blog/content/yukijoou/make-a-website/index.md

---
title: "own your place on the web!"
authors: ['yukijoou']
date: 2023-09-03
description: "...or why you shouldn't create content for social networks in 2023"
---

hi, welcome! you've just arrived on my piece of the internet. you're reading
this article from my own website.[^ownership] i have full control over every bit
of this page. i can change the background to a picture of my cat, or make the
layout completely different, or use bad words and insults if i want to.  
if you've arrived here, it's likely not because of google's search results --
unlike most companies these days, i'm not using any tricks to rank higher in
search results or buy ads, and so i'm probably not easily findable through that.
i also don't tend to talk about trendy topics, or bring any value to google, as
that's not my goal...

see, i'm just making things on the internet because i enjoy it! because i think
some of my friends may find it interesting, because i want to try something out,
or just because i like writing or making software for the fun of it. i don't
think it's worth the time or effort to be popular, or to play the google
rankings game, it'd just make it harder for me to do the silly things i enjoy.

and i'm not alone! the "indie web", or, as i like to call it, the "*people*'s
web", is a bunch of independent websites, just like mine, made by people, **for
people**, with the main goal of sharing something with the world, or just
putting ideas out there. we're not in it for the money or the fame: most of us
hide behind usernames and avoid sharing as much personal information as possible
because we just want to make fun or share interesting things!

we want to share the cute cat we saw on the way home, the program we made that
helps us study, or even how we block ads on websites and watch pirated copies of
movies, because we think it'll help out other *people*, or because we think they
may enjoy it. some of those things may not be liked by advertisers, and that's
one of the reasons why we don't want to use big platforms like instagram or
others. we don't want them telling us what's "safe" or not.

we don't like ads on websites, so we don't use them. we don't like
corporate/uniform designs, so we try to be creative. we don't care about having
billions of views and interactions, so most of us don't even track that. and
most importantly, we want **people** to enjoy our stuff. not algorithms, not ai
chat-bots, not search engines. we don't care about those.

# the problem with the state of "the internet"

if you ask your parents what the internet is, they will likely answer that it's
"basically facebook" (or something similar), and possibly "emails" if they use
that. which makes sense -- when you think of internet content nowadays, most
people think of massive social network that make content creation and sharing 
super easy.  
in a way, it's really wonderful that anyone can share their opinion and say what
they want! thanks to the algorithms they have, finding people's stuff you like
is easy, and everything is centralised on less than a dozen platforms.

and that's the problem. all that content is pretty much owned and distributed by
a dozen massive platforms. if one of them goes down (and one day they all will),
it's millions, if not hundreds of millions of people's content that gets
deleted in an instant. this also means it's up to the platform to decide what's
allowed and not allowed: if an employee in the right department of that company
doesn't like you, they can shut off your account in minutes, and you have no
recourse.

the content creation process may be "easy", at least in comparison to not using
those massive services, but it does restrict you to the platform's rules, which
often encourage you to make things that make advertisers happy, and allow the
platform to make as much money from its users as it can. these things often
don't align with what people want! most people are growing tired of
recommendation algorithms, people and companies keep finding ways of getting
around it, and instead of your recommendations being full of things you care
about, it's mostly just popular stuff, or things specifically made to make the
algorithm happy.

making the content creation process as easy as possible also means killing a
good bit of creativity. when making a twitter post, you can write some 280
characters in the box and share those with the world. no more, no less. no
formatting, no *emphasis* or **bold text**. some websites may give you more
options, but none will allow you to write your own code in the middle of your
blog post to draw a rainbow:

*Click and drag in the window below to draw a rainbow!*
<div id="funny-block">
<canvas width=100 height=100 id="rainbow">
your browser unfortunately doesn't support canvas, no funny rainbows for you :c
</canvas>
<script src="./rainbow.js"></script>
<noscript>
you'll need javascript to enjoy this funny thing i made
</noscript>
</div>
<style>
#rainbow {
	image-rendering: pixelated;
	border: 1px solid black;
	border-radius: 5px;
	width: 90%;
	height: 30vh;
}
#funny-block {
	display: flex;
	justify-content: center;
	width: 100%;
}
</style>

on popular social networks, if you want to do anything more creative than bare
text , you have to use an image or a video, which comes with its own set of
problems[^screenreaders]. youtube had fancy channel customisation
options[^smosh-2009] at some point, but it got removed in the name of uniformity
and ease of use. now, every channel looks the same except for a custom logo and
banner, and i think that's a bit sad :(  
i've seen amazing personal websites with crazy designs, and on small social
networks like [SpaceHey](https://spacehey.com/), where people have the tools to
customise their profile page, you get amazingly unique things!

and that's mostly why i think personal websites are better: you can truly
express yourself, you're not at the mercy of some algorithms to know if your
content will be deleted, and you're not helping some company grow their market
share and increase their profit margins[^corporate-hosting]. you're always in
control of your content, you can make backups and re-post it wherever you want
super easily, and can, for example, at any point, [stop openai from using your
content in chatgpt](https://platform.openai.com/docs/plugins/bot).

though, many people think the major platform's compromises are worth it for the
ease of use social networks have. to which i have to answer:

# making a website isn't hard!

of course, this is subjective, but making a website isn't a difficult skill to
learn, and will serve you greatly for anything related to the internet! there
are many tools available to make it even easier, and even more tutorials (i'm
also currently working on a guide to help you get started)!  
it's not expensive either, and (depending on what you want to do, of course),
you likely can put something up on the internet for free (or really cheap) right
now (as long as you have a computer).

and even if you can't put anything on the internet right now, you don't have to:
you can store all the files that make up your website on your computer, and make
your website accessible to anyone on your home internet connection for free
within minutes. it's a very good way to prototype things and just play around
with making internet content without any consequences!

while you may have to rely on some companies to make it work (like, an internet
service provider, a host if you don't want all the traffic from your website to
go through your home internet, and most likely a registrar to get a name for
your website), you have the option to switch to any other company providing the
same service at any point! you can always copy all your files to somewhere else
if you want to.

all in all, the whole infrastructure i'm running for my friends and i costs me
about 15€/month, plus a few hours of maintenance a month, for a blog, personal
websites for each of us, a social network, and an image sharing service -- it's
cheaper than a premium netflix subscription!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

so, if you have some time to spare, and want to start sharing content with the
world, i recommend making a website! even if it's just for re-posting stuff
you're sharing elsewhere, it gives you a space that's truly yours, and that you
can keep as long as you're alive, and maybe more. it'll teach you general
computer and system administration skills, that'll always be useful in life.  
and most importantly, it'll let you express yourself however you like, share the
things you care about with friends, and make something *for people*.

i'll note though that if you want to build a massive community, a website
probably isn't the way to go. but i'd say, you don't need a massive community!
people looking at your website are often much more engaged and interested in
what you're sharing than people scrolling though hundreds of posts, so you'll
likely get as many interactions, if not more, from actual humans!

if you want to get started right now, i recommend you check out [mozilla's
"Getting started with the web"
guide](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Getting_started_with_the_web),
and if you're looking for tools to make your life easier, i made a [dead simple
site generator](https://yukijoou.kemonomimi.gay/site-inator.html) you might want
to check out.

if you want to see some content made by indie web people, you can check those
out:

* [rampancy.neocities.org](https://rampancy.neocities.org), including [this
  beautiful digital shrine to the video game
  SIGNALIS](https://rampancy.neocities.org/games/SIGNALIS) (cw: no reduced
  motion support on both links)
* [possums.gay](https://possums.gay/), another yuki's website (cw: gifs with
  slight motion on the main page, quite high contrast)
* [nano.lgbt](https://nano.lgbt/) (cw: gifs with slight motion, high contrast)
* [maia.crimew.gay](https://maia.crimew.gay/) (cw: gifs with slight motion)
* [sugary.kemonomimi.gay](https://sugary.kemonomimi.gay/) (cw: gifs with slight
  motion)
* and of course, [my own website](https://yukijoou.kemonomimi.gay/)
  
you should also check out [reclaim hosting](https://www.reclaimhosting.com/), a
company providing super cheap hosting (less than 4$/month) and domains for your
website.

[^ownership]: well, not really "my own", it's my group of friends' website that i am
    managing.
	
[^screenreaders]: images are not readable by screenreaders used by blind people, and take
    much more data than text to transmit. blind people make up a good part of
    internet users, and metered connections are still definitely a thing in many
    places.

[^smosh-2009]: see [smosh's channel in 2009 on the internet
    archive](https://web.archive.org/web/20090309121304/https://www.youtube.com/smosh),
    i was not on youtube back then, so i don't have many examples, but i'm sure
    some people managed to do some way more advanced things!
	
[^corporate-hosting]: yes. i know, you will have to rely on some companies when 
	running a website, and they definitely make money from you. but i'll touch 
	on more how that works later, and i think it's still a much more honest and
	transparent business model than most social media companies.