Discovering The Yesterweb

January 08, 2022

This is sort of a sequel to my last blog post — what put me in that train of thought. I've recently stumbled upon a thing called the Yesterweb Webring, and I've taken quite a liking to it!

I wasn’t using the internet during the time period where webrings were relevant in the mainstream, so I will be shamelessly paraphrasing from Wikipedia: a webring is a group of websites that link to each other, usually belonging to a common theme. This was the main way to find new sites before search engines became the scourge of the web and got the power to decide who lives and who dies.

As the name suggests, the theme of this particular webring is to emulate the feeling of the old internet. Not in looks, but in morals. An internet made by people, for people, without large corporations draining every single bit of individuality off it and turning it into profitable “content”. I’ve recently stumbled across this article that talks about one of the mechanism that make today’s internet unbearable, give it a read if you’re interested in learning what Search Engine Optimization is.

It’s not nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, of course. It’s about looking back at the freedoms we used to have expanding on them, instead of just seeking to return to that state. There’s a lot of features of the current web that I wouldn’t let go of, like accessibility and privacy features. The retro aesthetics are charming, but they’re not the main point of the movement.

I don’t remember how I found the Yesterweb, but it made me want to start using Neocities again. And to actually learn HTML and CSS. I’ve gone through this tutorial already, and I’m eager to put those skills in practice! I’m planning on making a proper homepage from scratch (or mostly from scratch), but I’m not sure what to put on it. I’m going to keep these blog posts in this little Zonelets format since it’s pretty convenient, that much I’m sure of.

I’ve been creatively and emotionally drained for the past couple months, I have no projects ongoing and have been feeling really disconnected from my interests. I don’t want to make a shiny new webpage and then have nothing to put in it — and I need to know what’ll be on it so I can make an adequate layout anyways.

I have a couple project ideas, like making a page dedicated to a full playthrough of LSD Dream Emulator or obscure games I never got to finish when I originally played them as a child. I’m just waiting for a spark or something to appear so I can put everything together.

For now, I’ll keep making blog posts on this little corner of the internet. I have one or two more posts I want to make before doing anything to the layout. After that? Well, you’ll have to wait and see. Like I said in my last post, making up a time estimation usually causes me to not get anything done, so I’ll avoid doing that.

Who knows! You might go to my page in the near future and find out it’s been completely revamped. Or it’ll look the same and I’ll have dropped off the face of the Neocities. That’s the true old web experience.