Website? Get with the times man! Get on TikTok!

  Howdy!

   I am sure exactly none of y’all are wondering why i made a website. But I am here to tell y’all anyway! Growing up, my dad owned a web design company that he built from the ground up. I have always been interested in websites, the internet, graphic design, and general creative pursuits largely in part to his influence! Some of my oldest computer-centric memories were to show me some of his flash animations, a website he was working on, or to let me mess around on MS Paint.

  When i was a little bit older, my dad let me create my very own website, which i named after a cat that Doofenshmirtz had picked up from an episode of Phineas and Ferb. It was a fun creative experiment and i learned a lot from it. I recall hosting an art competition for my friends on the site, which turned out… odd.

  I have a friend (let's call her A), for the whole of my life that i can remember, has always been an amazing artist. She was one of my friends who joined the art tournament, and as usual what she drew (A witch/mage with a glowing green crystal if i recall correctly) blew everyone away. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that she was going to be the first-prize winner of the tournament, but that's where we ran into an issue.

  The way the competition was set up, everyone could send me a picture of their art over Skype if they wanted to compete, and after a week or two to allow time for everyone who wanted to join, all my friends and i voted for which ones we would rank as our top 3 favorites. The winner ended up being my father, who mashed together and recolored a bunch of images in photoshop to make a rainbow knight with a pancake standard. By any metric A should have won, but my dad beat her out, much to his surprise.

  Now, how does this relate back to why i made this website? It doesn't. I just remembered that story for the first time in years and decided to write it down.

  A while after i stopped updating my first website, my dad and i decided to make a new one. This site, which we still have plans for, was going to be something akin to an ARG, just without the game portion. We were inspired both by our shared interest in conspiracy theories as well as the SCP wiki, which we have attempted (and failed) to write an article for. (Dad, if you are reading this, we should give that another shot. I think we can come up with something good.)

  After my little brother Phoenix died, all of our lives came to a halt. Maybe i will write about him some other time. It might be nice to put all of my thoughts down like that. Something for me to consider. One of the things that stopped dead in its tracks was our website development plans. It just wasn't important anymore in the face of what we were and are still going through.

  After some time, which i spent most of in deep dissociation and creating art, i decided that i wanted to take another crack at creating a website. I had tried to keep up several social media accounts, but those never really worked out. My feed was also just full of trash that tried to pull my attention away from anything important, beautiful, and worthwhile and drag my soul into the depths of hell. I was sick of my online time consisting of the same 3 websites and the absolute mental drain that is called “content” in this day and age.

  During a youtube binge session, I came across someone talking about this free web hosting service called “NeoCities” which claimed to imitate a now defunct service that i had heard my parents reminiscing about from time to time called GeoCities. I was intrigued by both my vague familiarity with the concept and with the prefix “Neo”.

  And so, here we are. My first fully solo web project, and my little space to post my ramblings on the world wide web. Since the creation of this site, I have spent less time on social media and a lot more slamming my head into a wall instead of sleeping while i attempt to learn CSS. That being said, i have enjoyed the experience so far. I actually really suggest for anyone who might be interested, make a website! It doesn't have to be fancy or hold up to anyone else’s standards. Its yours and yours alone. Go make cool stuff, don't stop learning new things. Don't let the slog of social media and the news take the creativity and beauty out of life for you. Make something cool, and if you want, bring it back here and show me! I would love to see it!

  God Bless
    ~Not a Finch