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09/07/2024: One Year of Making a Website and the Future (?)

(Warning: This blog mentions swearing, depression, politics, burnout and Neocities drama. Please take care before reading on.)

So today marks my one year anniversary since I created a Neocities account and this website! I’m surprised that I managed to stick around here for long, even though I’m not that sociable thanks to my crippling anxiety and my autism. I’m also surprised that my website has over 180,000 views and 142 followers, which is impressive for a person who’s only been here for a year! The reason why I think I have so many views is because of how many times that I fresh my pages to see the edits I made. And being in the numerous webrings helped as it has people go by on the webrings just to see mine page (although I accidently joined a TERF webring last year, which disgusted me and I quickly unlinked them once I found out about it…)!

When I first made this site, it was originally a secondary account for my Tumblr account in case the hellsite decided to shut down for good. Thankfully, that didn’t happen (yet…), but Tumblr sometimes makes questionable choices that make me have second thoughts on being there (which I mention in some of my blogs). Let just say looking at the #Neocities tag there, got inspired me into making my own website. It was thanks to that, now I can rely on Neocities to fall on in case there’s another mass migration from Tumblr.

The other reason I made this site is to get away from the corporations that owns and control all of social media that we use on a daily basic. I don’t like the fact they like to shove algorithm down our faces and that they know what we like and say from looking at our browser history. I also don’t like that social media can be depressing due to some of current events that are mention there. It’s because of all those things, it causes some (like me) to flee to smaller sites in order to get away from them, which then kick start the indie web movement.

By having my own website, I’m free from the algorithm and have the sense of privacy that I didn’t know what I need. Funny thing is that prior coming here, I never felt comfortable sharing my personal interests with the people I know and loved on the major social sites in fear of them making fun of me. It was because of that, I could never fit in on some of the bigger social media accounts (which I mention on another blog here) and it end up negativity affecting my mental health. At least by making this site, I can get control on what I want to post and publish (almost) anything I like and can do without showing my real face!

I can tell you that this website has come this far as it did as it went from this (which was based off what I learned from a computer design class in the 10th grade) to this (where I took what I learned from spending my time here and put it my current design)! But the work here is never done as I can think of some improvements that can make my site both look and work better. I even enjoy all the compliments of how my website looks! It’s supposed to be cute looking since pink is my favorite color and Hello Kitty is one of my main special interest since I was a kid. So of course, this would be my main theme of my website!

As for the people here, I liked that everyone is mostly kind and supporting, which made me feel comfortable. I liked the comments you gave me in my chat box and guestbook and while it looks like I don’t read them, I do. It’s just I’m anxious, timid person who can’t find words to say anything without making look like I’m offending you! I also liked looking at others’ website and seeing all the creativity and the energy that they put in their webpages. Some I would say done theirs’ better than mine! Especially when some of them are middle and high schoolers and that even some of them might have been doing this since they were kids!

I noticed that some of the users here are queer, autistic and furries, which makes sense since they’re more likely to be on the Internet as it allows them to be themselves. As an autistic, queer woman, this makes me feel comfortable as there are people like me, roaming the indie web scene. Then I realized that being on the Internet for this long, is the reason why majority of people who work in the tech field are queer, furry and autistic!

I also notice that there’s some who are left-leaning. That they hate their government for being queer, POC (people of color), disabled and that they don’t like being silenced for telling the truth. That they believe all corporations suck and that you should pirate everything, instead of buying their products. I actually wrote a blog about my history of pirating, since so many people here are so open about pirating and how proud they are doing it! However, I need to be careful and not spend too much time on those left-leaning sites (or any political sites) as I’ll end up depressed otherwise!

But then there are those who are the exact opposite of the left-leaning websites that I mention above. Some of you might’ve even stumble on one of them by accident. It’s the right-leaning websites. It’s where they like to spread hateful things about the minorities on their webpages. Where they say that we don’t belong here in society and we should be put in jail and so forth. You can that they’re a right-leaning site based on how their website looks. Other times, you don’t and instead, their website looks clean and cute. Just like everyone else here, which is the scary part as sometimes, I can’t tell if the person in question is a good person until it’s too late!

Thankfully (so far), none of them found my site, where I tend to talk left-leaning views on some my blogs. But I’m worried that they might soon and when they do, I don’t know how to defend myself before causing myself to have a meltdown.

Then there are assholes that cause nothing but problems around here, because they can. One of them is the ones who like to steal someone’s code and publish it on their website and said that “they made this”! It makes me sad to see some of the users I follow, go after someone else for stealing their code and when you go to said thief’s site, you see that they just plain copied EVERYTHING from their victims’ site! When I upgraded to Website 3.0 back in May, I mention in one of my blogs that this is my biggest fear moving on and that it might happen one day.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen yet. But just like with the racist users here, I don’t know what to do when that day come and fear that I might go overboard and say some hateful things to the code thief themselves!

Another group of assholes are the ones who like to get into fights with others. That’s because back in April, there was a website (whose purpose is to help people discover smaller sites) wanted to get their site on the top 8 on the front page. In order for them to do that, they had to unfollow EVERYONE, which made many angry! Then the site starts getting into fights with random users in their comments for their decision. It had gotten bad to the point that Kyle Drake (the founder and owner of Neocities) had to step in and BAN THEM for scamming the users instead! I have more information about this on one of my blogs, which both scared me and annoyed me on how the website in question, handled the situation.

Then two months later, there was another incident here where several people were making callout websites on a user, who were mass following everyone and was being annoying about it. That one I don’t know anything about as I was too busy hyperfocusing on the new season of Total Drama to care about some dumb Neocities drama. But I know that as the result of that, the Neorings website that the offending user ran vanished thanks to the fallout!

And I thought I can get away from all the dumb social media drama that no one wants to be part of! Sigh….

The last thing I don’t like about being here is there are good looking websites and then the user announce on their front page that they are leaving Neocities for whatever reasons. Or worst, they abandon it for no reasons! Then to make things worse, sometimes whenever I go click on the user’s website button on my Cool Links page, there’s a chance that they end up deleting their site without a warning! This makes me sad whenever that happens and I often wondered what happened to them that made them flee Neocities and/or stop updating it. I know there’s outside life to consider, which none of us have control of. Hopefully what ever happened to the former users, I hope they’re doing okay and everything is going be fine.

Now my biggest fear going forward is if I can continue maintaining this website as I might end up like the ones I mention on the top, who ditched their site for no reason! You see the empty links that I have on my Shrine, Interest and Misc. pages, where I want to something to them, but my mind won’t let me! The executive dysfunction and my burnout isn’t helping as I have been suffering from another burnout since July as I rather think my current special interest, Total Drama and the AUs (alternative universes), than work here! And I work so hard here, just for it to crash and burn! Also stressing about current events and not having a job thanks to the terrible job market, doesn’t help either!

At least I’ll try my best to stay here as long as I can. Maybe I’ll get through this burnout and I might fill in the missing pages for once. But what would happen if I don’t? I’m scared if I don’t and end up like the ones who fled their website in shame!

But despite my fears for the future of my website above, I’m still happy that I made the choice by coming here to Neocities and making my own site. I still get excited anytime I explore the sites here, which means my love of the small web hasn’t vanished yet. That being here, also helps me improve my coding skills that can be used in the future when I (eventually) get a job. Hopefully, I can continue to run my website despite my burnout and the anxiety of both current events and the enshittification that will eventually destroy the websites that we know and love.

Then if I do leave, hopefully my website will be a pretty one to look at, as it shows the labor of love that pour into my website. Maybe it’ll inspire someone to make their own and make it look better than mines! That will make me happy if that happens as this means my work won’t be wasted.