Casey's Place

My website's up, I even have a thing to read!

Why I Made My Own Website

I know this title already looks like I'm writing a school essay, but I promise this'll be more casual than you think.

Now, I'm sure this is obvious, but personal websites - or anything that isn't some social media site - are kinda dead nowadays. Not dead dead, of course, and personal websites in particular are making a comeback nowadays, but anything that isn't The Big Social Media Sites are definitely extremely out of the mainstream. Obviously, I don't have an overall solution for that, I can't simply say "make more forums" as that kinda ignores why forums aren't that much of a thing anymore (and ignores the forums that are actually still around), and also setting up a forum isn't that simple.

Luckily, just making your own website is way more accessible than one would think, as many people have proven. It's a thing many people have done before, by hand, and even if the standards for a website and how one should look have increased over the years, you can still make your own by hand as well. It's doable! It's genuinely not that hard!

This isn't about the how though, this is about the why. This is a manifesto of sorts (if you wanna call it that) of why I made a website. If you want, you could read this as reasons why I think you should make a website, which if you don't have many reasons of your own, wouldn't be a wrong way to read it, I guess. Quite honestly I'm still debating whether I should actually post this thing simply because like, websites back then didn't have this, but then again this isn't "back then", so...

Because It's My Space

Social media in general (ESPECIALLY nowadays) really dislike the idea of letting you customize your profile or such in any way. My memory of it is a lil fuzzy, but I do remember Twitter (i sadly obligatorily have to say it's now known as x) letting you choose a profile color to theme your entire profile and a background image like your profile was its own page, which feels unthinkable nowadays. Obviously you can't do that anymore, you haven't been able to do either in years. I also remember stuff like Tumblr having a big focus on letting you have full control on how your personal blog page looks, full control over the CSS and everything, and while that's definitely still around, it's been heavily de-emphasized in more recent years. It's no longer the default thing you access when you click on someone's username, and if I remember correctly it's harder to access as a whole from the main interface.

Now, there's a very clear reason for this personalization de-emphasis. It's because of mobile platforms. I don't want to say like, "mobile platforms are the devil" or whatever, there's a reason that they've taken off globally, I think there's reason they've become a primary platform that isn't "they've been forced upon us all", I'm not here to demonize them! But I do think, personally, why did they have to become so prominent at the expense of other platforms, at the expense of this personalization?

Yes, this website probably looks bad on phones. But I didn't make this on a phone, I didn't make this for phones, I made this on a machine that existed before smartphones, and that's pretty much because I wanted to. Buuuuut by doing so it's become an intentional choice, not just of limitation (I don't think I could make this iBook chug with my web knowledge) but of intent, of the perspective from which I want my website to be viewed. Now, maybe it's a little silly to treat even the layout of this site like a form of art, but considering I made it myself by hand, with intent... ...Honestly, the fact I can wax about this like some jerkoff probably makes the case for me for this point, doesn't it?

Because It's Not The Big Platforms

I do own my own website! It's mine, I made it, I can take it to whatever webhost or whatnot I want, which in an age where a lot of the big platforms are owned by some racist guy, or some racist guy, or, idk probably some other racist guy, is honestly very nice to have. I don't have to deal with dumb decisions made to appease shitty investors (as much, anyway). I'm not locked into an algorithm of any sort. I don't have to worry about discoverability or keeping up a schedule, no one's gonna hit a "like" button on my posts, they can only share it by sharing the link, if I want people to subscribe, there'll be an RSS feed coming along for sure (just like mama used to make...).

I mean, part of the reason I'm making this website is to have an alternative to the big platforms, to have something different. I definitely won't call it an act of resistance, but I think being able to have control over something is important in this day and age. In an era where we're slowly losing control of almost everything, I feel it's important to at least be able to recognize what one can have control over.

Yes, even if it's just HTML and CSS.

Because I Do, Indeed, Kinda Think It's Better

I do think it's kinda better, yeah! I know it's kinda trite and whatnot to say "old thing better than new thing", but I do think there's genuine positives that put it over traditional major social media for me. I'm not beholden to a format of any sort, I don't have to worry about how that affects discussion or whatnot, it feels freeing!

...Maybe what makes it better for me is that it is an alternative at all.

Because I Wanna!

The biggest reason, probably the most important one, the one that overshadows all the others, is cause it's fun!

The reason I wanted to make a website for years, even before I began to think about all of this other stuff, is because I wanted to! Having a little place of your own is fucking awesome! All of the more fancy stuff probably scares people off from wanting to hand-code their own website, even though making your site look fairly presentable by hand isn't hard at all, it's extremely achievable! HTML is easy, and basic CSS isn't that much harder. Also, making your own thing and being able to see your handiwork come together is truly a very satisfying feeling. I know that sounds obvious, but it's also a very big reason why I've kept going.

It's fun to have your own lil place on the web, that's yours, where you can have whatever you want on it without worrying about having to adhere to some pre-existing thing, where you can do whatever you want cause it's your website! Who's going to stop you! You probably have a better work ethic than I do, you could probably get a website and hand-made layout going way faster than I did, and let's be honest, you're probably not as willing to strictly adhere to 2004-era CSS and style than I am, you have some powerful tools available for layouts. You can also just, get a pre-made style and go with that! You don't have to do what I did at all!