Where do "web shrines" come from?

[John]

Sorry for the strange question; I'm new to the indi web and during the old web days I was mostly browsing German sites, so I'm not very knowledgeable about international internet culture and lingo.

Now, I'd like to create a sub-page on my website about one of my favourite computer games, Morrowind, where I talk about the game world, show off my fan art and so on. This would be a web shrine, right? It's just that calling it a shrine sounds really ... foreign, strange, a bit awkward to me.

I know I'm under no obligation to use that lingo, but I'm curious about its origins and might come around to it, if I know more. Is it a new indi web term or was the concept around in old web days? This article from the 90s talks about web shrines, but describes them as memorials for deceased loved ones, places of solemn remembrance—not a page where I show off some fandom I'm part of.

Or am I mistaken about the nature of modern web shrines and what I'm planning doesn't qualify at all?

[grubbyfox]

I dont know the actual history of shrines, and I dont remember it being called shrines either back in the early 00s. Maybe it was called shrines by the actual "community" but I didn't see that word around at least as a simple viewer of homepages.

But I guess it could have been called shrines or similar, and anecdotally what I thought/assumed/figured was the idea, was that you'd make a "shrine" for something either as an individual page, or you'd have one or more shrine-pages on your homepage.
And they were often sort of, works of art that you finished and left to be viewed as it was. So if it was a shrine to just like a tv series that ended, or a deceased pet, or like a boat or car or just something that you owned and loved etc. You'd make the shrine to your liking and then leave it as is. Obviously someone would re-do it from time to time, but afaik it wasn't supposed to be actively updated or worked on after being uploaded. Obviously there wasn't a rule against that, but at least that's what I picked up from just spotting these in the wild both back then and during the web revival era. It's a sort of place of rest/place of memory/place of thought/love etc so it kinda makes sense in my head at least that it was to be a finished piece of art, rather than how they'd update and work on other aspects of their website.

Idk if that many any sense. It was honestly rare that I came across "shrines" back then, but the ones I did, that was the vibe I was getting at least.

[lakes]

I'm not sure where the term "web shrine" comes from. I've seen it a lot, but I personally prefer the term "fanpages" or "fansites" because it feels more straightforward to me. If I just say "shrine" to someone who's not into indie web stuff or are new to it, they might be confused.

[John]

I think I'll probably go with 'Interests' as menu item and then have a couple of sub pages about different things I'm interested in.