What inspired you to create a personal website?

[Darmodej]

we were learning html/css/js in school

[debleb]

a year or so back, my coding    class in my school did a little unit on HTML/CSS, it was really basic stuff but i enjoyed it a lot cuz i never knew it was really that simple to build a website! so i signed up for neocities which i’d heard of during 2020 from a friend and started going at it. i really liked how creative it let you be not just with what’s on the site but how it’s displayed and how much more individual and free you can be when you don’t have to worry about restrictions of some platform. i don’t know what will become of my site in the future but i can imagine it’ll be very different to how it is now.

[Cele]

Back in the day I did it because... that's just what we did in pre-social media internet. Nowadays, I started doing it again because I don't like social media, and making websites comes to me very naturally, considering I did it constantly between ages 6-14. My biggest challenge was honestly just finding a good host when I couldn't really use money, but gladly Neocities exists. 5 years later, I hope my website will be bigger with so much more stuff. It doesn't have to look different, imo. Just have more stuff. And I kind of hope it would be discovered by someone as a source of information for the things I write about.

[wygolvillage]

I made a personal website because I had been a long-time Tumblr user prior to that and noticed the site shifting more and more towards monetization and commodification of the community on the platform, and then I just so happened to cross paths with a post recommending Neocities as an alternative to the "mainstream web" and linked HTML resources and such, and I thought it sounded like a lot of fun. I had taken a coding and HTML class in high school but didn't remember very much of it, so I was mostly in the dark with regards to coding that kind of thing. So it was pretty rewarding to learn that kind of thing and realize how much I loved doing it. I fell in love with the idea of having my own little space like that.

I'm still on Tumblr, but distancing from it to an extent has generally made me happier. So I'd say it's worked out pretty well for me.

[shevek]

Oooh this is exciting! I love reading all of your replies.

What inspired you/made you want to create a personal website?

As a little background story, I have deleted lots of social media profiles since 2018. The only one now left is my Tumblr. I had made a Tumblr in 2010, was active for 8 years, deleted it, remade end of 2021 and kept it around because it was the most bearable media for me and I felt like it can come in useful to have at least one page to point to when people ask; after all, people perceive you as kind of a weirdo for not having an Insta/Tiktok/Twitter where I live.
But I was kind of uncomfortable with the typical social media aspects of it. I wanted a space where I could share my art, projects, moods etc for friends and kind strangers randomly stumbling upon it to see, but I didn't want to see people "liking" or "reblogging" it, and I also used XKit to hide my follower count. I didn't wanna have an activity page, and I really considered unfollowing everyone or filtering everyone to have an empty feed. I still wanted to follow them to keep track of them and not lose them through url changes, and also people can be a bit sensitive about unfollowing (especially when you are mutuals).. but I also didn't wanna have a feed anymore.

I didn't see a way to truly transform Tumblr into something that would fit my needs. But I also didn't wanna delete it for now, because it has a chat with my girlfriend, and a locked sideblog with a kind of cool and positive diary I wrote for a while.
Then I came across a neocities post on Tumblr (I think the exact same one wygolvillage saw haha) and was smitten with the concept and was browsing the popular pages as well as the activity page. And for the first time in a decade or so, I felt this joy again discovering something on the internet. The joy many of us had as children/young teenagers online, or when a social media platform was brand new and not so corporate and full of ads, and it was fun and genuine. I knew then that I had found what I was looking for; a way to gather my stuff and present it how I want, without constraints, without a feed (I know neocities technically has one, but you can't reblog anything there and it is uninteresting etc.), no option to reply or reblog and be subjected to harassment or their followers in this specific way other sites do, and the follower count there means much much less.
The Tumblr still technically exists, but I don't really log on anymore and don't reference it anymore anywhere, but it is a nice archive I now don't need anymore, and I guess one more thing people could discover neocities by, since I posted about my site design there.

What are some challenges you've faced in the process of creating and maintaining a site?

I think the browser and device compatibility is something very difficult for me. I thought many times that my sites look good and normal, but it only did for me. I'd send it to my girlfriend and it looked completely broken for her. Testing it on many devices and trying your best and still having to settle for the fact that it won't ever look 100% the same on each device is disappointing and annoying sometimes. You can only try and make it as compatible as your design ideas permit it and test it as much as you can, trying to fix it, but some sacrifices have to be made sometimes. I'm a little perfectionist and control freak about visuals, and it was a hard lesson to learn that I can't really control how other people see my site. Obscure browser, JavaScript or CSS disabled, gifs disabled, no apng support, font not loading.. stuff like that can completely break your design and there's nothing you can do about it. I've also more or less given up on custom fonts? I made it work on one of my pages, and that probably took me a week. I've had enough. Now I choose standard fonts so I can make sure it looks okay.

Imagine your site five years from now (even if you may or may not be running the same site five years down the line, or may have closed it out as a completed project)... What do you think it will look like, or what would you want it to look like?

I think it will grow somewhat like a tree.. with more and more branches and sub-branches. Getting into new hobbies that also need their own page on my site. The existing stuff will become a thicker branch, to stay with the metaphor, because more of it will be uploaded throughout the years. I'll one day have to sort some of my art by year, for example, because there are so many images on the page otherwise.

[SilkSkull]

Honestly it was coming on here and when I was browsing I saw that other people had websites and that kinda sparked the idea that people can make their own sites!??!?!?!?!?!?!? then I got really into it and made mine!

[Y2KStardust]

I used to be extremely into coding as a kid and briefly attempted it as a serious study that I *wanted* to turn into a job, but burnt out hard due to undiagnosed dyscalculia. So, when I found the yesterweb side of things, it inspired me to get back into coding as a nice little hobby endeavour ^.^ More fun than work, yknow?

At the moment, the challenges I'm facing are a lot of mini-issues that could probably be solved by doing more learning.. but lack of spoons to learn. Boo :(

[brisray]

I started because someone wanted to see pictures of my home city and there weren't any on the web. It was early 1999 and there were less than 3 million websites around - there are about 2 billion today. It took months to write and still managed to be ugly, but, the web was so new it got me an article in the local paper and an interview on local radio!

The challenges? I had no idea what I was doing, but then not many other people did either. A year after I started it I finally got myself a book, which helped a lot.

Five years from now? The site's been up for 24 years next month and I'm not planning on dying any time soon so it will be around for a while yet. There's lots more I want to put on it, so it's probably never going to get properly finished. It's had 3 redsigns so far, so it might get changed again, but it's hard to know what to do. It definitely not going to be a paralax design - sliding pages on top of fixed or semi-fixed images - because I detest those.

[bugholder's epiphany]

Alongside having a place for me to host my own writings and thoughts and the like, alongside expressing myself, It kinda came about out of a desire to share a project I've been wanting to do for a while but not being happy with a prior way I was attempting to do so (and cost me way too much money to do compared to far cheaper and more easier-to-control things.)

[Skykristal]

What inspired you/made you want to create a personal website?

I just wanted a website. I mean, I don't like to use social media to display my creations over and over and over again. it's pretty tedious and feels like a waste of time to me too. Joining all sorts of social platforms is... oof. repetitive? I started with wix and used It as my art gallery storage. I also did a couple more pages such as an about me, some OCs and uh.. a contact I think. But I always hated wix.. the builder may be simple to use and you do not need to code but it's lagging like crazy, the ad banner is taking up space and it overall feels incredibly heavy in a way. Neocities is a 10/10. or well, the fact that a free host exists. I write my code, not neocities haha.


What are some challenges you've faced in the process of creating and maintaining a site?

a couple of things. sometimes we all are stuck at some point. biggest? idk. organizing I guess. I am very organized but I always end up with a couple of things I would want to change. I, however, have absolutely no interest in changing all the URLs in my code to avoid broken images and links everywhere. Not worth the extra work. If I only had like 3 pages, no problem. but not with the amount of work and pages I have. bye-

consistency on pages. I only struggled a lot with that in the past tho.

trying to find that one symbol I typed on accident that causes the whole code to break.


Imagine your site five years from now (even if you may or may not be running the same site five years down the line, or may have closed it out as a completed project)... What do you think it will look like, or what would you want it to look like?

I have no clue. content-wise, not much will be different. I'm pretty sure about that. I love to draw, my OCs and other silly things I'm into. Not sure why I would want to start all over with what I put on there.
Layout and appearance.. probably too. probably a change or two. But this type of website style I did is something I always loved.

[Ninaiso]

Oh hecc yeah awesome topic!!

What inspired you/made you want to create a personal website?
So, I actually made two sites waaaaay back when zoomshare was a free host! It was super fun, but they were very basic, I was very young.  I had a lot of fun with it though! Sucks they never got archived. I ended up getting absorbed in early deviantart and tumblr, then social media kinda... Got worse. So, I ended up looking around for healthy communities, came across here and by proxy neocities! I was so excited!! I've yet to finish my site (I procrastinate, have more ideas, and end up wanting to finish most pages before pushing live and it's a whole thing lol) but I'm having such a great time designing it! I'm so inspired by the raw soul of these websites and being able to find and connect with people just like I used to back then. That sense of healthily and genuine community/connection just means so much to me!!

What are some challenges you've faced in the process of creating and maintaining a site?
Oh man, wrestling with the code to get it to do what I want is always a challenge haha! I also want to try to include accessibility and responsiveness, which is challenging to the style I'm going for. I also find that when I want to do something specific, if I'm not in a dedicated "indie web" community, finding help via search is difficult as my website is fun quirky artsy rather than "in line" with "modern design philosophies" or what have you.


Imagine your site five years from now (even if you may or may not be running the same site five years down the line, or may have closed it out as a completed project)... What do you think it will look like, or what would you want it to look like?
I want it to look like me! Nah but I mean that I want it to be reflective of whoever I've become in five years. I'm excited to see what that is!!

[ennui]

when i discovered the yesterweb movement and saw all these cool sites, it reminded me of when i made my own personal pages back when i was a kid. i made them on the old aol members thing, geocities, even angelfire and tripod. i love seeing all the old glittery, late 90s/early y2k stuff like the blinkies and buttons.  it's all so nostalgic for me that i decided i had to join in.

[lonelyjuly]

I discovered making personal websites through the Yesterweb, which I found through someone else's personal website via their Discord bio.
It gave me this sensational feeling of nostalgia, but not in a way of "Damn, I wish it was the old days of the internet," but more of a feeling of "Wow, I can still do this sort of thing and it has a community behind it?"
So I did some research and started delving into re-learning HTML and CSS.

[yungwake0]

What inspired you/made you want to create a personal website?

None of the social media websites really did it for me when it comes to customization. lots of ideas that I simply can't get across properly with just words and a changeable banner.

And in recent times, with most of it getting increasingly toxic, my website (and the web revival in general) serves as kind of a hidden oasis far away from all the drama and commercialism

What are some challenges you've faced in the process of creating and maintaining a site?

Javascript

but most of what I struggle with is the content of the pages themselves. I know what pages I want, and vaguely what I want on those pages, I just can't ever find the right words!

Also keeping the files organized is pretty rough.

Imagine your site five years from now (even if you may or may not be running the same site five years down the line, or may have closed it out as a completed project)... What do you think it will look like, or what would you want it to look like?

That honestly depends on what I'm doing five years from now. I'm not quite sure what that entails, but if all goes to plan the website will reflect it in some way. Life is an unpredictable journey, you never know where it'll take you, for all I know in five years I'll be a monk somewhere, barely even remembering my website exists but the general plan is to keep putting cool personal stuff on it.

[myrrhdoll]

One day I was browsing the "Old web" aesthetics wiki and was thinking "wow I wish I were born early enough to have experienced Geocities..." Then I found someone link Neocities in the comments! Having just finished my 9th grade HTML/CSS course, I realized I had the power in my hands...

It wuz awesome!! :33 Best thing I've ever done!!