7/18/24: Little Things That Confuse me About Fellow Neocities Users

Not a personal attack on anyone, just my thoughts. Before you start reading, I am aware this discourse is sparse and somewhat ridiculous, but I wanted to give my opinions anyway.

1. Waiting until a site is “finished” to put content on it. My site will neverrrr be done. Ever. It’s constantly under construction, and combined with the fact that I don’t know how to code well, I will update it a million times. If I wanted to wait until the site was done, I would code obsessively for a week and never touch it again. If you’re a bit more solid on web design maybe you can do this, but for everyone else, put your damn work up and worry about the code later. Who cares if it’s under construction? Hell, I’ve put up pages then deleted them, put links in that don’t go anywhere, and have main pages for just one piece of content. Sue me. This is a hobby for most people, and there’s no need to be a perfectionist right off the bat.
2. The hatred for those who templates. I will admit, when I first started, I was on my high horse because I was coding everything (and taking forever to figure it out). I felt a sort of pride that I was doing it fully myself compared people who used Sadgrl’s template. Crucify me. Because I am so much more mature and wiser a year and a half later, I really don’t care. While I was excited, at first, to start learning code, eventually I decided I just want to make a nice site to put my work on, so I'll learn enough to do that. I could see why some people feel the need to look down on those who use templates. Sure, SOME of you want to go hard and code everything out and that’s fine, but you are not better because you’re doing everything yourself. Neocities is not just a place for people who want to code a cool site. That’s like…the whole point. You can do whatever you want. It is admirable, sure, but there’s no need to hate on people using templates. I know my brain doesn’t mesh well with learning code, even something simple like HTML, and there are probably other people that way too.
3. Despising “cute” blogs. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You know them. You’ve seen them. They’re everywhere. They’re probably “coquette” or have cute little animal graphics with gingham backgrounds. I’ve seen some arguments that these blogs are just run by vapid teenage girls, and nothing is interesting about them. Well, I am also a teenage girl, and I have had my interests shit on by men or people older than me because they were “feminine.” Do you actually look at the blogs? Or just decide they’re not worth your time? Some of those sites are fully hand-coded and updated with their creations all the time. Am I jealous some 14-year-old girls can make better sites than I can and make them cute? Yes.
4. This ties into my next point, which is the idea that all blogs need a purpose, and if they don't have one, they shouldn't take up space on the internet. It’s the exact opposite of the opinion that art should just be straightforward and have no depth. Side note: as someone who writes and loves literature, that “the curtains are just blue” Tumblr post haunts me every day. Anyway, let me ask you this: What is the point of a free internet, kept away from the clutches of corporations, if you think specific people shouldn’t have space in it? Quickly. This does not extend to illegal activities. Do not even try me. It’s one thing to find a blog boring, but it’s another to claim it shouldn’t exist at all. I don’t like every book or TV show I consume. Sometimes they’re boring or I can’t sense a purpose in them, but I don’t say “Hmmmm, this is boring and has no point. It shouldn’t exist!” There is a fine line between art must have meaning, and art is stupid and has no meaning. Things are allowed not to have meaning and to be fun. People can make pointless boring blogs, and I don’t care. Why do you? Why do you think you’re worthy and interesting enough to have a blog? I think the pursuit of creating art even if it is bad or has no point is a noble one.
5. On a lighter note, people who don’t check out other websites. There are so many cool things on Neocities, so why wouldn’t you want to explore them? As much as I have a distaste for social media and some of its features, being able to easily find new interesting sites is something I like about Neocities. There’s still limited contact between blogs, consumption and creation of content is slower (compared to TikTok and such), and I check on what the people I follow are doing every once in a while. I honestly spend half my time on here looking for sites. I don’t see how you can ignore all of that and only worry about looking at your own. I’m sorry if this is just my Gen Z-social-media-endless-scroll-brain-rot talking, but I will never understand.

TL;DR: Worry about yourself and don’t shit on other people

-Vi