so, why did i make a website?
being born in the 2000s, i was not around for the early ages of the internet so many are nostolgic for, but i was part of the first generation that had no idea what growing up without the web was like.
my father, a programer, had gotten my first computer probabally when i was around 4. i became deeply fascinated with the way i could enter a digital world and explore everything within. i vividly remember those days, putting in my barbie as the island princess cd, or hopping onto the now defunct mmorpg pixie hollow. i knew these world were purely fiction, yet it felt like i was expereincing real life magic through them. this was the start of my love for the web and technology.
with the state of the world and my parents failing marriage, eventually the computer grew into something more for me. it wasnt just another toy, but rather my safe space, seperate from the coldness and harshness of the world. througout my younger years i found comfort in escaping to digital worlds and exploring all that the web had to offer me. looking in retrospect i shouldn't have been out in the wild west of the interwebs, but hey, it was the 2000s-2010s.
as time went on, so did the technology around us. soon a new fighter joined the ring of not only my family, friends and peers lives, but mine too: social media. i must have made my first ever facebook account somewhere around 8-10 years old with the help of my mom. it was shiny and new, and i remember being so excited. more and more platforms began to show up as well, and i learned how to join them too. i don't think anyone could've predicted the impact they would have on both our cuture and us as induviduals. afterall, how bad could it be?
the answer is pretty bad. as i matured and the digital world progressed, i found myself troubled by many things. it started with the web becoming more hostile. i had the firsthand experience of cyberbullying as a young tween. i watched as this slowly evolved into toxic internet culture, which them became the norm. more and more of my time become dominated by internet arguments, online cliques and a variety of upsetting content. i soon either became victim to or witnessed many awful things including hacking, doxxing, death threats, harassment and more. then came the amping up of capitalistic driven design of the internet, which had no intrest in protecting me from the harm it seemed to foster. websites became ad filled or put content behind paywalls, social media became dominated by algorithims and the neverending pressure to become an "influencer," privacy breaches and selling data become another fact of life, and overall it just seemed that the goal ceased to be anything other than make as much money as possible.
now sure, it wasn't all bad all the time. i've had a handful of great expriences because of social media and the modern internet. quite frankly though, the internet left me frustrated, anxious and depressed more times than it left me happy. deep down i really longed for somthing better. there had to be something better, right? i couldn't seem to come up with a solution, answer or alternative. i started to think there was none, and my only choices were to either suck it up or log off.
after a couple years of an on-and-off again relationship with the internet, i discovered the growing web revival/indie web movment (ironically though a tumblr post of all things). i already at this point had a shifting mindset when it came to the web, but it was finding this side of the web that truly changed my life and relationship with the internet forever. suddenly, i was bombarded in the best way possible with a world that i thought had been lost to time. it reminded of the magic i felt as a young kid when the internet was a lot kinder and less money driven. seeing that there was hundred upon hundreds of people dedicated to this little movment, i got hit with a realization i wish i had recognized sooner: there IS a better internet out there for all of us so long as we choose it. we're the ones in control.
today, i choose to be the change i want to see in the world, the world wide web included. i'm not only mantaining this website as part of the larger web revival movment and community, but everyday i'm making the concious choice to wrestle with the digital space i occupy. i tell this story to make on thing clear: if you've felt like theres something wrong with the modern websphere, i understand you, and as impossible as it may seem at times it dosent have to be this way.