Why does this site exist?
Excellent question! Why does any site exist?
To answer shortly, this site exists because it can!
To answer longly, travel back with me, if you will, to the distant days of the early 90s...
I grew up in the 1990s, when the Internet was just beginning to gain usefulness and popularity.
It certainly existed before that point, in a more limited format, but I was lucky enough to witness its Cambrian Explosion.
By most accounts, the Internet was a lawless land. And by "lawless", I don't mean hopelessly criminal (though crime was definitely present back then as well, just in more subtle, innovative ways).
Rather, the Internet felt "lawless" in a "there are no rules, anything goes" kind of way, which really built an atmosphere of zany creativity over everything.
Unfortunately, I wasn't old enough to have my own website at that time, but I could definitely tell that the Internet was being made by people, individuals, all making their own way through cyberspace the best that they could.
After a while, corporations began to root up through the ground, and gobbled their way through the various disparate communities. These corporations promised consistency and efficiency, which the Internet was sorely lacking.
I'm not going to say that the Internet is worse for having become more uniform, because it has become a powerful tool, indespensable for its cultural and historical value.
But looking back, I am just in awe of the charm and personality that every website exuded, and I sorely miss that component of what made the Internet so irresistable.
Like, sure, the websites of the 90s were limited in certain ways, restricted by the capabilities of HTML and the Internet's infrastructure. Those limitations were painfully obvious in retrospect - just look at any article about "90s websites" and you'll see.
But it is a universal truth that limitation breeds human creativity. The citizens of the early 'net did not see restrictions; they saw potential, and every new addition to the Internet only served to expand the possibilities.
They catered to their own niche audiences, and people bonded over small forums and pop culture shrines.
Now, even as we are connected by social media platforms offering mass appeal and infinite reach, the capability to express ourselves through every medium possible, in an age when random nobodies become household names, it feels to me like the individuality has all but disappeared.
I won't spend any further time bemoaning the issues of the modern Internet. I just want to revel in the glory of the Golden Era of the World Wide Web.
I want to return to an era where every person builds a website from the ground up, carved out of the digital bedrock as a reflection of its owners own style and interests.
I share this mentality with thousands of other budding (and veteran) website developers across the globe, and I want to do my part to bring about the revival of the "personal website".
This is my effort, my contribution, my digital heart and soul.
This is my website.