Why is This Here? Who Are You?

About The Neocene and IndieWeb

TL;DR - I'm NEO. Which is, of course, an online psudonym. This is NEOCENE. An IndieWeb site created by me, for me; in the hopes that someone out there will have a good time reading what is on it and expierence the space that I have created. I encourge you to read on!

TL;RA (read anyway): This is an IndieWeb site. A website that has no ties to something larger; a site that is dedicated to itself. The content lives here, it isn't monetized, and I will definitely not be reposting any of the writing to social media in any form. Any growth will be organic and due to the content itself; not promoted or algorithmically driven in nature.

Why?

Because the internet is dying. No, it isn't going away and I don't foresee a future where the internet no longer exists. But so much of what made the early internet a fun place to be has vanished in favor of stale profiles and answers to the question "What is on your mind...". People live in feeds and there are entire generations that know nothing else. Personality on the internet has vanished.

Okay but... WHY?

I grew up in the era of MySpace. While that dates me, it also means that I was able to experience the rise of custom profiles and spaces on the internet that were made to be personal. It also means that I witnessed the extremely fast squashing and stifling of that same creativity by the large platforms Twitter and Facebook. The contrast between MySpace and what we have today is staggering, but that realization has only occurred to me in hindsight. For years I have dealt with these platforms and tried to make the most of them. But it always felt like something was missing. Connections have never felt real and it was always a gamble on whether I would even see something that was interesting.

Enter: IndieWeb. And forums. And IRC. And Matrix. And small communities.

I have found so much joy recently bouncing around the internet and landing on personal IndieWeb sites that have so much personality in them that it feels like I am interacting with the authors directly. It is a feeling I used to have about the World Wide Web, that I'm sure a lot of us have had. Where did that feeling go? Why does it feel like the internet isn't an 'experience' anymore? Much smarter people than I have written books about this, and there are tons of online articles exploring this topic. Personally, I think it is because we lost the ability to customize our platform profiles. Among other things... like profit at all costs and social networks becoming businesses rather than... social... networks?

Anyways, The Neocene is about personality. My personality. No I'm not an artist, and I don't consider myself particularly creative (see this website). However, I know how to code and boy oh boy do I have a lot to say. Even more as I get older and witness more and more bullshit going on every day.

So this is a dumping ground for your thoughts? Get a journal?

Well yes and no. And I have a journal thank you very much. I do and will continue to post my thoughts on topics I feel are relevant. I will also post things that aren't relevant. Because the point of this site is to share and to catalogue. It is a space that I can mold and craft to be exactly how I want it to be; if someone finds it cool, then cool. If not, then cool because I still find it cool so fuck off and leave me to my IndieWeb site! Get off my lawn! (I'm not really that old, but I do have a lawn to care for now, so get off of it!)

~neo