First Year: Complete

Happy first birthday to this silly little site I've made! I love it so much, even in its half-unfinished state! I still don't have my navigation icons drawn, but that's okay, because at least I am making stuff and actually participating.

My history on the internet is long-spanning and platform-hopping. I have fond memories of attempts at blogger and livejournal and tumblr, trying to find a place I feel good to participate in, but never really settling in anywhere long enough to be consistent. The most I've ever amassed is a few hundred (417 was my cap at one point, I believe), but I could never pick a niche long enough to go beyond that, and I hated how having a "niche" would put me in a box. I have remnants of me around the internet under various names since 2010. I will (not proudly) label myself as chronically-online, and yet I'm notoriously difficult to find unless you know where to look.

I don't interact, I don't share, and I most certainly don't participate - my sister has watched with abject horror as I scroll and don't hit the like button or interact on most socials, just... observing. Watching. Feeling the desire to make, but not there, not in the algorithmic hell of social media that feels like shouting into a void. I've wanted to change that for a long time. I've had so many ideas but no place that felt right to share them. Creating this website at 1:14AM on the 18th of April 2023 was fueled by that desire to have a spot to call my own, away from the control of corporations run by profit-focused owners that don't care for the individuals existing on their platforms, and partially spurred on by a breakdown about taxes and trying to make money off of creating causing me undue stress.

I don't want to make money, I don't want to hustle; I just want to share.

If social media is the void where no one listens, the small web feels like the opposite. Reading the things other individuals have written about the feeling of being here has only solidified that this type of community is where I want to be. Most recently was Myrrh's burgeoning project on the web revival movement, with these phrases about participating in the indie web resonating:

"It is yours. Nearly impossible to be found by anything other than a human who cares."

That is how I wanted to share, with people who care to look. I like that my little corner of the web is a bit difficult to find, and I especially like that some people have found it despite my not promoting it anywhere else. I love that I've made web neighbors with some creators I really admire! Because that's what this is! A community! Not a void!!

Some other great pieces about the small/indie web are Frills' This website is personal, lostletters' join the indie web, and Melonking's collection on Intro to the Web Revival. I'm so unbelievably happy I stumbled across the web revival when I was feeling a bit trapped. The fulfillment I get when I create something new in this space is far better than any other platform I've tried to join.

On The Webmaster's Choices

I get bored when I can't do whatever I want, and what has more creative control than a website where you choose where every tiny aspect is placed? Where each page can be unique and the structure of finding things lends to exploration instead of simple, mindless ingestion? There is a different sensation to having my own curated corner of the internet, I feel more creatively free here. This website is an outlet, a testament to my passions, a log of my interests, and I can tell it will grow with time! There is no niche - there is only me... and whatever I find interesting this week or month or day or however long I choose to work on a project.

We are still solidly in version 1.0 still of my website, though I want to keep developing into a possible 2.0 over the rest of 2024. As I opened this log with - very much half-unfinished, but also weirdly polished in certain areas. I've only added to my list of "things I want to do in this space" instead of subtracted, lol.

In the meantime, I wanted to explain some little aspects of my website, the inspirations and the reasoning behind choices I've made.

Space Log

Starting with the space log - why did I name it such? Why not just "blog"? Mainly because not every log I want to post is what I'd typically typecast as a blog. Sometimes it is prose, sometimes they will be shrines, or audio experiences, or whatever I can think of. But all those things in some way take up space and are markers of my interests, space I have chosen to fill and take up without apology - so they are all space logs. Logs of space I exist within with intention. I'm repeating this phraseology on purpose, because I have to hear something seven times to really accept it. I have a rough time feeling like I'm allowed to take up space, despite my confidence in that what I want to say or share has value, so the name also reminds me to allow myself to share.

I love the universe a lot, and I tend to gravitate towards astral-themed terms. I'll also admit to being inspired by the captain's logs of Star Trek, but I'm not a captain, and I'm not (yet) a doctor, so I have instead called it the space log. We will see if one day I decide to change it, but I like being able to label everything I post with something like "personal log" or "photo log" as a precursor to facilitate understanding of the contents. I like things to feel organized, but also not too organized that it feels constraining lol. The duality of existence. A "blog" has set rules in my mind, the space log does not!

I had a history prior to this of calling my weekly recap journal entries "star logs" too, and it felt right to have the public-facing aspect of my amalgamation of curation to be the space log. I'm just floating around, man! Sharing what tidbits I find interesting or the things my brain makes!

The Name

I've also been thinking a lot about my username - RaKoeRose. I've debated changing it, especially so after the last couple of years as I've gotten older, but I don't know what I would change it to. Every other username I've been interested in has been taken, and I've managed to lock this one down on all the platforms I'd care to have it on (even when I don't post). It affords me anonymity while also still feeling uniquely me. I'm attached to it.

Plus, I have a grandfathered in legacy YouTube url that I cannot bear to give up fully (it's a marker of my devotion to the platform since its inception as at least a viewer if not a sharer for a good while). So I guess I will remain with the moniker I have chosen, even if sometimes I fear it is too weirdly "not a real word" to be memorable. Yet at the same time, I think it's memorable enough that if you care to find me again, it is on the tip of the tongue... But I'm biased after spending so many years with this username. And again, I don't know what else it would change to - that ick of the niche's compartmentalization applies to names I've tried to give myself, too. I don't want to place an interest in the name only to lose interest in that interest a few months later... RaKoeRose doesn't feel temporary.

Inspiration

As I've spent the last year on neocities, I've found quite a few people who deeply inspire me and have helped me learn a lot about how to make my website look and act the way I want it. I need to make a damn links page so I can share my web neighbors, and actually make a site button or two to facilitate sharing! But here are a few notable ones.

Solflo's website taught me how to utilize dark and light theme components, which I immediately adopted out of an understanding of how differing contrast is better for different people. I exist in dark mode, but my grandparents exist in light mode, so if I want both of us to be able to enjoy my website... gotta have both (except in cases where it is for stylistic reasons). Hillhouse's whole website makes me sit in awe and through her code snippets I've been learning about javascript, which I'd never touched prior to this year. Ribose introduced me to the power of dithering images and I've latched on to that so strongly it's almost comical - I love texture. I also use their code snippet for hover text quite often, and through looking at those codes learned how to animate with CSS which was WILD to learn.

It is just really, really nice to be on a platform (? is neocities a platform? social media? idk it feels nebulous due to the small web) that seems full of like-minded creatives that aim to share whatever they are interested in.

In the process of working on this website over the last year, it's really redefined how I view myself creatively and who exactly I'm doing things for. I used to think I wanted to be well-known, a public persona a-la the YouTubers I've followed of yore, but the older I get the more I realize that's a responsibility I don't want to have. I don't need a large audience to make something I feel is satisfying. I just want to share in a space where people might care to look. I've made myself scarce everywhere else on the internet - my twitter is dead, my insta is never posted on after 2022, and as more socials adopt AI training models, I really don't want to be there. But I still want to share, so here I am, creating the labor of love that is my labyrinthine website.

I don't draw for work, I don't write for work, I don't make for work - I feel like I'm a purely selfish creator. I make what I want to see, and if that resonates with you, that is wonderful. This website is less about self-promotion and more about self-preservation. A lot of what I do creatively is about that, conserving the interests I have and the things that drive me. I have a slight obsession with chronology and a chronic fear of forgetting, so I've got to log these things for myself, even if no one else really cares. But, wonderfully, I have found people do care.

What's Next

Moving beyond just the scope of webmastery, I've toyed with the idea of YouTube for years, and I'm slowly realizing that I could combine the niche, close-knit aspects of the small web with it. I don't like sharing a lot of things overly publicly, as someone working towards a professional medical-adjacent career (I live in fear of posting the wrong thing making me get fired, even though I know in the modern era existing online is not an issue for most job positions) [my biggest example being how simply nailogical managed to keep her government job and be a popular creator for years] {but the fear is still there} (even though my classmates have told me to my face I'm impossible to find online unless I share my username) [it's!! fine!!].

I have a lot of ideas and have been itching to branch out into video development to see if I get the same satisfaction as I do with webmastery. But I also don't want to put videos on the public-facing platform of YouTube, I'd rather house them here. So I recently came up with the concept of making unlisted videos and only really having them accessible through these logs, my little corner of the web. Maintaining privacy while still experimenting with video, and maybe only "publishing" the videos I really feel proud of, like a portfolio. YouTube feels like a stage, while my website feels like my room, and lowering the barrier of entry so I actually work on things I daydream about is important.

Regarding the website, I'm just going to keep making things and adding on like an overworked carpenter who is addicted to the smell of wood glue. I want to make shrines and keep working on my giant media archive so I can eventually catalog most things I look at here to preserve that chronology I was talking about earlier. I want to keep curating the design of each page to feel the most "me" it can be, while delivering what I want to say effectively.

I need to get some more of my creative projects up here so you all can look at them, if so inclined. I have a whole poetry collection I wrote and self-printed in 2023 that I haven't really shared. I also kinda-sorta want to open my store again, but not as for-profit, instead purely to share. I've got the stickers, I might as well sell them??? Is my thought process?? I'm still working on the logistics of that. I have a couple of multimedia projects I've been meaning to make headway on and music I want to produce and share and and and and and, if I stay too long I'll just keep listing everything I want to do instead of just doing it so!! I will say goodbye for now! And I am eager to see where I am in another year of being a silly little webmaster in this world wide web.

2024 Goals:

• get the navigation icons done
• start uploading my art archive
• make my first real "shrine" page
• work on blending video creation with webmastery
• try to make a video essay