Build Personal Websites
What’s going on, Internet? The 32-Bit Cafe had a good discussion going the other morning about personal websites and how they exist outside of professional web development. One question that came up: does the existence of wikis and fandom sites discourage people from building their own?
I think they serve different purposes, but I get why someone might look at a fully built-out wiki and think, why bother? I feel it myself sometimes when I get an idea for a cool mini site and find someone’s already built out a whole wiki on it. Everything’s already there. But that’s exactly the problem with wikis, everything’s already there, and it’s been scrubbed clean. Fern made the point well: so much of the modern web is sanitised to avoid offence, and wikis are the worst offender. All the personality gets edited out. You’re left with facts, and nothing else.
Xandra put it well: “Tell me about how your worldview shapes your family movie time or how your travel experience reshaped your perspective on a certain film. I want to read the human experience, not just what’s ‘correct.’” That’s what personal websites do that wikis can’t. There’s no correct interpretation on your own site. You’re not writing for consensus.
Fan sites are a great example of this done right. They start from a shared subject; a band, a show, a film, but they go somewhere personal. It’s Not Stupid-It’s Advanced! is an Invader Zim fan site by Key that I love. Coby’s A Visit to the Neverland Valley Ranch and DVDNerd’s Push Button Reviews are both brilliant. These are websites that make the web genuinely better to surf.
If you want to build a website but don’t know where to start, a fan site is the answer. Pick something you care about — anything — and start writing about it. Forget the design, forget the domain for now. Content is the thing. A beautiful website with nothing to say is the worst outcome.
Neocities is the obvious place to start, and the 32-Bit Cafe will help you get going with building your own site. If you build something, let me know, I’d love to see it.
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