So what's the point? Why did I make a Neocities site? I certainly wasn't online at the dawn of the internet and the fun individualized sites, so it isn't nostalgia for my past.
At the risk of sounding trite, it's to take a part of my life back. I'm sick of scrolling Tumblr and reblogging other people's thoughts and not adding my own because I don't have to. (That's not an "other people" problem, that's a me problem.) I'm sick of placing my online identity into the hands of a few giants and trusting they'll be responsible. And I'm sick of everything I see being pre-curated before it ever reaches my screen. I'm a big proponent of "you are in charge of moderating your own internet experience", and while I'm not always the best at putting that into practice for myself, I think it's good to step out of my comfort zone a little and make this site.
There's another part to it, too. I'm stuck in a mindset of despair and paralyzed hopelessness about the whole... state of things in the USA. I want to do something but I'm scared to start anything. I'm scared to get out there and actually do something. I know I'm not built for in-the-streets political activism, but there's other things I can do that I just haven't started: adopting a stream, finding a community kitchen or something similar to volunteer at, maybe knocking on my neighbors' doors and giving them cookies I just made or something. I'm scared of making a mistake. But that's how I'll learn, and I know that, it's just that I don't want to make mistakes.
So now I've got this website. It's a step towards making more of a community for myself, hopefully, and also a start to taking my experience back into my own hands.