Starting a Website
10/01/24
At around 10 years old, my mom took me to something called "College for Kids," held at a local community college in Arlington, TX. I felt very excited to be there for some reason. Normally, going to school was only interesting as a place to see my friends, but in this case none of my friends were going to be there. I think it was just the fact that I was "going to college" that made me genuinely excited to learn.
I only remember two classes. One was a science class. The teacher handed out sheets with questions about what we wanted to learn, and I wrote in "How to create basic life forms." I had recently seen an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 where a mad scientist character created a sea monster and I thought, okay, obviously we can't do that in this class, but maybe she can teach me to make a tadpole or something and I can work my way up to a full blown Kraken.
The other class was an introduction to HTML. I absolutely loved that class! The teacher basically opened up my brain, found my child imagination, and dumped a tank of gasoline in there. Now the internet wasn't just a place where I could browse and look for things, I could make my own things! I felt like a boy genius.
In the years following, I didn't advance much in my web dev skills. I heard about CSS, but I never figured out how to use it. I made a handful of gaudy websites, full of bright tiling background images and clashing font colors. There wasn't much in the way of content, but I still had fun making them.
The internet was a place to explore. I often was allowed to browse the web unsupervised, and I used those opportunities to Google anything I was curious about. I'd search for video games I could download or play in the browser, and info on how to make them myself. I'd look for mazes and get inspiration for my own maze drawing. I'd read about my favorite bands. The websites at this time were simple, personal, and there was a sense that anyone could contribute.
The internet feels different now. It's not a bunch of people creating their own spaces, it's like 5 spaces owned by corporations trying to figure out how to manipulate you for the most profit possible. Any profile you make, any content you create in these spaces, only adds value and power to those corporations. You don't explore the internet anymore, you see what they want you to see. It's sad.
So I'm kicking it old school. I'm making my own website! And I'm doing it in hand-written HTML & CSS. I'm going to write about the things that interest me so I can share them with other internet explorers. I think it will be fun. I'm not the only one doing this, I was inspired by the small movement of folks doing the same thing under various names: The Small Web, The Personal Web, The Indie Web. I'm sure it won't replace the Corporate Web, but that's fine. It's just about sharing cool things :)