.^^. .^^75J::. J~:!!~!^~?:. .~:!!^~:?7~J^^!J~!: .:??!~~~~?Y77!7?J7???: .^~7~^^^::.:~:::^!^J!~!! ^^:^:!!^:^~~~~~^. .^~::~~~?. ^~:!PY!!:........:::^!J..~7~ ~!^.:?#Y!777~~!!77???JJ?~~?J5Y7~ .77!:7#Y77777777777777777?^J5Y7!! ^7^!^BP7777!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!~~BJ:~Y ~?!:~#J?7!!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^#7 ^J ~5~.7#7?7!:::::::::::::::::~#5:77 ^Y::~B~~!!:.:....:::::::::.5B!YJ^ ^^^^:5Y~!7................!#?!GJ: .^~.:P?!7...............!B57!!J. :^^..:YJ7...::........:?5Y5!: ..:..!J~:::.......:~??75: .~^:^~~~^^^^^!^^77!YJ ^~7!~^:::~~^!~7?!7J!^~ ..:^^:77:^~:^^?7^^. .~^J.^7?.^Y ...... Resolutions I'm not really fond of making new years' resolutions. I don't really make them, knowing that I'm setting myself up for disappointment if I end up dropping my resolution or losing a streak in my progress. Also, I don't personally believe in waiting for January 1 to start setting major changes to my life. Time is weird. It puts on less pressure to make perfect, instant changes to myself if I just decide to drop a bad habit or start a new one in, say, April 12 or November 5 or whatever. And so my new year's activities is usually to just hang around and not do anything productive with myself. However, this year on January 1, it just so happened that I ended up making a neocities page. It isn't really that much, it's just a place where I put stuff I like in, with maybe a second person role-play about the webpage actually being a strange hallway. (I may or may not evolve this into an actual story with plot, but who knows [: we'll see) I think it started with me looking for old webcore-style graphics to use for moodboards and my notion pages, since before neocities I kept my favorite links in a Notion page. I found a neocities page containing resources and graphics, and by going on a little rabbit hole I soon learned about neocities, the personal web, and the old web. At first I didn't really feel like making a neocities. Sure, as you can see on my profile, I started it sometime in 2021, but I only ever considered doing something with it this January. After all, I was Chronically on tumblr, and I could just as easily make pages through posts, right? In fact, that time it felt a lot easier to just make pages on tumblr since I was a little rusty with html. But then again, I thought, tumblr had a character limit and link limit, which to be fair was what was keeping me from making a collection of hundreds of my favorite stuff on tumblr to share. And so I made a neocities. I refreshed my mind a bit on html, and made a few simple pages to link to stuff I like. At first kept assuring myself that this isn't a resolution, it's okay if this flops and you lose interest. I made little sections for artists and music and videos and reading material, as a sort of categorized bookmarking page just so I can keep everything I liked on the internet in one bundle instead of having to make accounts on this site and that just to follow someones work. Time passed though, and I felt inspired from other sites to include the usual stuff you would see on personal pages, such as buttons, a guestbook, a chatbox, blinkies, the second person roleplay thing, and more. I also discovered and learned more CSS and HTML through this experience, as well as made friends met people and communities. Eventually I grew comfortable with this new, small-but-cozy space I built for myself. It was a space I had to myself, controlled and curated by me. It was a reflection of myself somewhat, and the best part about it was that I didn't have a character, photo or link limit per page. Next thing I knew it was almost the end of January, and I've actually grown to enjoy this personal space of mine, and I don't think I'll be abandoning it any soon. I guess in some way I did make a resolution for myself after all. (Re)discovering the Personal Web Aside from my reflections on resolutions and all that, I would also like to share things I've learned and started to believe in, coming from this experience: - I grew up in a time where web 2.0 was growing increasingly common, so rediscovering the old web is an entirely new experience for me, but it was worth discovering as I feel like I actually own my space without the pressures of updating frequently. - I've come to realize, through this, that I was used to seeing ads, pop-ups, Feed RecommendationsTM, and Search Engine-""optimized"" search results all the time, and the personal, old web was a huge difference from what I was used to seeing. It felt like I could suddenly breathe from being given so Much Information all the time. - Taking that break from So Much Content led me to seeing content creators more as people and not just content making machines. This led me to learning to take my time to appreciate art and stories in detail instead of consumption for a few seconds. I also started commenting on their works about what I noticed, what I liked, what I appreciate, etc. - Aside from that, it also got me to read things that are longer than a tweet or your standard social media post. Some principles of the old, personal web are that it's more text based. - Researching about how to make a website also got me into reading about web accessibility more, and while I can't say that I'm an expert at knowing or practicing web accessibility, I'm more aware of its importance now and I'm continuing to learn more about it! - I tried the good old fashioned web surfing methods, and it led to a bunch of interesting web discoveries that I otherwise would not have known because of Optimized Search Results - To be honest, this was probably the first time in years since I've made actual online friends on my own since, like, 2016. All previous experiences were either meeting online friends through an irl friend, school classmates I met in online class, and social media "mutuals" whom I've never really spoken to. - Lastly, I felt satisfied seeing my neocities website and thinking, "Whoa, I really made this, this really is my creation," and getting a couple of genuine comments from my now neocities friends (shoutout to the Cisn'ts!!!). Much more satisfied than posting something online with the same preformatted template and getting likes from users who probably took less than a minute to look. With that, I realize that I've found a passion for this small, more personal web. This is the web where your favorite webmaster talking about their interests is the best form of advertisement. Where there is no character limit, and there is so much more to discover. Where you are in control of your experience and how you define your experience. Where it's free, and more human. While I never really got to experience the old web fully during its peak, I had a taste of how it could be again, and I would like to help with that change. I know the internet of today isn't going to go anytime soon, but with my small efforts I hope to make my corner of the internet living and thriving, together with others who share the same sentiments as me.