I love the internet sometimes. You do one click and a whole universe opens. When I was recently watching some Youtube videos, I stumbled upon this video: The Indie internet: Why it matters, how to join it and sharing my own indie website. It describes the small web, the kind of websites that were much more common before big tech and social networks took over the internet. Back then, there were no big platforms and people made their own little websites, their own little corners in the internet. Back then, tech was playful, fun, expressive and the internet was an outlet of creativity. I did not grow up early enough to enjoy this state in its fullest, but remembering being online in my childhood days, things were more colorful, playful and random in the best way possible back then.

A soulless web

Capitalism is really good at delivering great things to consumers, ever more things to watch, buy, eat and use. But as a side effect of this, it sucks the soul out of things, until they are totally hollow inside. The nice little shop around your corner that was run by aunt Emma? It is a 7-Eleven now. The mailman or mailwoman that knew people in the neighborhood? Now overworked and ever-changing cheap labour that is too stressed to build any relationship with the places it serves. The buzzling town center with fresh produce sold on markets by local farmers? Now struggling to stay alive with the competition of international organizations.

Like capitalism sucks out the soul of things in the real world, so it does in the digital world. The internet used to be even more vibrant and colorful 10 to 15 years ago. Reddit used to have wildly different designs in each subreddit, now they are almost the same. Personal websites do not really exist anymore, now they are Instagram profiles, all looking alike. Niche communities popped up all across the internet and created their own forums and bulletin boards, now they are mostly constrained to big tech social media, like Facebook, Discord and Reddit. Even though the internet was created open, democratic and equal, capitalism came in and managed to turn it commercial, efficient and streamlined. Human behaviour is measured, sold and manipulated, information put behind paywalls, shareholder value put over human value.

They do still exist

I was aware that there are still some people resisting the main stream and having their little corners of the web. But I thought these people were getting less, and they were not really connected. Was I wrong! When watching the video I mentioned above, I came to the realization, that the small web is not only still alive, it is doing well! And it seems like more and more people are fed up with the developments of big tech and they return to the old days of the internet. I also realized that with building this website, I am - in a way - also participating in the small web :) How nice!

As a first point of entry after watching the video, I went to 32bit.cafe. This seems to be a great resource on how to get started and build your own little website in the small web. Through clicking around, I stumbled upon Neocities. This is a place where many host their page and a great place to find many cool websites to browse through.

The first page I clicked on was stupied. Exploring her page was just cute. Especially the listography was wonderful, I had to smile and lough a couple times going through this. There was something so refreshing and interesting about her page. It is such a unfiltered raw look into someones mind, I cannot help it but just find it mesmerizing. The disney watchlist with checkboxes, the 100 questions to an artist, the “Neat Sounding Words” list. It is all just SO cute.

I am not sure if this person would be able to express herself so vividly and fully on a social media platform. I am sure it is possible, but there is just so much more friction and headwind. The way how these big platforms are designed, for one thing, constrain your creativity heavily through what is allowed. How creative can you get with one Instagram profile? But secondly and more severely, it’s design shoves you content from others down your throat at every corner. Advertisement to distract you, perfect influencer content to make you jealous, AI slob to fry you brain. It is about time to free ourselves from this!

Clicking through some small web pages, I have the feeling it is like everyone is taking care of their garden. Everyone is tinkering around, watering their digital plants in their digital garden and doing what they love. And every now and then, they go over to visit each other and leave a little kind comment in the guestbook. It is a much more peaceful area of the internet, and I like it.

Speaking of comments and compliments, check out stupied’s guestbook. It is super cute! Random strangers from across the world leave little messages of appreciation and she answers to almost all of them. This reminds me of the old times, where most webistes had such guest books to leave messages for another. These websites from the small web are actually quite good in connecting themselves. Scrolling around these pages, it seems like it is a custom to link to your favourite other small websites with outlink collections and button walls like those:

The friendly neighborhood of the web

It did something to me, discovering this part of the web. It is inspiring to see this level of human expression. And how friendly and peaceful it is. Each of the links above probably has many hours of things to read, look, play and scroll through. Just the desktop of Strawberry alone! I am honestly considering to join the small web more consciously, because I think I just fell in love with it.