I miss the anonymous, personalized Internet

It has been so cathartic and therapeutic to browse through this website and see all the cool things that other people are doing with their profiles. It takes me back to a time when life seemed so much more simple. We didn't have to worry about 'likes' and attention, or trying to influence and monetize. We could just be ourselves. We could show ourselves for who we truly are, but we could also hide behind a screen name, instead of being forced to use our real names.

Customization was king. The Internet is far too sterile now. It feels like everything is supposed to be contained in a neat, tidy box, and you're all but forbidden to break form. Sure, things were a mess a lot of the time. A lot of websites could be incredibly difficult and confusing to navigate and were messy, but goddamn do I miss how much more 'real' it felt. I just want a happy medium, ya know? Social media makes it easy to search for things and people that you want to find, but Xanga and MySpace used to make it fun to genuinely meet people. You could find random people that you thought seemed cool and foster true friendships. There are actually still people that I keep in contact with whom I met back then.

And blogging! I've missed this so much! My own little personal diary where I could just spill my guts to the world, even if nobody else ever saw it! Facebook ruined everything. Fuck Facebook. I just discovered this website that was created in 2013 called Neocities. It doesn't have an affiliation with the old Geocities site, but it looks like it operates in the same manner. You can create and discover homesteads. I created an account, and I think I'm going to give it a try. Again, even if nobody else ever sees it, it will be my own, little, personal space.

I'm getting giddy at the thought of taking back control. I want freedom and customization again. I want to be able to express myself in the ways that I want, and SpaceHey is a fantastic step in the right direction. I feel a little more at peace right now.