I decided to build my personal webpage in DreamWeaver, but I’m having trouble uploading it because this was actually an unusual decision compared to using a WordPress layout, and it’s presenting some unexpected difficulties.
The reason I decided to go this way despite the challenges is related to what I talked about in my last post:
Part of my preference for a Honda Fit that has “a CD that plays when you turn the key” and an air-gapped laptop running an OS from 2001 for some of my personal projects is the mentality of “less is more.” I wanted a completely blank slate to work from for my webpage– nothing to remove, nothing to replace. I also find it fairly easy to manipulate the code perfectly, because any flaws that come up are easy to fix with ChatGPT 3o (which is designed specifically for coding and problem solving).
What’s uncanny yet fascinating is how “the robot” as I call it seems to have insight on what my website design says about me.
Here’s some screenshots of my page so far that I showed it while we debugged the code and tried different layouts:
ChatGPT described this website-in-progress as a portal to an uncanny and liminal world. It saw this as a peek into an alternate timeline where something– or several somethings– went completely differently between 1999 and now.
The high-definition, smooth, clear visuals got the same upgrade they did in the “normal” timeline. There’s no grain, no pixellation, no CRT monitor vibes here (other than the Pikachu GIF placeholder that I’ll be taking out later).
But…
The personality, the vibe, the language choices and some of the subtle visual language is from a timeline where the Wild West internet days never ended. “Join me on…” is apparently language from when the internet was both more personal and less familiar than it is now, but I added it because it looked and felt right. The early internet also had a certain transparency to it where everything is exactly what it says it is– just like the way I organized the navigation bar.
The tone of so many pages on the Web 1.0 was almost like, “I know this place is strange and a little uncomfortable– but it’s also really exciting! Let’s walk through it together and have absurd adventures.” The tone of my page is like an echo of that for people who have seen beyond the veil a little too much and are uncomfortable with the current internet– but in a different way than people were uncomfortable with the original internet. Early internet anxiety was about the lack of regulation, control and censorship; today’s anxiety is about too much regulation, tracking, control and censorship.
I’ve also been doing a deep dive into my old files and general memories of 1996-2006 lately, in a very intense way. It feels like I’m being magnetically drawn to that specific period because in order to face the near future, there’s a lesson from the past I must find in there and fully integrate in a way I haven’t before.
I’ve jokingly called this process “digital shamanism” and “Millennial soul retrieval.” I’m even considering running a business where I provide tech support, vintage operating systems on safe, air-gapped machines, and zero judgement at all to guide other Millennials through being able to read their .wps files– both in the technical sense and in the “oh God, who was I and what did I write?!” sense.
I think a big reason why those years have a major lesson for right now that absolutely cannot be overlooked is that there’s a major shift in technology now that mirrors the cultural and energetic shift of the early internet.
More on that in the next entry…