of my attention on. Its also helped me come to realize that even if there -were- that hypothetical group, that I would be the jerk if I tried to start something. Its liberating and I feel like I have broken shackles of my own creation. I used to care a lot more about approval from people that I didn't know but now I care about making and sharing art. So it has made me less of a digital capitalist that looks to sell consumer goods.

I used to write stories that I thought would be popular on certain subreddits. More people read them than what's currently on my friend group's website but its much more rewarding to make art that only I want to make. If people like it, then it makes me really happy when they read it. There's no anxiety over whether my client is going to actually pay me the second half when I'm done.

I'm simply not trying to sell something anymore. I'm making art because art is KEWL.



The internet has truly gone from a place that I disliked and tried to avoid to somewhere that I adore and view as beneficial to my mind palace.

I used to join discord servers just because it was something to do but now the only discord server I go to at all is made up of people from neocities who like eachother's genre of website.

I do so so so so so much less arguing and it has made me very happy. 

[Azure1444]

discovering the web revival community made me feel like a child again discovering interesting websites and telling friends on skype about them, it sure feels like a breath of fresh air from any social media, it all feels so peaceful and Im loving spending my time reading about what people think here

[nobo]

I definitely had a honeymoon phase with the alternative web and I don't regret it. It's overall a good thing. But the idealism of it all kind of gets to me because I don't relate.  It's not different from the rest of the Internet in enough ways to give me the starry eyed optimism about it.

Unpopular opinion maybe but I think the Internet is the Internet. It's a vice that you have to moderate how you use or it will be bad for you.

[grave]

Since discovering this side of the web, I've been enjoying feeling more connected to it, allowing myself to create for my own sense of gratification, not mindlessly consuming 'content', and using the web as a place to have fun and connect with others! Not to say I don't enjoy funny stuff, I still watch tiktoks on bad days, and I have a couple favorite youtubers I watch to turn my brain off. But it's much more intentional now.

[Tehrinny]

I was literally trapped by social media, and getting nothing out of it.

I used to spend so much time online just creating, chatting, and making graphics. While not "productive", in terms of what society views as something worth doing, I was still doing something beyond endless scrolling.

We're in this rabbit hole of consuming and not creating. There has to be a healthy balance of give and take, and social media just isn't it.

The last few days I've been plugging away at my little personal site, digging through old files, and finding all of my old goodies that I've created over the years. I'm finding old doll sites that I used on wayback machine, creating new pixel art and all kinds of fun things. I've been off social media, and just having a grand old time getting inspired.

I'm trying to promote going this route, and I really want to see my friends create things and have fun with it again. For me, it's not really a revival or nostalgia. Rather it's how the internet SHOULD be and how it was designed. It should be free, not forced into little corporate structured cubicles. The current web of social media, all-consuming AI (and its slop), and billionare tech companies just isn't sustainable.

Meanwhile, if you make a little place on the web and maintain it, it's still there. (gestures to websites originally made in the mid 00's that are still online and functioning).