The slides from a lovely talk by Ana with an important message:
By having your own personal website you are as indie web as it gets. That’s right. Whether you participate in the IndieWeb community or not: by having your own personal website you are as indie web as it gets.
It’d be best to publish your work in some evergreen space where you control the domain and URL. Then publish on masto-sky-formerly-known-as-linked-don and any place you share and comment on.
You don’t have to change the world with every post. You might publish a quick thought or two that helps encourage someone else to try something new, listen to a new song, or binge-watch a new series.
Also, developers:
Write and publish before you write your own static site generator or perfect blogging platform. We have lost billions of good writers to this side quest because they spend all their time working on the platform instead of writing.
Designers, the same advice applies to you: write first, come up with that perfect design later.
While I’ve grown more cynical about much of tech, movements like the Indieweb and the Fediverse remind me that the ideals I once loved, and that spirit of the early web, aren’t lost. They’re evolving, just like everything else.
I have a richer picture of the group of people in my feed reader than I did of the people I regularly interacted with on social media platforms like Instagram.
If you only write when you’re sure you’ll produce brilliance, you’ll never write.
This rhymes nicely with Mandy’s recent piece on POSSE:
Despite its challenges, POSSE is extremely empowering for those of us who wish to cultivate our own corners of the web outside of the walled gardens of the major tech platforms, without necessarily eschewing them entirely. I can maintain a presence on the platforms I enjoy and the connections I value with the people there, while still retaining primary control over the things that I write and freedom from those platforms’ limitations.
While one of the reasons oft declared for using POSSE is the ability to own your content, I’m less interested in ownership than I am in context. Writing on my own site has very different affordances: I’m not typing into a little box, but writing in a text file. I’m not surrounded by other people’s thinking, but located within my own body of work. As I played with setting this up, I could immediately feel how that would change the kinds of things I would say, and it felt good. Really good. Like putting on a favorite t-shirt, or coming home to my solid, quiet house after a long time away.
Mandy’s writing positively soars and sings in this beautiful piece!
This is a terrific presentation from Paul. He gives a history lesson and then focuses on what makes the indie web such a powerful idea (hint: it’s not about specific technologies).
What an excellent personal website!
Exploring the graphic design history of Penguin books:
The covers presented on this site are all from my own collection of about 1400 Penguins, which have been chosen for the beauty or interest of their cover designs. They span the history of the company all the way back to 1935 when Penguin Books was launched.
So the human web, the people net, the your-net. Whatever it is called, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that it is yours, if you want it. If you’re tired of the conglomerate-net, disgusted by the commercialised web, sick of being the product, allergic to The Algorithm, then you can have something else. Something of your own.
You want to upload your artwork? Write fanfic? World build? Document your developing Sistrum-playing skills? Discuss your experiences slice-of-life style? Experiment with poetry?
Do it.
Use wordpress if you want. Use Blogger. Hell, use Frontpage 98 if you want. Or learn some HTML And CSS and type it all up in notepad.exe. Or just HTML, don’t even bother with the CSS. Just make it yours.
In our current digital landscape, where a corporate algorithm tells us what to read, watch, drink, eat, wear, smell like, and sound like, human curation of the web is an act of revolution. A simple list of hyperlinks published under a personal domain name is subversive.
After the last decade, where platforms have emerged as a core constituent of the web on which many rely, it may feel like things cannot change. That the giants are so big that there is no other way. Yet, to give into this feeling – that things can’t change – is not necessary. It is the way it is is not true on the web. We can make change. It’s your web.
Kelly has made a beautiful book:
Experience the lives of the first Japanese Americans in the Pacific Northwest through the cartoons and illustrations by Sam Goto
Manu’s book is available to pre-order now. I’ve had a sneak peek and I highly recommend it!
You’ll learn how to build common patterns written accessibly in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You’ll also start to understand how good and bad practices affect people, especially those with disabilities.
Speaking of zines, I really like Benjamin’s ideas about a web-first indie web zine: using print stylesheets with personal websites to make something tangible but webby.
Co-signed!
If the web is now a metaphorical barren wasteland, pillaged by commercial interests and growth-at-all-costs management consultants, then I’m all the more motivated to keep my little patch of land lush, and green, and filled with rainbow flowers.
So, feel free to stop by any time and stay as long as you like. I won’t track you, make you look at ads, ask you to download my app, harass you with popups, suggest you sign up for my newsletter or push you through a sales funnel. Enjoy the garden, and the peace 💐.
Things can be different:
The core value of the IndieWeb, individual empowerment, helped me realise a fundamental change in perspective: that the web was beautiful and at times difficult, but that we, the people, were in control.
Craig and Jason are walking the walk here:
- Build your own damn platform.
- Treat social media like the tool it is.
- Build your technical skills.
An in-depth look at Indie Web Camp Brighton with some suggestions for improving future events. Also, this insightful nugget:
There was something really energising about being with a group of people that had a diverse range of backgrounds, ideas, and interests, but who all shared a specific outlook on one problem space. We definitely didn’t all agree on what the ideal solution to a given problem was, but we were at least approaching topics from a similar starting point, which was great.