The new web is here, and it looks like the old one. We're undoing the mistakes of 2.0, shunning the transparent scam of 3.0, and returning to a simpler time but with modern tools. Handcrafted HTML with glossy images and smooth scrolling. White text on black backgrounds but typeset tastefully. Reject the machine takeover! Retreat to niche forums and vanity pages! Sleek is dead, and the human spirit will emerge onto the net once again! Capitalism has conglomerated the spaces we depend on for community and connection into a few fragile baskets. The solution is to decentralize; rebuild the maze of the early net rather than feed content to the monoliths threatening to sell out or shut down at any moment.

I miss the days when the Internet felt big and unknowable; when it was full of strange little treasures and people like you on their own journey of discovery. The web used to be fun because it was big, but slow. Now it's constantly getting smaller and faster—there are a dozen huge websites, and they all suck to use. Blockchains, SEO, A/B testing: These are inventions of the oppressor. We need to get back to basics; not just as a silly gimmick but as a way of existing online. Get small, get weird! Build your own little site and publish it from your own computer. It doesn't have to be "responsive" or "mobile-friendly." It can be some plain-jane hypertext with no margins. Who cares? Some "User Experience Engineer" at Meta Corporation? You're off the clock, baby! Go nuts! Just make sure you use "letter-spacing: 0.2;" for white-on-black text.

Hell, steal this website, if you want! You can click over there for a .ZIP of this page's code. It's a little sloppy and has probably more divs than I need because I kinda forgot grid styling, But like I've said, who cares? Also it doesn't include images or fonts due to file size. Again, who cares, you get it. Do a little work instead of letting a bunch of nerds in a WeWork somehwere do it for you and sell all your eyeball movements to the "Has Science Gone Too Far???" guys. The Internet is ours to reclaim from the wreckage of the corporate machines.

The "small web" is a nebulous movement dedicated to rehumanizing the Internet, breaking it into smaller and weirder pieces owned and managed by individual normal people (and by all flights of weirdos as well) instead of by a handful of billionaires and their algorithmic Molochs. It's about more than corny backgrounds and dithered images. It's about restoring the foundational promise of the Internet as an infinite commons for learning and sharing.

Neocities, where this site is being hosted, is part of that movement. So are the new wave of small-time, decentralized social media platforms like Cohost and Mastodon. A great read on the topic, if you're interested, is The Three-Legged Stool: A Manifesto for a Smaller, Denser Internet from the Initiative For Digital Public Infrastructure.

I'm Jack Grimes, a graphic designer, artist and longtime poster. I like making websites even though I am not that good at it. I like making other stuff, too: art, videos, projects, meals, et cetera. My off-Neocities homepage (click "Links" up top) has some other stuff I've made on it.

I currently live in Pittsburgh with my partner Lauren. I like science fiction, electronic music, jazz, goofin' around, UFOlogy, and the occasional video game.

I have a BFA in graphic design from Appalachian State. I currently design on a freelance basis. You can hire me, if you want! I also work with the Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute cataloguing cultural trends through graphic design.