So i wanted to write my own manifesto for the web, right? you're probably thinking, "what does this random kid on the internet hafta do with this participation in static web?" well, i guess it doesnt really matter my age, but i will say that im not sure i'll be able to feel the same nostalgia for old static pages akin to geocities. but thats alright.
its just, i grew up adopting the internet pretty early. i think i might have been messing around with the family mac to play games at a young age. i have some vague memories of playing disney flash games, but theyre not entirely clear.
i think when i really start remembering stuff i did on the internet was when i created facebook at what? 5? its kind of a weird thing to start off with at that age considering everything we know about facebook now, how facebook caused the death of widespread creativity on the net. it must've been around 2010 or 2011 when the web as older folk ive interacted with know it started completely changing, for better or for worse. i used to put up drawings on ms paint as my banner to show my mom while she'd go off on business trips, with hearts and cats and other crudely drawn scribbles. id play games like toontown online and club penguin and draw on nickelodeon free draw. even then though, as soon as i learned i could create art on the computer, i wanted to share it and use it practically everywhere.
that became clearer when years later i found out about deviantart, youtube and all of their decorative features at the time. more of an emphasis on deviantart though as i barely scraped the time youtube still had custom backgrounds on channels. now deviantart back then was chock full of pixel art, stamps, and even custom userboxes for each part of your account page. it was a remnant of a time where social media and webpages were fully customizable by users, and i wanted a taste of it. it just looked cool having backgrounds for all your art and stamps full of cities and stars instead of the dull grey green on the site. it was nice to look at and i miss that kind of customizability on the web.
i guess you could chock it down to "well yeah, i miss aesthetically varied sites on the web" and that could be the end of this manifesto, but i think that isnt everything
i spent a crap ton of time on social media as a younger kid and i think it overall affected me negatively. like every other person whos talked about quitting social media, it lowered my self esteem, constantly had me comparing my artwork and my body to other people's, made me do really stupid things for validation, and a lot of stuff that probably isnt good for a middle school kid. and i wish i spent time away from social media to reconnect with myself and figure out what i truly believe in. i don't think documenting my most vulnerable moments for big tech to exploit should be normal, but unfortunately ive seen a lot of people my age fall into that trap, and its painful to watch. so i wanted to take things into my own hands and create things i enjoy and express my love for the things i enjoy in ways id never be able to on social media. a way to create without falling into a sea of likes, subscribes, unclear rules and censorship, and unproductive discourse. sure, there are ways to circumvent the vices, but i dont think its enough if im going to keep using social media and perpetuating their business models and unregulated survelliance. hence, this website. i had to create a space for myself away from all the noise, and i implore other folks to do the same.
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