On Web Revival

This is a term I see often, since I've started browsing a certain corner of the Internet, the one that includes Neocities and similar such places based around early web nostalgia. I was led into this retro-web when I began browsing the Agora Road forum, which I was introduced to by someone on the Discord server of the YouTuber Formscapes, who makes videos about spirituality and unorthodox science. 

The nostalgic old-web aesthetic full of its gorgeous pixels, sharply defined repeating patterns, shamelessly filling backgrounds and adorning the interface. The defining characteristic: integration. And there's a consensus among the entities here, felt, that the Internet in general should be like this. They imagine each person as independent, probably having their own website instead of relying on monopolized social media. The image is of a discernible netscape with communities and people integrated and separated by the structure of the Internet itself.

I know intuitively that intentional social reforms do not happen. "Movements" that spring from a mutual image of a shared ideal do not reflect actual change. They're a reaction. As if people are going to willingly adopt the nostalgic 2002 Internet aesthetic and use brash crystalline graphics. The entire Internet will just become Neocities. Certainly, this is the image that dwells in their heads, whether or not they actually believe it. It drives their desire. Many of them, especially the Zoomers among them, are primarily aesthetically motivated. To restore the nostalgia-aesthetic (a redundant term) to present would overwrite those memories and remove the aesthetic. But society does not have any will to return to things it knows are old. It doesn't ever flow backwards. There's a reason things are how they are now. Corporate Social Media is successful because people prefer it. Twitter and Tiktok are more convenient and most importantly they're addictive. All the automation and sensory overload is preferable to the minds of most people, and having social groups concentrated on a few central websites is simply more practical for the average person. Browsing: if someone links their profiles, Twitter is going to be clicked on first, not Tulmlr, and certainly not some personal site. This is undeniable. It provides more context, more information, social interactions, allowing for rapid spread. There's no point trying to neuter the natural function of these monopolies.

Likewise, small communities will always be primary producers, but they will always be relegated to obscure corners, because they garner specific people who combine their efforts to concretize ideas and form cultural motifs which will trickle to the masses. This doesn't happen consistently.  Cultural trends are not predictable, and you can't force them to be. In general, you have to be dedicated in order to have a reason to differ, which is why the only people actually participating in the retro-web are the ones with a particular interest, the attraction to the idea and the aesthetic, and the general desire to customize, in a word, artists. It will always be a beacon for the specific type of person, which is why it's the way it is now. The individuality they desire to spread is a projection of their own character, which is an oxymoronic effort that will never come to bear.

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