I think most of us see the internet as part and parcel of the physical world, an extension of our 'natural' world created through the wires and displays of our computers. Much more interesting to me is to view it as its own world. A once empty space, a dimension separate from our own, that we visit and build little monuments of our existence in, that no one can trace back to our physical selves if we so desire...
Ok, so who the hell are you?
I'm a first year university student in the UK. Specifically, studying History & Politics. I'm some form of enby and some form of bi/poly/pan/omni/whatever. I'm also the sole member of fifth-wave 'project' heather's cartridge, which has not yet gotten off the ground but if I can get my ass off the ground and make some basic demos, I could potentially convince some other people to join in. As you can tell, I don't really have any of this figured out.
These things are all of interest to me:
The Manifesto
So, upon reading up on various pages such as 44caliber.net and browsing neocities, the idea of "Internet Revivalism" has become known to me. It also seems to be the reasoning behind 'manifestos' like this one kind of is. The idea being that the individual creativity of the old web has been lost to corporate uniformity and centralisation on a handful of social media platforms, the purpose of internet revivalism is to regain that supposed lost sense of freedom that the old web once held. Personally, I'm not really convinced. The problems with web 2.0 and social media, I think, aren't inherent to their existence, and are mainly just extensions of the problems of capitalism. I also think it takes a rosy view of the web 1.0 internet (not that I would know, but then again neither would most internet revivalist proponents. We're all 'zoomers'). Most of all, i'm hugely skeptical that said movement will ever work - if other anti-consumerist/anti-commercialist movements can be themselves commercialised, there's nothing stopping internet revivalism from suffering the same fate.
That is all to say, if i don't believe in internet revivalism, what's the point of this 'manifesto' page (or indeed, the website as a whole)?
I've been around the internet since I was like nine or ten, but have never really contributed much. Making a Reddit account back in June 2019 and now a Tumblr in January 2022 was pretty much all I did for ages outside of Discord, accounts for various non-social media pages, and my personal instagram of course. I was a lurker (I often still am), and I liked my anonymity. And yet, in 2023 I made last.fm and RYM accounts, and now I have this.
I guess the reason for the change in attitude is partially a desire to create more of an online presence; maybe it's a fear of being forgotten, I don't know. It may also be due to the fact that, now I feel more independent, the long-held desire to make something of worth, be it social and/or cultural, is burning ever fiercer. And whilst I don't agree with internet revivalism much, I do like and (always have liked) the idea of having my own website; a sort of personal space, one I can freely tune to my own tastes, but can also be used to access all of my other accounts on various social media pages.
From around when I was 13, until a couple of years ago, I was very heavily obsessed with bill wurtz. His artistic style, and approach to 'content creation' (I hate that term), enamoured me for the longest time. Since then I've moved on quite a lot, but there is still a part of me that holds to his sensibilities. I started a journal on my laptop on New Years' 2020 based on his notebook and various archives on his website, and kept it going every day until I first moved off to Uni, when I started recording it on and off.
I finally got inspired to actually make a website upon discovering neocities and its free webhosting. The site is named after the song and album Lyburnum - Wits End (Liberation Fly) by Moss Icon, who you'll have heard of if you're in any way familiar with 'real emo.'
I guess what I'm trying to say is that this site exists for the sake of my younger self, who always wanted one, and my future self, who will hopefully appreciate that I took the time out of my day one cold, dark January evening to begin setting this thing up. I hope you also find some enjoyment out of it (once it's not so empty, I will concede).
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