Well, here's the first post. Despite this website being "two years old", and our own venture with the slow development of a neocities for our paracosm, this is really the first time we've ever really tried NeoCities and its expansive communities. It's been probably... a week or so since we've started this website out. Already, I've discovered webrings, fan lists, and Petz. As well as other trinkets, like websites' buttons, guest books, shrines, and more. Not to mention just browsing people's websites and seeing how different everyone is. It is all horribly fun. This bunch of homebrew communities and customization is something much of the social aspect of the internet is missing.
Tumblr had a very fun option of customization-- and still do. It was like if neociites was... a small blog. But the community on there was scary. Since information could be so easily passed down, dramas were easily spread like wildfire. Call outs and discourse were a normal thing. We say "were" like it doesn't happen still.. in truth I deleted my blog. I did try to come back for the alterhuman community but the stress of the discourses got to me again. Twitter carries on this toxic spirit.. just with the lack of customizable options (oversharing carrd do not count). In fact, Twitter feeds off of arguments and negativity. The more attention a post gets, the more it goes around, the more notifications the user gets, the more dopamine one may recieve. It's a neverending addiction that includes a terrible side effects to everyone. Of course we're probably blowing things out of porpotion, but at least it feels like that. I'm an avid Twitter user, but I know it has really effected and overwhelmed me.
The fact that Twitter is unhealthy adds to why we are here on this little website. There's probably still some toxicity here, but it seems more avoidable. Out of all the neocities website browsing, I have not seen one website that has made me feel negative. Therefore, the biggest hope we have is to be able to slowly move away from using twitter and more onto this pretend retro space. It may be just replacing one addiction with another, but we hope this little addiction will be a lot less mentally damaging than the social medias (that were MADE to be harmfully addicting).
Update May 2nd, 2022: this interview with Will Wood starts off with a great talk about why social media is unhealthy.Link to the interview