The purpose of this website
You know it, I know it, the internet is bad now.
This isn’t a new or hot take, but I’ve been tired of settling for what it’s become. I mean, haven’t you? I can’t stand Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and I never really liked Twitter to begin with, long before Elon Musk bought it as a joke and renamed it something incredibly stupid and un-Googleable. Oh and on that note, Google has also gone to absolute shit in a shopping cart. TikTok, which I have a love/hate relationship with, helped me wake up to my own queerness, led me to my ADHD diagnosis, and even made me go viral, which ultimately led me to meeting my fiance. But it also destroyed my productivity, convinced me to buy useless products, and deteriorated my mental health.
The only exception for me right now is YouTube. I tried Nebula for a bit but there's just not enough content to make up for what YouTube has. I found it much less frustrating when I was paying for Premium, but that just feels like setting fire to money. Because of the way the YouTube algorithm works, I have to jump from one account to the other just to get DIFFERENT content. By complete accident, I ended up turning my main account into news, politics, and adrenaline-inducing doom. I only check it when I’m in a good headspace, and when I do, I still have to parse through bullshit every time I log on. My other account is my escapist content on movies or shows, tutorials on different art practices, or something uplifting. But even that account gets polluted with negative content slowly over time, and I have to regularly say “not interested” when it tries to slip in something fishy or disagreeable.
When I was a kid, I thought that the internet was MAGICAL. When I first learned to code at age 9 on Neopets, it opened up my imagination to what was possible on the web. I didn’t have to be just a passive user, I could be a world builder. That’s why I eventually went into graphic design. I saw the potential for what beauty and awe I could bring to online spaces. I made dozens of websites over the years. Portfolios, online businesses, blogs. Tried dozens of different web builders. I’ve always been a content creator. I prefer creating over consuming.
But getting people to check it out was increasingly hard. The platforms don’t want us to leave them, and what makes us stay is the emotionally triggering ragebait. They manipulate us into staying trapped in the doomscroll. It works. I have never been more anxious until the last several years as a result of my social media addiction. No one regulates this stuff. We are all just guinea pigs being psychologically experimented on. That's what marketing is, always has been. Capitalism thrives on convincing us we are less than, in need of products, in need of social connection through THEIR apps. So whatever meager personal post you put effort into will reach others very sparingly, unless of course, you pay them. And you do, so you can be seen. And that's ultimately the goal. Pay to play. It's impossible to ignore the adpocalypse, despite my constant attempts. Ad blockers, "not interested" buttons, reporting. It changes nothing. There's always a way around it, so long as you stay. Social media platforms have bloated themselves with repetitive ads, AI bots, and troll farms spreading hate and now, everyone is miserable and addicted. While people like Suckerberg and other tech billionaires build underground bunkers, build spaceships or buy private islands because they don't care about what the average user actually wants. I had to figure out a way to reclaim my web presence.
Truthfully, I'm not sure if anyone ever really cared about following me off to my personal website, or support my business ventures anyway. I don't even think I cared, because I was just following a formula. My heart wasn't really in it, not like the way it is now. I made all of those prior attempts to grow a following because I wanted better for myself, and I was seeing all of these young women just like me getting to live out a dream online of "making it." Over time, I actually was starting to see some marginal success. The bigger I grew, and the more responsibilities I took on, I developed a growing sense of dread. I had moments of virality. I grew a YouTube channel to 5500 subscribers. Comments, requests, follows, and a lower scale form of parasocial relationships started to form for my audience. It was a confusing mix of gratefulness and a sense of obligation to these strangers now. Even just the small taste of it was exhausting and unfulfilling. I knew I had quit before I got too big. I just didn't want what it was offering. It scared me. I knew what it was doing to some of my favourite creators. It was draining them of their spontaneity, their passion, and their light. It seemed like a trap that they were stuck in, feeding it more and more until there was nothing left to give away. I asked myself what it was that I actually wanted out of my career, and if I was going about it all wrong. Was it really fame that I wanted? Money? Or just a sense of purpose? I'll give you a hint.
It was purpose, obviously!
Realistically, I don't want to just disappear off the internet. I want an alternative. I want a digital home that reflects me and my individuality. Something meaningful, honest, playful and configurable. This was the version of internet I thought we'd all have by now. I really believed what I've managed to do with this site was the direction Facebook and Instagram would eventually become. Poor naive little Fanny.
I had heard whispers of a Geocities revival, aptly named Neocities. I found hundreds of amazing artist blog sites and became deeply inspired by this community. With Neocities, sorry for sounding like an ad here, you can have a free website with the freedom to play with fully customizable code. We can do so much more than we used to be able to over the last few decades, when websites weren't mobile friendly. Having tried dozens of site builders like Squarespace, Wordpress, WIX, Webflow, ReadyMag, Framer and other site builders, going back to my adolescent coding days has turned out to be the most fun way to do it.
With Neocities, I love the challenge of problem solving everything on my own. All the sites I'd tried charge a monthly subscription fee, most of which you have to pay in order to access the better features. Oftentimes, the learning curve was just too frustrating. I'd have to submit tickets to some random customer service rep to fix my problems for me. Sometimes, there just was no workaround. And I'd ragequit and go back to square one, looking for a new web builder that didn't charge an arm and a leg for a thumb and a toenail. After exploring dozens of Neocities sites, I was completely inspired. And no one was gatekeeping, just like how I remembered, back in the Neopets days. Everyone was just happy to help each other out, sharing copy and pasteable code, and making it easy for others to understand exactly what customizable code is capable of doing for them. With that said, I've compiled some resources in case you need them!
I understand that what I'm suggesting doesn't work for everyone, and that others will feel the need to stay on mainstream social media for now. I just hope that I can inspire some people to see that there's alternatives. Facebook and Instagram don't own your relationships, you do! I used to think it was absolutely insane that some people I know don't have Facebook, and never have. Slowly but surely, many of my friends and family have already started abandonning their profiles, or deactivating them entirely. I honestly which I had done it all sooner.
Thanks for reading! If you have questions or need help, feel free to email me and I am happy to assist!
Cheers!
Fanny
Last updated March 19, 2025.