Is the reaction the thing?

[Melooon]

I am thinking back to a discussion I had with someone many years ago about the Web Revival. In that discussion I said that the Web Revival could not exist without Google. Without Google there would be far less SEO and the trend of flat design may not have played out the way it did. Chances are it's not all on Google, and at the time I meant Google as an example of the wider corporate tech idea-space. However it does pose the question, did Google make the Web Revival?

Can you separate the cause from the reaction? If a stone falls in a pond, is the ripple created by the stone or the water? Or both, or neither?



As we observe the world, we are reactions to many things, and as such, we are to some-extent embodying those things, because without the things we react to, we could not be reacting.

One conclusion for me is that life and its values don't exist in actions or reactions, but in the unexpected side-effects that morph into new ideas on the borders between what we intended and what we did.

Perhaps thats all a little esoteric for people, but Im curious about your thoughts on actions and reactions 

[CosmicRot]

well you can't exactly have a revival of something that didn't either become weak, or blatantly die off.

I imagine without google and a bunch of other big tech stuff, we'd still be on our own little corners of the internet, exploring forums and creating little spaces, just like we did when myspace had tons of coding, when forums were the primary way to communicate, when most folks knew at least a tiiinnyy bit of coding [even if it was just how to copy and paste said code and change hex codes, haha.] So.. there'd be no need for a revival because it never would have went out of the mainstream.

I think instead it'd be similar to just there always having been nostalgia type places, that folks instead might yearn for or want to embody an aesthetic from an older time period, just like they do now.. and that might be more or less prevalent in a specific way.. otherwise yeah.

so yeah tldr; revivals and renewals are things that can only take place when there is something that is wounded, weak, forgotten, or dead... so, google helped kill off and bury something that we decided to revive. saying they "made" it is akin to saying we made stars. Sure something something things turn into space dust and stars sometimes use space dust as energy/mass/etc, but it takes a ton of chain reactions and people and feelings for something like this to become tangible.

[starbreaker]

However it does pose the question, did Google make the Web Revival?

I'm not convinced we should give Google all of the credit. I think parasocial media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, etc. played a role, too, at least to the extent that Web Revival and IndieWeb overlap.

[Slix]

I've actually thought about this a bit before, and my explanation for a lot of people why the web revival exists now is because of Google. But, not how you said, but because Google no longer clearly shows search results as well as it used to, so smaller websites can't flourish with it like they could during the late 2000s. So, because of that, people have had to take matters into their own hands and find ways to share sites without search engines picking them up like how it used to work. It feels more organic now, because Google has basically only prioritized SEO garbage and huge websites in recent years.

But to answer your question, I guess it's hard to say whether the reaction can be separated from the thing, since we don't know what the internet might look like had Google not had a stronghold on the internet for all these years.

[Semper]

I definitely think it is more than just google. Like Starbreaker said this includes social media platforms like twitter and facebook. I think also we need to include the loss of Geocities and growth of drag and drop site builders and CMSs, like Wordpress, which stuck many web designers in a specific aesthetic box. And I think most importantly the emergence of the iphone and touch screen smartphones that followed from it, that defined what a website should look like to be able to reach the greater number of people who own a phone over a computer.

I think also a lot of people who are part of the web revival have different reasons for joining and shaping it with their particular experiences. The newest crop of members seem to be gen z and alpha young adults and teens that have gotten fed up with social media as their only place to express themselves. As a millennial, though my exhaustion with social media played a part in me making my own website, it was my greater frustration with WYSIWYG and drag and drop website builders like Weebly incited me learn HTML and CSS so I could build a space that was actually creatively fulfilling on Neocities, and subsequently finding the web revival community.

In semi-related conclusion, the reaction cannot be separated from the thing because that's how things change and develop. The smartphone was a reaction to blackberries, WYSIWYG and drag and drop website builders were a reaction to more average people who did not know how to code looking to build their own sites (be it for events, non-profits, or small businesses), and social media was a reaction to the influx of people just using the internet in general, built off of the bedrock of forums and IRC.

I think it is important to look back at the reaction and think ahead to where you want to go from it. How will we use these ripples to push our boats forward with an actual destination in mind.

[Melooon]

Thank you for the interesting comments!

I think I'd like to pull this discussion back from the subject of Google a little though and get back to the idea of reactions and the internet. I used the Web Revival as an example of a big reaction to a big complex thing, but reactions come in many other forms too ~ there are reaction emotes, there are reaction videos on youtube, when people read a post on this forum, often they react to it in some way 

One of the things I don't like about the idea of a formalised reaction such as an emote, or how when someone asks you if you're well and you say "Im fine"; is that its non constructive to me. Its a reaction with an expected outcome, its unchanging - e.g. when you react to a post with a "like", your are essentially repeating a tiny version of that post in the form of a reaction, yet your "like" is a formal nothingness, is has no ability to morph into a "lick" or a "look" or a "lonk" (whatever that is) ~ if that makes sense.

Im interested in the creation of newness - I think want to know about the "lonk" not the "like" because getting back to my original question "is the reaction the thing" ~ my fear is that it is (and the posts here seem to support that), my fear is the the web revival alone, is google, its just mirror of it, as its antithesis.

Thats useful to know because it gives a potential guiding light, the search for the "lonk"! It explains why things that are quirky and odd are important; its not just that they are more human and fun, its that they offer something truly unexpected and new; a genuine escape into the unknown lands of "lonks"! 

[arcus]

However it does pose the question, did Google make the Web Revival?

Was this a rhetorical question as an example? Asking if we lived in a world of heavensites instead of hellsites, would the motivations behind making a website would be different? That the aesthetics and topics on personal sites would be different, and that there may not have been a Web Revival in the first place, because there would be no reason for one? That it only exists because of the causation? This was my first assumption.

Or is the question if it's possible for the Web Revival to deviate from its origins and become something new, or if it's stuck in the shadow of its origins? This is what I presume now, after reading your last post.

The question not being if it would exist without the cause, but if it could exist without it?

I think I'd like to pull this discussion back from the subject of Google a little though and get back to the idea of reactions and the internet. I used the Web Revival as an example of a big reaction to a big complex thing, but reactions come in many other forms too ~ there are reaction emotes, there are reaction videos on youtube, when people read a post on this forum, often they react to it in some way 

This is where things get confusing for me. Is the question if reactions such as likes could have alternatives that are transformative? Or are they just examples of forms a reaction could take online? Or did you want examples of transformative reactions online? Either way, reactions online can be transformative. A lot of discussions here are circular, but I don't think this forum, the Web Revival, or the Web itself have hit a wall yet. A few examples that come to mind:

The Gemini Protocol is transformative to Gopher. It's not hugely different, but it was developed with a specific goal in mind and it reached it. I see a lot more talk about Gemini on its own, than Gopher: There being a thread for Gemini and not one for Gopher on this forum is an example of this.

Mastodon is a sad example. It was always meant to be a Twitter clone, but in the early days it was rather unique. The etiquette was a stark contrast to Twitter: Most of the servers were small, and there was no concept of "reply guys" or "randos." Many servers were for a specific interest, and the local timeline was used more often than the home feed. If someone posted something publicly to the local feed, it was open for anyone to reply to. It was more social and tight-knit than it is today.

And for a more general example, the comments on Tegaki and Tegaki E are transformative of text replies. Instead of typing a comment, you handwrite or draw one.

[Melooon]

Was this a rhetorical question as an example? [] That it only exists because of the causation? []
Or is the question if it's possible for the Web Revival to deviate from its origins and become something new, or if it's stuck in the shadow of its origins? []
The question not being if it would exist without the cause, but if it could exist without it?

Yes to all here!

Im unsure what it means to be transformative, thats why Im discussing it! Obviously everything is derived from the world around us and nothing comes from nowhere, but that misses the fact that there is a difference between a pure reaction and creation becoming something new.

The questions are:

Is reacting to something a form of participating in it and/or repeating it?
If yes, then can we escape repetition? and should we? and if so how? and whats the difference?
If no, then why not? And what should be done here if anything?

[TheFrugalGamer]

I can't remember where I heard this first, but it was in relation to writing and creating art: first comes imitation, as a form of learning, and then later transformation and real creation. In fact, my urges to be creative have always begun by stemming from an urge to copy or create a tribute to something I emjoy. In my own way, it's a form of expressing love for something, and it's how I begin to learn. Over time, I begin to create my own things based on what I've gleaned, so I think the reaction is a beginning. It's not the thing itself, but it will lead to other things.

As for whether or not the Web Revival will ever become its "own thing," or something new entirely, I don't like thinking of that in terms of inevitabilities. Probably because I'm part of it, but I think it holds the potential to become something new. And because that's what I eventually want it to be, I choose to work towards that. I think it can escape repetition and the nostalgia trap because I choose to get it there. Be the change.

[Melooon]

I think it can escape repetition and the nostalgia trap because I choose to get it there. Be the change.

I think thats a great approach but I am curious what does this practically mean to you? What do you do to "be the change" - do you have a method or a thought process? Can it be applied to other sorts of projects?

If you were to be given the idea of a "like button" that you wanted to include on your site for some reason, how would you start to transform it from a copy to a creation?

I know for myself I do have certain things I do to trigger morphs, but Im realising that they are pretty chaotic and inconsistent; I forget to do them as much as I actually do them, so Im curious!

[TheFrugalGamer]

I thin

I think thats a great approach but I am curious what does this practically mean to you? What do you do to "be the change" - do you have a method or a thought process? Can it be applied to other sorts of projects?

If you were to be given the idea of a "like button" that you wanted to include on your site for some reason, how would you start to transform it from a copy to a creation?

I think it's just a thing I keep in mind when I'm approaching a new project. I'll stop myself if I feel my ideas are too based on something else, and take some time to brainstorm new directions to move in. My favorite way of doing this is just in plain notepad--I'll start with a sentence up top, and then make a list with each spitball on a new line. Usually after a while I'll find myself drawn to one in particular, but if not I like to do the comparison method: pick the first two, and decide which I like better between them. Throw out the loser, and then compare the winner to the next item. Repeat.

For your like button question, the first thing that came to my mind was to let each user customize their like button, like with an oekaki board but for small buttons. I'm sure there are other ideas, but that's the one I like because it encourages more engagement on the part of the user (which would drive some away, I'm sure), and also would look neat as they collect on the page.

I'd love to hear some of your methods! I can always use more brainstorming tools.