Max's Web Reflection Journal

2024-02-27

...but I want to feel like I'm in 1999!

When I found Neocities I had a real rush to create a website. Internally I was ON FIRE doing research, checking out all my old sites on internet archive, saving/archiving old writing and designs, looking at friends sites in the wayback machine, and talking to my old internet friends (some I'm still connected with on Instagram). I had that feeling you get before you make a website.

I had to cut down my requirements for this site because I knew it would take FOREVER to launch. In my research I wrote literally everything I used to do; I wanted to do it all again! I was not considering that it took years for me to get into all that stuff, and it'd take at least months to revisit it. What I ended up launching is very similar to my first personal site ever so I get big feelings of nostalgia. My first personal site had a pop-up similar to this one, lots of random info about me, not much interesting for the visitor (sorry), and was always unfinished.

I don't know how to get the energy back, but I think the answer is probably consistency. Even if I only touch this once or twice a month, just keep doing it. Eventually it'll evolve into what I want it to be.I gotta say though, I really miss that feeling that comes with actively keeping a website. I love feeling involved in my art, moving stuff around, improving things, tweaking bits and bops, fixing bugs... trying something new! That's an energy I haven't had in my life for WAY TOO LONG and I'm hoping I can encourage it out through this site. Fingers crossed.

2023-12-14

I'll be turning 40 in 2024. I have to admit, I've missed personal sites since I stopped keeping them in 2011. In retrospect it's fine -- I was out living my life, not spending much time on the computer. For a while I didn't even have the internet at home so keeping up a site would have been very difficult. Specifically, though, I remember having a weird feeling sometime between 2004-2009 where it seemed like the majority of my friends/connections online were pulling away quickly.

Is it because they were getting older and living their lives too? Is it because the iPhone came out during that time? Is it because everyone moved to Twitter, Facebook, or whatever other social media they found easier to update than a website?

I felt the absence of 100+ daily posts on the message boards I frequented. It was a strange loss that I didn't know how to describe at the time, but now in retrospect I understand the mass exodus from computers and personal site to smart phones and social media felt like I was losing one of my major social support systems. I grew up in the web community. I found out who I was by bouncing ideas off of other webmasters and (friendly) debating the state of the world. At risk of sounding ancient, you used to be able to post online and start a discussion, now people who disagree simply come in and insult you.

I don't expect to find the same community I had back then, only to capture a hint of that feeling I had 13-25 building sites and keeping myself out there. I also think this is a fantastic opportunity to share what piece of the old web I have contained.

2023-12-09

I'm making an early 2000-esque site!

I feel like I had no choice but to make a 2000-esque “early web” site once I found out Neocities existed and that there was a whole community of people doing this. Many of the ones I browsed dropped off after 2020, understandably -- those people probably had a lot of different stuff to focus on. Or they lost their drive/became depressed. Or their family didn’t wear masks in public and brought something home.

Oops, sorry to get morbid there -- though I’d like to note that as someone who has been making internet-based friends since 1997, it’s really quite an interesting feeling when one of them passes but their site is still around for years and years with blinking graphics and cute fonts. It’s like their energy is preserved online for you to remember and revisit whenever you want.

Anyway. Websites, to me, are like digital zines.

The nature of a printed zine is that you write it and send it out as-is: the content is static forever, and you update it by releasing another zine and referencing the first one. Webpages are different of course -- you can update them immediately, you can change your old words, you can reformat the presentation. In both cases, you’re using a creative platform to style text and/or art to express yourself and share your life experience with your community.

Websites are a different kind of zine that can be interactive, animate, and change without warning. Using my website as a “digital zine” was my approach when I first started making sites so that will be my approach to this site as well. I will also be continuing the journey through my Wayback archives at a more detailed level to capture trends and notes about my time spent online from 1997-2002.

I expect the purpose and my why will evolve over time.