One Year On the Small Web (Better Late Than Never!)

May 4th, 2026

Man, I'm really late on posting this one! I originally meant have this written and ready to post back on February 1st, and I was all set to do so until writer's block decided to infiltrate my life once again. After yet another three-month break, I'm finally back in the saddle and ready to try my best at writing again. February 1st was sort of a special day, as it marked the one-year anniversary of the launch of this site! It's a little hard for me to believe that that much time has passed so quickly; in fact, as I finally finish this writing, it's been fifteen months since this site went online. To celebrate the occasion, I just wanted to write a page looking back on how 2025 went, what life changes I made in that time, and what 2026 holds for me.

If there's one big lesson I learned in 2025, it's this: while consistency is something you should strive for when starting a new hobby, it's important to not turn it into a job or obligation. When I first started Mind Gone By, I had this big plan to write and post as much as I could and give any potential visitors plenty of things to read. I had a lot of ambition in the beginning, but I clearly underestimated how difficult it would be to try to balance constant writing with the duties of a full-time job, relationships with family and friends, and the occasional financial struggle - not to mention how badly mental fatigue and writer's block would eventually rear their ugly heads to halt my progress. I've written enough about that by now though, so I won't repeat all of it here. I do think that last year was great for getting a feel of what it's like to be more consistently creative, even if I didn't write a damn thing for the last three months of it. In 2025, I wrote entries for a total of 56 movies and 23 books. That's a lot smaller of a number than I had originally hoped to complete, and if I'm being honest, I'm not too happy with some of them. My early writeups were very short and lacking in detail because I was simply trying to get pages made to have them up on launch day. This is pretty evident if you look at any of the ones in the 0-9 category, since I was writing them in the order that they're in on the Index page. When I changed plans and decided to watch and write about whatever I felt most interested in at the time, I do think that they slowly improved, and I may go back and rewrite some of the early ones at a later date. I may have fallen way short of my initial goal, but for my first year at trying something new, I'm pretty happy with what I was able to accomplish.

Aside from launching and working on this website, my biggest goal of 2025 was to change many of my unhealthy personal habits. I normally don't like to brag on myself, but this is one area where I'm pretty proud of what I was able to change. Just two years ago, the Internet basically consumed my life. I spent uncountable hours doomscrolling Facebook, Twitter and Reddit feeds, reading Wikipedia pages or Internet drama forums, and watching endless hours of YouTube videos. All of the constant negativity and anger that got sent my way via algorithms completely tanked my emotions and stressed me out, which I also wrote about in my very first blog post. Deleting all of my social media accounts last year certainly helped to put me more in touch with the real world, but any time I had a free moment, I still felt my hand drifting toward my phone to look something up to read. When I switched back to using a flip phone last August, it really helped to focus my ever-wandering attention on the things in my immediate surroundings. It's been nine months since I made the switch, and I'm so glad that I did! My free time is now spent actually enjoying many hobbies that I neglected for a long time. I read a lot more books now, and I take more time to enjoy small and simple things, such as watching birds and other wildlife as I eat my lunch at work. Getting rid of my smartphone also allowed me to double down on my collecting of physical media. I frequently visit record stores to buy new CDs and vinyl to listen to, and when I want to find a new movie to watch, I make a trip to the video store to browse the shelves. My connections with my friends and family feel much stronger with less distractions, and I love the social aspect of browsing around stores and talking with people who share my interests. The world can be a pretty fun place when you're not constantly being reminded of meaningless nonsense and things that are occurring that you have absolutely no control over. If this is what "living in the past" is like, then count me in for life.

When I do use the Internet, it's almost exclusively at home on my desktop computer. I've blocked access to sites such as YouTube and Reddit with a password that I hid in my house, and since I don't have any profiles anywhere, social media is completely off the table for me. My browsing experience is now much more akin to how I remember it being when I was young - meaning it's now focused on actually browsing and exploring rather than having what I like pumped directly to me. I don't use any Google services anymore, and instead use DuckDuckGo, Marginalia, Wiby, and even web directories both old and new to look for sites related to my interests. Admittedly, sometimes it is harder to find the things that I'm looking for, but the experience of digging through links and exploring what each page has to offer is part of what made going online so fun in the past. My favorite things to look for are vintage pages from the heyday of the early Web that are still around to read, as well as small forums that are dedicated to what I like, such as the Laserdisc Database or Universal Monster Army. It's also a lot of fun to simply use the Websites tabs on Neocities and Nekoweb to browse around for other personal pages, and it gives me plenty of things to add to my Cool Sites page. While the surface-level, corporate-dominated Web is a toxic hellhole that is built on mindless consumption and outrage, the so-called small Web is a much more quiet and positive space that prioritizes creativity and self-expression. I love being a part of this corner of the Internet, and every time I find a rough-looking personal page made by a random person teaching themselves how to code, it brings me a little bit of joy to know that the spirit of the old Web really does live on.

So, what does 2026 hold for me? Now that I feel like I've finally managed to get over my massive spout of writer's block, my goal for the rest of the year is to try to be more consistent with what my writing. I'd like to be able to post a page a week - if I can't make it weekly, I'd like to only go two weeks or so without getting something posted. I want to try to alternate subjects every week - a movie one week, a book the next, and a blog post sprinkled in here and there. I feel like if I could get into the habit of writing even a little bit every day, it should be perfectly manageable to do so. I don't really care about the number of pages that I get up anymore - as long as I can hit that weekly goal and am having fun doing so, that's all that matters. I do have one larger project on my to-do list, and that's another director marathon. Last year I did a big watch-through of the horror films of Lucio Fulci, and this year I'd like to cover another legend of Italian horror, Dario Argento! I'm not entirely sure when that's going to start, since I still have two or three movies of his that I need to buy before I start covering them. But as soon as I get those and have the time to get started, I'll be here and ready to share my love of another master of horror.

I think that's about it for this one. As always, thanks for reading all of the random nonsense that I post on here. I'm never sure how many people actually look at this site - Hell, I'd be surprised if it was more than just a few dozen at this point. But if you took the time to read anything on here or even link to my page in some way or another, I just wanted to say thank you so much. It's been a fun year online, and here's to many more!