Welcome to my Neocities blog!

Since this is my first post here, I figured that a good first thing to talk about would probably be why I moved to Neocities in the first place. Technically, I’ve had this account for a few years, but I barely used it for anything. It wasn’t until a month or so ago that I came back and started taking it more seriously.

There were two main reasons I was inspired to come back and try using the site more:

1. I’m tired of other sites corporate bullshit.

I was originally going to write about old vs new internet and now capitalism ruins everything, but many people who are more knowledgeable and eloquent than me have already written better articles than I ever could about that. Plus, most people who would even bother reading a neocities blog probably already share my feelings on this, so I’d just be preaching to the choir.

TL;DR: Most social media sites suck nowadays because the modern internet as a whole is flawed. Twitter going up in flames is just a microcosm of those bigger, nuanced, internet-wide issues. Self-run sites don’t have most of those problems. Capitalism bad, socialism good, blah blah blah.

2. I’m hoping it’ll be something of a fresh start for me

Without going into too much detail, my mental health hasn’t been great lately. I don’t think social media is to blame for that, but I do this think it can still affect ones self-image and has put me in something of a rut. There are just certain expectations on social media sites that I don’t think is as prevalent on neocities. I’m hoping that by making a personal site, I can learn more about myself and what really matters to me. I also hope that writing about myself and my experiences can help me become more comfortable with being vulnerable, as that’s something I’ve been struggling with lately. Maybe that’s all a lot to ask from a website host, but I don’t know.

Lately, I’ve just been reflecting a lot on technology, the internet, how I interact with it, etc etc. I have a lot of thoughts, but basically, the internet is a tool that can be used for a lot of things and I’ve been using it the same way for a very long time. It could be nice to have a change of pace.

So far, I’ve been enjoying my time on Neocities. I’ve learned a lot about HTML and CSS. Implementing new features has given me something to plan and look forward to. As frustrating as it is to run into technical problems, it’s also very satisfying to find the solution to them. It especially boosts my confidence when I’m able to figure it out using things I already know, and don’t have to google it. I’m not good at a lot of things. Even if I’m not a master coder, being halfway decent at it still makes me feel like a more competent person. The few pages I’ve completed and publicly listed so far have brought me a sense of purpose for some reason, even though they’re pretty short and I know that almost no one will see them.

I don’t know, maybe I’ll get burnt out in a week and abandon this site like I do many of my other random fixations. But for what it’s worth, I’m enjoying this so far. I haven’t had any major depressive episodes since I started working on my site. I just hope I’m able to keep this up for a while.