The Importance of Keeping the Oldweb Alive
I read a manifesto on why Neocities is so popular when it comes to building an online profile stylised like a website reminiscent of mid-90s to mid-2000s web design on places like Angelfire, Tripod and Geocities. You can go read the manifesto on my links page, and it's by a person who was aound during the time of the "oldweb", as it's called. Reading this manifesto made me want to create my own, as a sort of essay on why the oldweb is so relevant as well as important in the time of glorified online profiles.
Erasure of Personalisation
In the modern world, the internet is more popular and important it ever has been. It's a vital part of all of our lives, and has even created careers for people like Instagram and TiTok influencers and Youtubers. The internet is a place for people to express themselves and share their lives and interests with the rest of the world, but with a limit. While self-expression is encouraged on the internet today, it's not in the same way as in the past. Take a look at any social media site: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok. Your own profile page, what does it look like? A monochrome page with your only customisation being a profile picture, a bio and maybe a banner. Watching Izzzyzzz's video called "The Rise and Fall of Deviantart", I noticed a detail which not only appeals to Deviantart, but with all social networking sites I mentioned. Before the dreaded Eclipse update, Deviantart users could decorate their profiles with different themes, or skins. Now it's just a black page with only the customisation of a profile photo and a banner. This is the same case with MySpace. Users could decorate and customise their MySpace pages to their liking. Now MySpace doesn't even exist anymore. This theme of removing personal customisation isn't just limited to social media, but applications like music players. WINAmp and Windows Media Player was a great example; you could download different skins online and even different visualisations, making your music listening experience more fun and personalised. Nowadays, with the use of Spotify or Youtube Music, it's a minimalistic player; the only colour being from the album art.
Why is Minimalisation Dangerous?
Minimalism in itself isn't really detrimental in any way; in fact it is only a design choice. However, it is dangerous in the context of web design. Take a look at any old Geocities site from the late 90s. Maximalism was an important part of web design in the 90s, with people adding as many insane backgrounds, images and graphics as they wanted. Minimalism takes away the creativity that web users had back in the day. It limits the way that current web users are able to express themselves. Making a website for yourself is tasking because you're building something from nothing at all, choosing colours and graphics as it suits you and what you like instead of being limited by a corporation who built an app and told you "okay, you can only have a profile picture, a banner and a bio, because we said so". A word I heard a lot and that was even used the manifesto that I read that describes users today is "samey", and a better word couldn't be used. With all internet profiles being samey nowadays, it blurs how users are supposed to represent themselves, making them seem like mindless content churners following what is required and/or expected of them.
Is This Why People Turn to Neocities to Build Websites?
I cannot give a correct answer for this because I don't know. From my perspective, it seems that with everything being labeled as an aesthetic today, "oldweb" is definitely one of them. This shows how people get attracted to wanting to make a Neocities site in the first place, for the "vibes". It shows how people have the urge to express themselves, sometimes without even knowing it. Another theory is that people saw a way to express themselves through building a website and were attracted to Neocities because it has themes of social networking interweaved with making a personal website where you get to learn about other people and make friends in that way.
Why Did I Make My Own Website?: My Experience
I have a fascination with life in the past, specifically the 1990s, without trying be a person who says they were "born in the wrong generation". I express my love for the 90s through the clothes that I wear, the music I listen to, the movies and TV series I watch and even pushing it to the technology I use such as my phone (I have a 1997 Nokia, but I still have my smartphone), media formats (CDs, DVDs and cassettes) and gaming consoles (PlayStation, Sega Dreamcast). Naturally because of this, I was attracted to old Geocities and Tripod websites, and after finding Neocities, I wanted to make my own because it felt authentic. Not long after, I realised that I loved making and updating my site because I loved geeking out about the stuff I loved most, and the only platform that did that for me before was Tumblr. When I started using Tumblr, I was actually shocked at the way I could customise it, because I was so used to sites like Instagram and Twitter. Looking back now, I only use Twitter and Instagram to keep up with celebrities and Youtubers that use the platform, and not to post about my life or anything. Making a Neocities site is the most personal thing I think I've ever done, and the funniest part is that barely anyone I know in real life knows I have a website.
Conclusion
Minimalism in the online world can pretty much be treated as a plague meant only to erase individualism and expression on the internet. Places like Neocities are our only hope for replacing the online world we used to have. I am in no way authorised to speak on what life was like on the internet in the 90s, because I was not alive during that time. Hell, my parents hadn't even met each other yet. But I know from anecdotal evidence that the internet was a much more personal and fun place than it is today. I miss the old graphics from old sites as well, so much that literally every gif you see on this page is from GifCities, which is also on my links page. That's another thing, people used to hype up other sites so much that they'd put them in a links page, sort of like mutuals nowadays, and I love that so much. The oldweb is necessary to keep alive, and not just for aesthetics, but for expression and individualism erased in the internet today.
