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One year of HARDMACHINE


(Warning: This page is LONG. Feel free to skip to the end sections if you want.)
(Originally written August-September 2023.)

Table of contents:


Why did I make this site? - Coding/website things I learned
Sites that inspired me on the way (The present / The past)

At least, I think it is. I know I initially squatted this name in April before using it, but kept putting it off. But I finally started coding sometime in September, 2022.

Why did I make this site?

I notice most of the "retvrn to Web 1.0" indie web sites have a note about hating social media/Web 3.0/Big Tech and a personal "manifesto" about their experience online. I read these pages for the sake of perspective, but most of them say the same things. I never planned on writing my own, because it feels like preaching to the choir. And even though I'm pretty high on my own farts, the phrase "manifesto" is too pretentious even for me, and has been tainted after reading about the failure of Yesterweb trying to turn what was initially a hobby into a form of political activism... but I wasn't involved with that, so that's just like, my opinion, man...


This is your cue to stop reading if you don't want to see something that is, like everything else on the internet, an individual's POV.

On at least one page I mentioned that I did have websites on Web 1.0, they just weren't archived. That's not true; I actually did find a few pages of the URLs I remember on archive.org. Now, I'm not going to link to them... but it made me realize something. I always preferred having my personal site over being a member of someone else's. I think this is a result of growing up isolated; I didn't know how to interact with people or make/keep friends, so having a personal website was akin to having my own room to decorate. Being on a forum or member of a website was akin to going out, but a homepage was well, coming back home. Of course, I was on art sites and forums, but that always felt like being at the whims of someone else. Forums die, friend groups fall apart (often dramatically - I've had to "start fresh" online so many times), rules and TOS change; Even the "good old days" of DeviantART would randomly spring complete layout and UI changes, it just so happens they've now gotten worse to the point of being unusable.

I've always been a "compartmentalized" person too; I rarely speak or express myself in real life if I don't have an opportunity/context to. I used to purposely made myself appear plain or even homely to avoid unwanted attention for most of my life. I noticed my archived Web 1.0 profiles tend to link to my homepage - "My room", because it's my personal space to act however I want. I don't consider any of these to be my "true" or "false" self, but online is the closest to what goes on in my head to varying degrees. And frankly, I hate that. I have my own form of resentment towards the internet in general. Mostly because of how much of a bandaid solution it was on my life. I'm going to get loaded and personal for a bit... I was already glued online after moving and being socially isolated, but at 16 I dropped out of high school due to some terrible circumstances. This was what pushed me to actually start trying to talk to people. Online circles and friends were the one lifeline I had during this time.

I couldn't participate in most old web spaces because I was too young, and my online activity was monitored during my early-mid teens. I was hoping this would change when I turned 18, but lo and behold, the beginning of Web 3.0 started happening then. Forums that weren't already established for years were slowly dying. Only specific corners I didn't go to talked about IRC. I was on Livejournal, but it was about to die the year I started joining communities and interacting with people, so I jumped in on the migration to Tumblr since that's where a lot of DeviantART users and a big part of where fandom was going to. I didn't know anyone who stuck with the smaller journaling site alternatives. All the free website hosts were either gone (Geocities was already gone, I tried Freewebs for awhile), you had to pay to use them, or had some ugly ass watermark on them. People around me started talking about Facebook and I was initially confused by how this is a "social media" where you doxx yourself. I made one anyway with a fake last name, and proceeded to witness the online VS real life divide fade. The transition to Web 3.0 was also when I experienced the political climate shift [1] slowly leaking into mainstream (not to mention the terrifying rise of right wing radicalism happening under everyone's noses).


Eclipse and introducing AI was the nail in the coffin, but it's also a trip how DeviantART devolved into being a softcore porn site for autistic people... [2]

One of my conclusions from observing this sphere for the past year is that trying to frame "make silly personal websites" and "participate in communities where everyone holds the same opinions as you" as a form of anti-capitalist praxis (ironically) feeds into the social media mindset the indie web claims to want to escape; it's recreating the same dynamics on a different platform. Something I noticed about the ultra-politically correct Web 3.0 for the last decade is that it has the same vitriol as the old web, it's just repurposed to be morally righteous. The "wild west" aspect was fucking awful. Even the circles I was in during the 00s were subjected to nasty trolling, slurs, shock images, and people turning on each other. I don't see a difference between the cancel/call out culture, extreme forms of fandom purity culture, secular witch hunts and guilt-by-association over wrongthink on Tumblr/Twitter/etc. and the old days of Portal of Evil [3] and Encyclopedia Dramatica. Faux-social justice is pushed the hardest by powerless people with skeletons in their closet, who desperately want a form of control over others. Many people I knew basically "switched sides" from being an offensive troll to a righteous keyboard warrior as a form of redemption or to "bring judgment" on others. Not every social media user or indie webmaster is like this, but I think too many people just want to emulate the aesthetic of old websites and don't really want the state of things to change.

Rant aside, I didn't make this site as a political statement - I actually just wanted to have an art gallery not attached to an algorithm. I also just needed something to do when I clocked out of work. But on a personal level, HARDMACHINE helped me a lot in such a short span of time. I realized how invaluable it is to have a space where I can post what I want without "needing permission to" or being fixated on likes and followers or too scared of how someone might respond to it. I never felt welcome on the allegedly inclusive Tumblr and Twitter is just the worst of early-mid 2010s era recycled. I don't like being alone, but I still needed to attempt to foster my own space like I tried and failed to in the late 00s. I also exited one of the worst years of my adult life and needed some time to myself. I got off my ass and started coding in the middle of a self-isolation sphere after a string of bad events.

I started enjoying writing runes; not only because I often would write essays or compilated thoughts in private often, but because I've been actively lying to and about myself for so many years. Not in a malicious way, but while having my head fucked up by politics and therapy (attempts to deprogram myself led to being reprogrammed), I felt like I needed to construct a false narrative about my life to be more palatable to others. It didn't work. People didn't like me anyway when I did that. People didn't like me when I lied about myself, they didn't like me when I was a doormat that walked on eggshells, people didn't like me when I policed myself down to the thoughts in my own head. I realized there's no actual loss to being more outspoken or "myself". I still can't fit in anywhere IRL, but I became reclusive for nearly a decade online because I was convinced I was inherently unable to be understood. But how will anyone know unless I show who I am?

I've used many pages as a space to be honest, or give myself permission to write about something I really wanted to. I have shared things on here that I likely would've lied about or made excuses for years ago. I don't see a point in actively hating or being ashamed of it. One thing I've realized some time before starting this website is I'm the same person I always was, for better or for worse. Looking at archived copies of the front page of my old websites is something I would've not been able to handle years ago when I was actively living in the false narrative I made about my life. A lot of it is a... product of it's time, to say the least. I still have the same personality and writing style, but I dialed down the self-hated a lot. It's not useful for me. Hating myself is what other people wanted me to do.

Coding/website things I learned

  • CSS is still a bit complicated for my rodent brain, but it isn't scary. In fact, it makes things a lot easier. I knew HTML, but not CSS. Now I'm learning.
  • Function over looking pretty is what matters for me; I browsed Web 1.0 sites for their content, not aesthetics. If the page and images loads and I can read it, good. I don't care if it's basic that I use an edited Sadgrl template. You (should) see text, you see images, it's resonably mobile responsive. It works. I respect "cool" and "pretty" sites, but it's not what I'm going for.
  • For the love of GOD, code offline. Don't publish pages until they're finished. I started out coding directly into the Neocities editor. Then I would code on Notepad, and use an online preview (slightly smarter, except my Wifi sometimes goes out). Does that sound like the stupidest fucking thing ever? It is. Just because I did it back on Geocities doesn't mean it's going to fly now. Now I use Visual Studio Code with a preview plugin, so I can write pages offline and just drop the HTML file when I'm done.
  • PLEASE resize and compress your files.
  • Be the change you want to see. If you see someone else do something you like, tell them, and follow suit.
  • Neocities isn't the only option, by the way.

Sites that inspired me on the way

The present:

Footnotes

  • [1] Don't shoot the message. I don't read this publication, but I can vouch for the writer.
  • [2] This wouldn't be a big deal if dA wasn't considered a 13+ site...
  • [3] PoE is actually before my time. See, I'm not THAT old!

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