Prismatic Blog

Or smallweb… Or oldweb… Or web revival… Or whatever you want to call it. I probably shouldn’t be using the term Indie Web anyway, since it’s a well-established demographic of websites that aren’t necessarily condoning practices I want to talk about.

According to their official website, the Indie Web is a community of independent and personal websites based on the principles of owning your domain, using it as your primary online identity, and owning your content. Notice that deplatforming is a core value for them: the concept of an “independent web” emerged in 1997. As ironic as it may seem, they were already witnessing problems with big companies, data tracking and abusive advertisements. The same web that we all (me included!) see through rose-coloured glasses in the ripe year of 2026, almost 30 years later.

This definition matches Prismatic Pink‘s values since the very beginning: I started this blog (initially as a WordPress blog, then I branched out into different subdomains) because I wanted to post my own content without being restricted by other platforms. For that reason, I bought my own domain and asked my husband to host it for me. At that time, I didn’t even know about Neocities or Nekoweb. When I found these hosts, I was immediately in awe of the variety of websites hoarding pixel graphics and exploring HTML and CSS to their full potential.

However, it did not take me long to notice that most interactions only happened on people’s Neocities profiles. Comments were only made on the Neocities feed activity, while Guestbooks were left empty. People would refer to other websites as “following” or “followers”. Some people don’t have a Links page, but a “Neocities button wall”. Some even treat Neocities or Nekoweb like social media, saying things like “I like your Neocities” or “I’ll make a Neocities” instead of “I like your website or “I’ll make a website”. Even my site gets comments like this, even though I have never hosted anything on Neocities. I’ve seen people saying “they want to make a Neocities, but they would also want interactions from the Nekoweb community”, completely unaware of the fact that these sites are only web hosts. They are literally meant to host your website, nothing more than that. The connections you make are completely dependent on your attitude, whether commenting on people’s Guestbooks or sending them emails.

I understand this is a consequence of the younger audience of these hosts, and I want to be clear that I completely disapprove of hostility or “gatekeeping attitude” towards them. I myself was an annoying child when I started my first website. While I, as an adult, prefer not to interact with children, I do think they have the right to be “cringe and free”, just like I did decades ago. On the other hand, “social media mentality” is not exclusive to minors, I’ve seen a lot of people in their early to mid-20s (some even older!) doing the same thing. This is not their fault, we’ve all been brainwashed into believing the internet belongs to big companies and we’re merely passive observers. That’s why movements like IndieWeb.org are so important.

Back in the day, the biggest dramas in our community revolved around stealing someone’s graphics or code without permission. No one would be harassed on mere assumptions of their political views or support towards certain groups. Linking to other websites just meant you liked some of the things they posted, it was not seen as a full endorsement of their views. I’m not naive, I know the world is deeply polarised now, and this will inevitably reflect on our online spaces as well. It just makes me sad (sometimes a bit angry, not gonna lie) that the ones who claim to be “against social media” are the same ones perpetuating hatred and exclusion just because they don’t like what they see on other websites. I do not condone hate speech or harassment towards any minority or social group, but I also do not believe in censoring debates if there is respect involved.

Thinking about that, I made a webring for websites that are constantly left out simply because they chose a different host. If my thoughts resonate with you, please consider joining the Off-Platform Webring.