if you're like me, you got a little taste of geocities as a kid before yahoo pulled the plug on it in 2009. if you're like me, you heard someone started a revival effort called neocities, and thought "aww, that’s nice" without looking into it any further. you maybe visited the neocites homepage once and figured it would take too much time/effort to learn html to make a decent website for yourself, and why would you do that when you already have social media? what is there to gain? it sounds hard, and you have better things to do with your time...
but do you really? does making a personal site need a cost-benefit analysis? what the past me (and maybe you too, sorry i'll stop speaking for you,) didn't realize was, NEOCITIES IS REALLY FUN???? i think there's just a small barrier to entry that stops people from reaching the fun part--and i don't mean learning to build a site!!! because i don't think that's universally fun!!!!!! but the amount of self-expression happening on neocities makes it SUCH A JOY to browse. i think here in 2024 it's harder to realize you can just wander the internet without a specific goal, and without an algorithm to throw it all at you. (i mean, you're here on cohost so i'm sure you get it!!)
the old web you may or may not have nostalgia for is still alive in a new form and you don't have to keep sitting here lamenting the current state of the internet (bad). you can just go on neocities and see a thousand little handmade websites of people sharing things they care about. it's amazing. i'm legitimately so sad that i skipped out this place for so long, because i wrongly thought there was nothing for me in there!!!
so i have written a beginner's guide to enjoying neocities. i'm still completely new to it (i only started building my site 2 weeks ago) so i don't even know that much, but i really really wanted to share how to have fun browsing sites at least because YOU CAN JUST DO THAT!! I THINK IT'S HARD TO REMEMBER YOU CAN JUST CLICK ON THINGS AND GO ANYWHERE!!!!! please let me tell you how because this has been my new favorite hobby and i want everyone to experience the fun!!!!!!!!!!!
step 1: DO NOT make a website (yet!)
this was my first mistake. the first time i made a neocities account was ~2 years ago. i thought it would be nice to make a website to put things on that was detached from social media, because i had JUST left twitter. there are social aspects to neocities though--you can follow other users and when they update their site it will show up on your feed. i planned to ignore all that stuff and just use it to make a website...
i knew what HTML looked like and had a baseline understanding of CSS from customizing my gaia online profile back in the day. so i made an account, and tried to make a site right away using their in-browser text editor. do not do this. it makes you save the file and refresh the page to see your changes--when you're new to coding websites and trying to do it from scratch, that's a lot of back and forth for little to no reward. it sucks.
after an hour or so of messing with my first site, i was like "wow this is way too tedious. i don't even know what i'm going to put on here, so i give up"... foolish... clown behavior. like trying to solo a dungeon at level 1 with no gear. this is not the way to have fun on neocities. you gotta see what's possible before you can imagine what to make for yourself. and to do that, you have to visit other people's sites!!
step 2: go to neocities dot org slash BROWSE
ok this is an ongoing step. keep this tab open. the default view is "most followed", and the top site is goblin-heart.net--the webmaster here is no longer updating her site but it has A TON OF RESOURCES in it. we'll come back to this.
what you really want to do is go to any site with an appealing thumbnail. the most followed sites are probably some of the most elaborate. you don't have to be intimidated or even try to aim that high... i just think it's so amazing to open up a page, see it filled with so much stuff and go "oh my god SOMEONE CODED ALL THIS???" it just fills me with inspiration. it's amazing.
ok, did you find a site that looks cool? read through their pages! stay as long as you like! usually there's an "about" page so you can get a little background info on the person who made the site, but there are also "shrines" (dedicated to anime or video games usually) where someone tells you about a thing they like. there's blogs, art galleries, and site resources full of links and things to put on your own neocities page... BUT DON'T MAKE YOUR SITE YET... bookmark the ones you like, and keep exploring.
if you are browsing on mobile, DON'T BE AFRAID!
be aware that some sites will look completely broken. this is the downside to letting everyone code their own websites... but it's also the main point of neocities discourse that i've seen. it's the only thing to really have discourse about, because it's something every webmaster either does or doesn't do. some people are mobile-hostile, some just don't know how to code their sites to be mobile-friendly, and some dedicate whole pages and blog posts on their sites advocating for accessibility.
my strategy for when i'm browsing neocities on my phone (and i do like to browse in bed sometimes) is to bookmark sites that are too broken to read on mobile and save them for later. i use firefox, so my bookmarks are synced between my phone and desktop. honestly part of the joy of neocities to me is that some things don't work at all--whether it's broken images, dead links, or impossible-to-read pages.
there's always somewhere new to visit, so just keep moving right along!
if you're feeling lost, search a tag you like!
back in your browse tab (the one i told you to keep open!) there is a filter by tag search in the top right. type something in--the more general, the more results you'll get. tags are ONE WORD with no spaces. each site only gets 5 tags, so it's possible that no sites are tagged with your favorite thing (in my case, there are no sites tagged disgaea... i must do something about this).
at the bottom of the search, there's a list of popular tags. if you see a topic that interests you there, go check out what's in it! after a while of browsing random sites like this, you'll start to get a feel of the overall vibe of neocities and what to expect when you visit a new site... but i'm STILL finding fun new surprises every time i dive in. there's endless creativity in here!!! keep your heart open and you will have a nice time.
visit people's links and WEBRINGS!!
most neocities sites have a page filled with links to other sites they think are cool, or their site might be a member of a webring. webrings are awesome because members will put a button on their front page and there are left/right arrows to visit the next site in the webring. sometimes the links are dead, but usually you'll find a fun new site related to that webring's theme! it's fun!!
take the RPGmaker webring for example--it's a list of sites with rpgmaker-related content, both developers and fans! i was happy to find a couple devs i followed on itch.io on here!! a lot of people are way ahead of me and already made cool sites, so it's really fun to follow them... it's not all strangers there...!
step 3: NOW you can make a website (IF YOU WANT TO!)
are you feeling INSPIRED??? in your neocities journies did you run into a site and think "ohh i want to make a page like this!" well good news. that's what neocities is for! as mentioned above, many sites have links to the resources that they used to build their own sites. it's a community of people who like to share knowledge and make fun things! (wow i love doing those things, no wonder i love neocities!)
for my site, what i actually did was google something like "neocities template" so that i wouldn't have to start from scratch again. i ended up on a reddit thread linking to a beginner's guide to neocities by sadgrl--hey, that's the webmaster who runs goblin-heart.net! i used her layout builder as the template for my site because it's mobile-friendly. the code is easy to understand and has comments explaining what the different parts do, so you can customize it easily.
the actual building the site part (skip this if you don't want to build a site)
my biggest piece of advice is not to use the neocities editor. remember when i told you before that it wasn't fun and also sucked? yes, luckily you don't have to put up with it!! on the page where you can edit your site (the file-viewer-looking one) there is a link to "download entire site". click that. keep it somewhere on your computer where you can get to it easily. this is your local copy that you will edit your files from.
for my text editor, i use brackets but you can also use visual studio code. both are free and open source. the important thing about them is that THEY HAVE LIVE WEB PREVIEW!!!!! with brackets, this means it can open the page in a google chrome window and whatever you change in your files will update in the browser window instantly. so it's SUPER QUICK to catch mistakes or test bits of code! the best way to learn html/css is to just start making stuff with it. it's ok if your code is wonky because you're not a professional--you're just here to have fun!
once your site feels ready to share, all you have to do is drop those local files back into the edit-your-site page! if you're uploading folders, you should do it one-by-one (since i've heard it can mess up the upload to do a bunch at once). all the files will get auto-replaced as long as it's named the same. then your site will be live!!!! share it with your friends!!!!! drop a comment here if this post inspired you to make one!!!!!!! (idk i would be happy to see it lol)
my other quick tip is that if you open one of your html pages in firefox, you can hit ctrl+shift+m to preview the mobile version! so if you wanna make sure your site is readable on a phone, that's the quickest way to test it!! you don't have to cross your fingers and pray... omg it's so handy.......
whether you make your own site or not, it's fun to follow people!
i started reading new webcomics i found through neocities... there's so many cool artists making awesome stuff..... omg the amount of nostalgic gifs and banners and stamps i have seen............ i don't want to link it all here because i think it's more fun to find those places on your own, but i do have a links page on my site if you wanna see some of the places i've been.
like... i dunno, it really does take a lot of time to put an impressive site together on your own. and i'm the kind of person who enjoys coding things--i know that it's not for everyone. it's certainly not for someone looking to quickly establish something professional-looking (use carrd for that, it's much simpler). but i know i'm not alone in wanting to see more handcrafted personal sites, and i know sometimes all people need is an invitation, or to at least know that it's possible for them.
i wanna encourage all my friends to make sites because i selfishly want to see them... ohhh i just love neocities so much!! obviously you don't have to host your site there to capture the spirit of it, but because all these sites are connected it makes it really easy to explore them all. it's great. writing all this has made me want to go on my next neocities adventure hehe.
anyway yeah that's how u have fun on neocities! like i said at the top, it's my new favorite hobby. maybe it can be yours too! (and if it is, send me your frickin WEBSITES i wanna SEE THEM!!!!) thank you for reading!!!!!!!