Dazzling Blog

That Spark I Had with The Internet

Just writing how I feel about The Internet.

The times of the old internet is a foggy memory to me, as I was only a young child at the time.

I remember small memories of going on websites full of links to different online games, playing Habbo Hotel constantly, the earliest days of youtube watching AMVs, and creating websites on Piczo based on my interests and just simply having my own kind of fun.

Most of that spark I had with the internet mostly died down and became more of a nuisance. Social media is the main focal point of the internet in this day and age, where people only care about "likes" and "replies" that are more just infighting between each other about some political opinion that really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. A lot of these said social media websites don't have much identity from one another either, just a simple yet bloated UI I've ever seen. No customization, no sense of individual identity on profiles, nothing. They all seem lifeless , and these websites have the joy and fun of collecting your data and gifting these to other companies without your consent, without giving you much of anything good in return, just a toxic wasteland of a website where people only talk about politics and not about something that makes people smile for once. Yes, I'm mostly talking about birdsite and I HATE that hellhole.

The reason I registered on NeoCities, not because I miss the old days of the internet and stuff, but mostly that I want to have a small place to express my thoughts without someone trying to argue with you, or saying "Who asked? lol", like you need to have over a million followers for your own words to have any meaning or purpose to anyone. If you're not internet famous, then don't say anything because you're just some rando that should shut it. At least that's how I think the internet thinks...

So, I completely abandoned most social media and I don't really use my accounts besides the ones on the fediverse(I'm mostly on Misskey, and thinking of starting up my own instance for myself, but that would take a lot of learning and time to put one together). I also enjoy SpaceHey for being the old MySpace that existed back in the day, with customization, nice web interface that's simple, but not TOO simple, and it gives this old feeling. I don't know, maybe I do have extreme nostalgia for old web things and I'm just lying to myself.

But let's be honest here, the old days of the internet weren't all that great either. Some things are incovenient like having to find millions of different forums about the same interests and trying to find a good one. While I think that's good that there's many little communities within a bigger one, it sometimes would get confusing for some people. I know that not everyone thinks the same as I do and there's people who like places like Reddit. Similar kind of drama that is seen constantly today does still happen in the past. Drama isn't new, and it was probably was even worse back then with cliques, shipping wars and stuff. It probably just wasn't often.

I don't remember things from the 2000s very clearly, as I said in the beginning of this, I was a kid, and me having memory problems doesn't help either haha.

I also left NeoCities as well, because well... it feels the same as any social media is. "Likes", "followers", similar features that would normally be on a social media site. I'm surprised not many people catch on to that... All of it feels like a competitive atmosphere, where the same websites are still at the top because they have the MOST FOLLOWERS. So, it's the same thing all over again. I use a different website builder that doesn't do this and I feel much better. Also, I can use my domain on my website for free without paying extra lol.

At the end of this, I just want to say that I'm not trying to be some superhero trying to bring back the internet that it once was, or anything similar to that. All I want to do is to go back in time for a while and feel some sort of comfort in my own little space in this massive second universe that is the Internet. That old spark I had with the internet as a kid. I just want to have fun.