struggles in website creation

01/11/2023

she's almost ready for true debut!!!! the website creation process has been so gruelling but so rewarding for me so far. i was never good with html, but i thought i picked a few things up in high school from editing tumblr themes. turns out i was wrong!!! i knew basically nothing!!! really, i still know next to nothing, but working with code and experimenting as i go has been sooooo much fun. honestly, diving into neocities, i kind of figured it'd be like tumblr with lots of layout makers having a bunch up for use. and while there were still some (thank u awhe and sadgrl for my life), there was a lot less of "here i did all the work for you just input your little colours and backgrounds" and a lot more of "here's guides on html so you can learn and make what you like!" the same kind of giving spirit but in a way that's meant to engage the users creativity more, which i think is a very good thing!

that being said... i am lazy and dumb, so i still jumped at the chance to start from a mold and build around that. which i think worked better for me anyway, because i'm horrible at sitting down and reading instructions, but i'm great at learning as i go. the type that skips the tutorial in video games and then learns what the aim button is 20 minutes later. in the future, i hope to have worked with this spaghetti code so much that i get actually good at html and can attempt to make my own, but for now, i'm happy with what i've created and eternally grateful for the help that made it possible (including the kind soul on reddit when i was having issues with my index iframe).

during the process, i was really struggling to remember why i had such rich nostalgia for the oldweb style of neocities. being born in 1998, i caught early internet from a childs perspective. i definitely wasn't browsing geocities or working in html at all. most of my memories of that time come from playing browser games (runescape, club penguin, meez), playing dress up games, or engaging with the forums on stardoll. but after scrolling through and saving blinkies and stamps i realized "oh, this is literally what i used to do on piczo." i don't think about piczo too often because it was early, EARLY internet days for me, but i had so much fun costumizing my site on there as a kid! and they had so many graphics and gifs similar to what you find on neocities now! that, and my habit of hoarding cool text gifs on msn (much to the discretion of my friends, who had to try and decipher a message with 40 gifs of letters moving around).

going forward, i'm excited to have a place to dump thoughts and stuff i'm working on. i used to have a lot of fun making gifs and edits on tumblr, and i hope to get into that kind of stuff through stamps and blinkies too. i've been plotting adding a "the reader" section to the sitemap for stuff that people can save and take, but i don't want to put it up without anything to go in it. considering i'm still in school too, i'm not sure how committed i'll be to that anyways. maybe it'll never happen! who knows!

before i wrap up, i want to say a quick note about the diary and how it'll operate. i think i'll probably treat it as more of a discourse-dumping area than a real "diary," though i'd like to engage with some of those feelings to the best of my ability too. i already know i'd like to write up something regarding media and its effect on reality, or the ol' proship vs antiship debate. i'd also like to post some thoughts on whatever the media i'm engaging with at the time is. right now, i'm rereading jane eyre by charlotte brontë and the great gatsby by f. scott fitzgerald, both for class. i read them both in high school but looking at them with more academic eyes has been refreshing and fun! i'm also currently watching spy x family s2, i'm in love with the villaness, and chainsaw man. my currently reading BL list is too long to get into but i'm really enjoying punch drunk love !

thanks for reading!

the deal - mitski