personal websites and indie social media

with the new meta (facebook/instagram) guidelines literally sending to hell specifically lgbt people I realized that yeah, this anti-trans and anti-lgbt thing really is becoming a tendency in mainstream social media. in our current society where what happens in social media affects directly into the real world, and all this far-right parties rising, it says a lot of where this is all slowly going. and not only as a trans person but an human with empathy I fucking hate it

so I started to think, what we can do? or at least what to do to just not be silently part of that madness that all is becoming. and I inmediately thought on personal websites and these type of indie social media like here.

personal websites where very popular in the 90s/2000s. I'm 20 so I didn't experience them in their peak, but couple years ago I made my own on neocities. personal websites are in short a website where you put whatever you like. it's a blank canvas, where the limits are just your imagination (and your HTML/CSS coding skills). so, it is infinitely customizable, in contrast of this tendency mainstream social media been having during the years to make your profile less and less customizable.

I think customization is something very important to your identity, and not just inside the internet, life in general. simple things as having your own clothing style, put stickers of things you like on your things, put pins on your backpack; this all is put a little of yourself into the world. but now that the internet is a fundamental part of the world, this ability to put yourself and express yourself in it has been somewhat restringed. all has an structure, same profiles where you can customize just your pic, name and bio.

so, in short, personal websites are a very good way of self expression without limits. the only bad thing is that learning HTML/CSS can be hard in the beggining for people. it would be good a tool to make websites just like carrd or strawpage for begginer people.

but yeah, personal websites can be kinda overwhelming and chaotic sometimes. too much freedom can have you in a state of "what do I do now", just like in minecraft survival. so, here comes indie social media, like here! structures are already made, and they can be similar to mainstream social media, but the difference with them is usually the customization and the de-toxification of shit (ads, AI, hate).