Launch Day: Why Did I Make This?
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February 1st, 2025
Today is the day that I finally launch my personal page, Mind Gone By. If you've come across this page by accident, you're probably thinking two things right now:
1. Holy shit, how old is this site?
2. Why the hell would you take your time to make something like this?
At least, that's what I assumed most people would think when they saw this site. When I first had the idea to begin coding this a few months ago, part of me kept telling myself that this was a stupid idea. I thought that maybe I had just gotten the nostalgia goggles on too tight again, and I should just get back to doing other things. As it turns out though, all of my friends who I've shown this to during its development have been really encouraging. I've been really eager to get this thing launched and to lay out in detail why I made this simple little page.
Back around August / September of 2024, I was dealing with some wild swings in my mental health. Over a period of a few weeks, I took some time to evaluate my life and figure out the things that were causing my mental distress. I won't go into too much detail here, because a lot of it is very personal and I don't really feel like putting that out in the open. But one of the things that I realized was that my time on the Internet simply wasn't fun anymore. I've always been more of a lurker during my years online, but I maintained a personal Facebook page since 2011 and dabbled in other sites such as Twitter, Letterboxd, and Reddit. Many of these sites had and continue to devolve into nothing but slop content, AI-generated garbage, and outrage bait that exists solely to bring out the worst in people. What little community I saw consisted of people insulting each other and putting people down. Algorithms constantly feed users these things to keep them wired to the site and engaging with content. There was no sense of fun anymore, no real humanity or sense of genuine connectivity with real users on the Internet. So, I decided to log off of what social media I used and take a step back for a while.
Around this same time, I made a purchase for myself. Ever since I was about 14 or 15 years old, I have wanted to buy the same model of PC that I had as a child: a Gateway tower running Windows 98. This was our family computer that we had for many years, and was the very first computer I ever used. We could never get dial-up where we lived, so I spent countless hours on that thing playing point and click games, writing in Word, and attempting to make art in Paint. It was severely outdated by the time I was in grade school, but I never really cared because most of our school computers were the same way. When my parents split up in 2008, my dad kept the old computer at the house. When he eventually sold the house and I got to take the computer to my mom's place, the motherboard got cracked in the move. I had wanted to replace it for years and years since I was so attached to it.
Fast forward to September of 2024 where, as an adult with some expendable money, I finally managed to purchase an old Gateway computer that was very similar to my childhood one. I got the monitor, keyboard, and mouse that came with it back in the day, and threw in the actual speakers from my childhood computer to finish it up. I initially bought the thing to play old games and take some walks down memory lane. The look, feel and sounds of computers and the Internet from the late 1990s are extremely nostalgic for me. It was all I had growing up both at home and at the computer lab in elementary school. It always makes me think of a future that never came to pass, where everyday users got together around the world to share information and come closer together as people.
One night while lying in bed trying to go to sleep, I started to think about the old Internet of the 1990s-2000s. There were no massive social media sites monopolizing the sites that we use every day, no AI bots flooding our browsing experience with artificial slop. The Internet used to be small forums and independent web pages made by actual humans. Normal people -geeks and hobbyists - with computers would simply make sites to express themselves and show off whatever interests they had. No one cared about clout or exposure or monetizing every single thing they did or posted. People simply created things to have fun and find people who were like them. It was quiet and personal, with some people in forums and webrings forming genuine connections with each other.
Suddenly, the idea hit me: why not just get rid of my social media and make myself an old-school personal page?
At first, I thought the idea sounded pretty dumb. I've always been under the assumption that the old Internet was long dead, buried by corporate sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, and any other social site. People didn't have to actually look for what they wanted anymore, as algorithms now did that job. I thought free-form expression online died with sites like MySpace and GeoCities. But before the idea left my head, I jotted down some notes of what I would maybe want a personal site to be like for me: an index of my two biggest hobbies (movies and books), a blog for my personal writings, and made in a style that would fit the aesthetic of other no-budget independent sites in the 1990s.
I ran the idea by my girlfriend the next day, expecting her to tease me or call me a hipster for it. To my surprise, she said, "You should do it!" I ran the idea by a few other friends, explaining how I felt so alienated by the modern internet and wanted to make a corner that would be all my own. They also encouraged me to chase this idea. Realizing that I may be onto something, I began the process. I deleted my Twitter, Instagram and Letterboxd accounts, logged off of Reddit, completely cleared my YouTube feed and history, and logged off of my Facebook account. Cut off from the sites that were stressing me out, I began the process of building this site.
Throughout October, November and December of 2024, I taught myself HTML using W3Schools' tutorial and a couple of old reference books I found at a secondhand store. I completely indexed my movie and book collections so I could later write my personal thoughts about two hobbies I love so much. You can read a little bit about my work process on the My Setup page.
During the process of building this site, I discovered NeoCities, which aimed to be the spiritual successor to what GeoCities did back in the day. I saw thousands of personal web pages made by people who seemed to feel similar to me and decided to make their own corners of the Internet. I found Nekoweb, ran by a team of independent programmers, which aimed to do the same thing. I found things like the IndieWeb, Yesterweb, and other pages of users that aimed to bring back the independent expression that the old Internet had. I saw comments from people on these sites as well as YouTube videos where people were getting the idea to make personal pages. I realized something: the old Internet is still there; you just have to look for it.
So, why did I make this site? I made Mind Gone By to be a form of expression that was all my own, away from the social media slop that permeates so much of the Internet and the world at large. It's also been a great hobby to keep up on that helps improve my mental health. One goal that I would like to fulfill with this site is to reach out and find other users out there who feel the same way as I do, and make a webring of sorts to encourage people to get involved. I feel like modern social media alienates so many people and negatively affects people's mental health and outlooks on life. I'd like to try to encourage more people to disconnect from these larger, often-toxic sites and instead create a space all for themselves about what they like. People could regroup in smaller, healthier communities and create something new and positive. Rediscovering independent hobby pages, interest sites and forums made by regular people has been so much fun. The old Internet will never truly be "back" in the mainstream, but it continues to thrive in its own quiet communities on the indie web. I would like to encourage people to keep that going, and maybe we can make the Internet fun and interesting to use again. If you feel similar to me, or have a similar story to share, please feel free to e-mail me! I plan on using this site for years to come, and I hope we can create something great in the future.