Yep, I’m riffing on Gita Jackson’s excellent Aftermath piece, “For The Love of God, Make Your Own Website,” encapsulated here:
Unfortunately, this is what all of the internet is right now: social media, owned by large corporations that make changes to them to limit or suppress your speech, in order to make themselves more attractive to advertisers or just pursue their owners’ ends. Even the best Twitter alternatives, like Bluesky, aren’t immune to any of this—the more you centralize onto one single website, the more power that website has over you and what you post there. More than just moving to another website, we need more websites.
If you have the technical wherewithal, you should definitely make a website, even just a static one using Blake Watson’s most excellent HTML for People guide.
But whether you make a website or not, the essential corollary is to visit other people’s websites, directly and intentionally, or at the very least via an RSS reader. Take some of the time you’d normally spend scrolling through social media, and spend it on people’s websites instead. Let yourself fall down a rabbit hole of links again and remember what it was like to discover a new part of the web.
Here are some off-the-beaten-path websites I’ve been digging:
- Virtual Moose: Neat indie games and links to other parts of the indie web.
- i am a rat: An unusual indie game recommendation every day.
- GamingOnLinux: A scan-the-headlines kind of site with a lot of informative game launch news whether you have a Steam Deck or not.
- The Hiro Report: Weekly apps and tech recommendations in a breezy style.
- App Addict: Indie app recommendations for Mac and iOS (but mostly Mac).
- Morning Music: Daily songs with an emphasis on jazz fusion and smooth jazz, a lot from from Japan.
- Pinstripes Nation: Reminds me of Apple news reblogs that were so prevalent back in the day, but for New York Yankees news.