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Showing you the frivolous internet things I care about.
About this blog
Welcome. This is a small blog for all the lesser-known "internet things" that have filled me with joy. This could take me in all kinds of directions, but I'm likely going to keep my focus on indie games from Itch.io (as it's the scene I'm most familiar with currently) and internet culture (because Buzzfeed can't have all the fun).
It is my hope that this messy curation - the mapping of my personal slice of internet pie - can start conversations and help good stuff get found. Or maybe it'll just be my personal record that helps me remember what Itch.io games I've played already and such.
Wait, no, it's actually none of these things, because looking at my previous posts, I lost that focus at an unbelievably fast rate. Fantastic!
In any case, it is here, a textual object existing in this world. And frankly, is that not the only thing it needs to be?
Here it is, the first entry on my blog. It's been a while since I've had one. I got my start many years back as a full-time Tumblr memester. However, my days of "junk food blogging" are behind me now, and I'm glad to be dedicating this second blog to slower, more deliberate writing.
However, I can't help but ask myself what the point of all this is. Why would I, a random being on this planet, think I have anything worth saying and sending into the world? Well... I guess that requires crossing The Gap, right? I have to restart a practice of blogging before I can get good at it again.
My main problem with blogging was that I never knew what to share, whether it was too much or not enough. More explicitly setting a main topic - exploration and recommending of other people's work - will help ground me, and hopefully create a more enjoyable blog experience. But who knows? We'll have to wait and see.
I think I'm going to end things off here for now. Just a short post to make sure everything is working as planned. See you later, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day (or night)!
Space Email
2021-12-12
Space Email is a platform for indirect communication. Login to this "email box" and you'll quickly find yourself receiving anonymous messages from years ago. 2017, 2015, 2013... it feels like there's no limit to how far they go back. But what does it all mean? What is the point of this website existing?
I've already featured this site on my exit page but I wanted to talk about it again somewhere, by itself. There's something about the place that constantly pulls me back into it. Is it the people venting their problems, a moment of struggle permanently frozen and stamped "June 2014"? Is it the poems that try to find beauty out of tragedy? Is it the humor of finding that moon with the eyes emoji that censors some swear words but somehow lets others slip through? I don't know.
This site is very human. In the good ways, in the bad ways, in the "unsure how I'm supposed to feel about this" ways. This site speaks to the uniqueness and breadth of human experiences. But it is not a living place. Nearly every message that loads into your inbox is going to be old, and older still. You can technically compose your own "e-mail", but once you send it, you can't know who's going to see it, or when. It's out of your hands.
In the simplest sense, Space Email is a ghost town. And these ghosts have many tales to tell.
tell me all your painful secrets and I will make them disappear! cause i totally can, even though we're not even at the same time
- User "some bro", September 3rd, 2014
Web Design Cringe Compilations
2022-03-07
This post will be a rough draft because I am still in the process of researching and learning about the people doing this. This post is about the blog hustlers that lurk in the shadows of the internet. You may have seen them before.
Clean, hyper-minimalist website (and sometimes lifestyle).
Blogs predominantly about SEO and/or social media growth.
Runs their site on Wordpress and has a hundred plugins running in the background, usually for tracking you in some way.
Has an obnoxious pop-up asking you to buy a book or join the mailing list.
But, of course, I'd like to talk about the trait I've named this post for: a practice where they write one or more listicles that single out and make fun of the designs of other websites. In essence, they're web design cringe compilations.
I bet a few of you with your Neocities are thinking: are you likely to be a target of these? I was thinking a similar thing when I first came across these bunch. Thankfully, it seems unlikely. Their elitist graphic design shaming tends to focus on commercial sites, or the online portfolios of companies or organizations. There's a perception that these sites are "supposed to" look a certain way to best serve the viewer's needs, and when they "fall short" in some way, these hustlers will publically air out their disapproval for everyone to see.
The people making these lists seem to steal ideas from each other; a lot of these articles will cite the same few sites over and over again. Ling's Cars is a popular target of their scorn, but hilariously, that company is far more interesting and successful than these SEO hustlers will ever be. (Conformity will not save you.)
They rarely mention any of the truly outlandish stuff, like what one can find at Neocities or Gossip's Web, and frankly that might be for the best. If they ever found out the sparkly GIF side of the web was coming back, they would probably collapse from the shock. If they even got one glimpse of Yvette's Bridal Formal, I can only imagine them running away from their computer screaming.
It's sad to live in a world where people still shame each other for harmless things. But this isn't all bad. It's possible to use these posts as inspiration. The next time you search up "Top 10 worst site designs" and indulge yourself in one of these articles, you might just find some delicious forbidden fruit to decorate the next page of your website with. Thanks for reading. Until next time...
