The internet used to be a place you had to travel to. You’d sit down at the family computer, wait for the dial-up to connect or later for the clunky DSL to load, and then you were online. It was an event, something that happened in a fixed spot—like the big beige PC in the living room, or in my sister’s room where I’d sneak in when she wasn’t there. You weren’t always connected, and that limitation made it feel like stepping into another world rather than just existing in one endless, invisible feed that hums in the background of your entire life.
I miss that internet.
My first taste of social media was Myspace, and it felt electric. Not because it was perfect (it wasn’t—it broke constantly), but because it was yours. You didn’t just fill out a profile picture and a header and call it done. You built it. You learned HTML without even realizing you were learning it; copying bits of code from some shady-looking fan page, pasting it into your bio, breaking everything, panicking, and then figuring it out anyway. It wasn’t smooth or intuitive, and that’s exactly why it felt alive. Your page was an extension of you: messy, overdecorated, glitter GIFs, bad fonts, autoplay songs that annoyed everyone but you. It was imperfect and human in a way today’s internet refuses to be.
Now, it’s all flattened. You get a square profile photo, a tiny bio, and maybe a banner if the platform is feeling generous. Everything looks the same, feels the same. We’ve been herded onto sites that aren’t even “ours”, we’re just passing through, renting space on someone else’s server, posting into someone else’s algorithm. The personalization is fake. It’s a pre-fab box where they let you choose between two wall colors and call it freedom.
And what fills those boxes? Ads dressed as content, content dressed as ads, influencers recycling trends that last two weeks before evaporating. The entire system is built to keep you scrolling, not to let you express anything or connect with anyone real. I don’t even think we browse anymore... we’re just fed things until we’re too numb to notice how much time has passed. It’s like the world’s least entertaining form of telemarketing, except we signed up for it willingly.
I don’t want to be stuck in that.
I want to remember what it felt like to log in and log off. I want the internet to be something you visit again, something with walls and doors instead of an infinite hallway you can never leave. That’s why I built this page for computers, not phones! ... because I want it to feel like sitting down at that old family desktop, claiming a few hours to yourself, losing track of time because you’re tinkering with something that’s yours, not because an app is keeping you hostage.
And honestly, I want smallness again. I used to be on this tiny Slovenian emo forum back in the early 2000s. There were maybe thirty of us (tops!) and even fewer who posted regularly. We didn’t know each other in person, and we never met up, but it felt like a real community; like our own little online village with its own rhythms and jokes and rituals. It wasn’t about reach or engagement or going viral. It was about showing up in a place no one else really knew about and feeling like you belonged there, even if it was just a handful of usernames on a screen.
I know the internet isn’t going back to that. Things have changed too much. But I don’t want to just accept the version of it we’re being handed now, either. We’re entering some new era of the web (maybe we’re already deep in it) and it feels like everything is tightening, closing in, becoming less ours with every update and every algorithm tweak. I don’t know exactly what’s coming, but I have this gut feeling that I’d rather step aside from it entirely and make something for myself, even if it’s small and no one else ever stumbles across it.
So that’s what this page is. It’s not here to grow, or to game engagement, or to “build a brand”. It’s just mine. Something I can point to and say: "I made this, and it’s exactly how I wanted it to be." No ads. No algorithms. No infinite scroll. Just a little carved out corner of the internet that I can call home, even if I’m the only one who ever visits.
I’m not here to chase an audience or to convince anyone else to do the same. This isn’t a trend or a movement. It’s just me, stepping out of the feed and planting a flag in my own quiet patch of digital dirt. Even if it stays empty, even if no one ever wanders in, I’ll still be here, tending to it. Because I’d rather be alone in a space I built than lost in one I never owned to begin with ...