(i feel like less and less people use ethernet these days but i like alliteration, so, hunt me for sport i guess.)
it's been a lot of fun existing on the indie web and looking around at what people are doing and spending my time on browser games and browsing through peoples' art and writing instead. it's a lot more engaging and a lot more authentic - it's not just a pre-styled document identical to every other one on the site (cough, ao3...) - it's a presentation, an art piece, and a story all in one.
a website can be whipped out of thin air nowadays, but that still falls victim to the same problem - the same one that the indie web, at least in my view and my interaction, aims to detract from. we're limited by the choices and restrictions on social media and other sites, whether that be text limits, stylistic limits, or speech restrictions. depending on your web host, when you make a website, you can do just about anything you want - you're not beholden to the scrutinous and hypocritical standards of a website's moderation team.
you can create what you want, and present it how you want. possibly my favorite example of this is flesh dreams of the garden [NSFW], an excellently-crafted webserial. it's hard for me to encapsulate in words, but it's an excellent piece of writing that i do recommend. (layne, if you're reading this, you're awesome ^_^)
it's not just a show of someone's writing, nor a showcase, nor an advertisement. when you find someone's website - especially, and usually, with the things they've made - it's hand crafted. every piece was chosen and crafted for you to see it and experience it in a specific way. the same is true of my web manifesto - one of my strangest and most favorite pages is part four, which is intentionally designed with a strange, scattered order to the paragraphs - and even some issues with text overlapping, on certain screen sizes - only on large screens. and, in direct contrast, if you narrow your browser or view it on mobile - those problems aren't present. it renders in plain, in-line text. in a way, it's more accessible on mobile than on desktop.
that was a deliberate choice, and it's the kind of thing that i mean when i say everything is chosen and crafted. when you make a website, you make it exactly how you want it to look - to personify you, or the things you love. something that you find appealing, and perhaps hope others will, too.
it's not a blog template, or a plain icon and header. it's not a few customization opens or decorations. it's full, authentic autonomy and control - and it's beautiful. when you find someone's website, it's a lot harder to hate someone out of the gate when you know that they absolutely dedicated time and effort to making this happen, to make it real. it's not a random username on an endless chronological list - you're visiting someone else's space, stopping for tea, and listening in to hear about what they've been doing lately.
i've been really enjoying private messages on forums as well as sending e-mails for the same reason - i really do wish more people would e-mail me - to slow down, and converse, and think. it's not a fast-paced chat where everyone is quipping back and forth. you're taking the time to learn about someone, and reach out to them. you try to find common ground, and you show interest in the other things they're doing. you keep wanting to expand your horizons. there's more time and more space to think longer and say more - you can spend days or sometimes even weeks without responding or recieving a response and that's simply how life goes. if you want more conversation... well... befriend more people.
on-demand chat still has its place. people need immediate communication for any variety of reasons; some people do want a shallower, simpler way of interacting. i do still use irc, and it's my personal favorite place to "hang out" lately so to speak. i spend plenty of time trawling forums and websites and browser games, but i'll tab into libera.chat and get completely distracted in whatever nonsense - or total sense - people are engaging in at a given moment. it's a delight, and i've grown pretty fond of a few people in the chat - but it's nice in its own way, because people only know as much as you want them to.
you can be as open or as vague as you want to be. most of the people i speak to i do not have too much "identifying information" about and i do believe that's exactly the position they want to be in - and i don't fault them one bit. this will be particularly comedic to anyone who's been in libera and is reading this, but - i am not the most concerned or secure about my privacy. those are informed and deliberated choices that i make. but that's aside the point.
it's nice. i, at least, consider these people to be my friends, even if i do not know extensively about them. i enjoy the way they interact with me, and with others - it's entertaining, and amusing, and engaging, and authentic. sometimes people behave in flabbergasting ways. others are engaging and interesting to speak to. most, i find, are kind across the board. anyone is wont to go on the defensive if you tread 'in their territory' in whatever way that applies - saying something incorrect about a game, or about an operating system, or a machine - but by and large it's a wonderful place to be.
i've made a lot of friends - or at least, i hope i have - particularly in my journey across the melonland forum. it's a delightful place to be, and it's great to be around other people who are just as invested in creating their things as i am. it's helped drive me to keep expanding my site and keep doing more - in no uncertain terms, one SweetBasilSeedBomb was the deciding factor in me finally making a screenshots section, and purblepale nudged me into making the adopt a survivor page :D
not to mention how nice it is being in webrings and guilds! i love going on trips down the webrings that i'm in, or exploring other ones that i'm not in. so many people have so many amazing and interesting websites, whether delicately crafted aesthetically-pleasing or ground-up from-scratch rudimentary and janky. they're all charming in their own ways, and i'm especially happy to be the ringleader of the horde - it's been wonderful having people contact me to join the webring, and checking out their websites and getting to learn who they are, and usually - i hope - trying to reach out to them and start a conversation. i want to know the people in my ring, i want to know what they're doing and what they're up to, and it's not just because i'm the webring master - they're cool people doing cool things trying to share it with the world, and i want to keep pushing them forward.
that's what it feels like a lot of this is about - authenticity and genuine engagement. it's not about follower numbers or likes, it's about making your own space and hoping it draws in people who think you're worthwhile. you're not renting a room in an apartment complex that changes the rules every month and breaks in every month to rearrange your furniture - you're building this house, from the ground up, and you can do all the construction or renovation or decoration that you want, and it's not going to move. you're the only one with permission to move it - no having staff teams change UI or move headers and links around. everything will always be exactly where you left it, and in a way, anyone and everyone can come to visit.
on the flip side...
the other nice part of having your own website is the complete control you have over who gets to be there. you don't have to worry about blocking someone and having them circumvent it with a new account to keep going. if you know your tools, you can catch a visitor's ip and, in most cases, your website provider offers a way to block an ip and prevent them from ever visiting your website again - unless they're competent - and dedicated - enough to use the tools at their disposal to get past your barriers.
where's that beautiful oldweb[?] image?
having a website is wonderful. it's engaging and interesting to explore the internet and to learn about the tools at your disposal. in one way or another, i don't just want to be a webmaster - i want to be a tech wizard like some of the people that i hang around. someday, i want to understand the jargon they're quipping back and forth and the incomprehensible acronyms they mention. i want to move to linux, i want to use a raspberry pi, i want to get more technology and do more things.
this feels like the best first step. at least like this, i can gently probe into the possibilities with my website, and wrap my head around all of these attributes, and hopefully recognize some logical consistencies with other languages or commands. i want to be smarter than i am, i want to be better than i am, i want to be more than i am. the internet is the fast-lane of information, and it's the best way to achieve what i want - connection, information, and curiosity. my circle of comprehension is ever-expanding and i don't want that to stop. i want to do more, and i want to be more.