Believe it or not, building silly things used to be fun. Not everything needed to be productive or increase shareholder value. When did making personal websites become so uncool? Nowadays, all you can find are reasons why people aren’t making one. And the ones who do are just using React/ Next.js templates to build their personal sites, and they don’t even write blogs there its just a web version of their portfolio (and they all look the fking same. have some taste, for fcks sake).
Internet used to be a fun place
Big tech companies and the people running them somehow convinced everyone that social media (Instagram, Snapchat, Medium, YouTube, Twitter, etc.) is the go-to medium for showing your creativity, sharing ideas, or just anything. And most of the people using it are pretty much doing the same thing, That somehow became a stupid standard: if you are not doing what’s trending, you’re not gonna get any likes, comments or approval. You’re expected to feed people exactly what they’re expecting (the trend). And if you don’t do that ( if you don’t clone), you’re a weirdo?
At what point do you convince yourself that your thoughts, ideas and aesthetics are not worthy of being shared?. No one is expecting you to build a billion dollar industry with it or solve world hunger, I hope you know you are allowed to do it, you don’t need anyone’s approval or validation for making a personal site or just anything to express yourself. Why would anyone need any kind of validation for expressing themselves in any form of art?
The only “good” arguments i can think of right now is: “Well i have other important things to do rather than spending hours theming a website.” “It’s unproductive.” “Anyone can do that.” “Where the money at?”
These are all soulless answers. Anyone who thinks the same way are victims of the trend or hollow professionalism. Being productive is not all that matters, if you want to build something silly, you should. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Somehow Mark Zuckerberg, social media influencers, and the corporate world just convinced everybody that having no taste, likes and following the “trend” can get you friends, love, money, or even a job. Ok, what happened to “doing what you genuinely love”?
It doesn’t need to favor an algorithm.
It doesn’t need to make money.
It doesn’t need to make anyone laugh.
It just needs to make you happy and give you a space to do whatever you want.
The Real Reason
I once saw a reel or YouTube video about the shift in design styles between older and modern user interfaces. It mostly talked about how “minimalism” took over “fun”, and that thought stayed with me for a while. Like, is minimalism just an excuse do less? At least for the companies, I’m guessing, Most of the big tech companies stopped doing cool stuff with their user interfaces, graphics and visual identity in order to do more with less work. They call it “maintainable design”, i call it dull, colorless and empty.
Then other companies and graphic designers followed suit, embraced the minimalist style, and it slowly became an industry standard. Now everything looks the same.
Look how cool that is
WOW
Things used to be hella different
??
??
A while back, I was having this random conversation with a semi-drunk friend on an exam night. We were talking about how hard the subject was, and somehow it led to me asking him, “What are your thoughts on minimalism?” He replied, “Isn’t that just taking the color out of everything?” I couldn’t agree more.
We talked about it further and eventually landed on a conclusion “it’s not about keeping everything minimal, it’s about balance. No one should be thinking about minimalism or any design patterns when creating something. Just do what you want to do in your own way, and it will have life at least in your eyes” so beautiful.
And upon further thought and a bit of research, I realized it wasn’t minimalism taking over everything; rather, it was a shift in the landscape. There are still people out there doing cool stuff. What seems to have been affected by the “minimalism crisis” is mostly corporate design, which is actually great. It should be dull, ig. But even the people doing “cool stuff” often end up cluttering design in a bad way (eternity-long loading times, unnecessary JavaScript frameworks, infinite-scroll nonsense, and so on).
Then the exams happened. life happened. But these thoughts stayed with me.
I’ve been thinking of making my own site for a while now, where i could post all kinds of stupid shit. But i never had enough time or energy to commit to it. Until i found neocities. It’s like a small circle or a collective of really fun, colorful, retro looking websites, completely untouched by the professionalism crisis. Built by some really unique people who shared philosophy similar to mine. And the entire thing is open sourced, wow.
That’s when i decided that if i was going to make a personal site, it had to be in neocities. Even if i buy myself a domain someday, its gonna redirect there. In that way i’ll be actively promoting the fun part of the internet. And i think is a real cause.
So at that point i had to make a neocities website not just for the sake of building a personal website but to be part of a whole movement.
The Real “Real Reason”
I was part of the design team and the livestream team at India’s Largest FOSS Conference, IndiaFOSS 2025. After the conference, I saw a lot of people posting their experience on Linkedin, Instagram, Substack and other proprietary social media platforms. I had a really great time too, and i wanted to write about it too.
Now i wouldn’t wanna do that on a proprietary platform or build a blog site on top of a existing template, I’m a developer, and I think I’m a decent designer too. I knew enough to pick the right stack, so question wasn’t why I would build my own blog, but why I wouldn’t.
Also Carl Sagan once said:
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
