Take a Break From the Modern Internet, Surf the Original Web

Most of us feel stuck switching back and forth between the same five apps. We’re stuck because companies spend billions to keep us “engaged” on their respective platforms. That’s why the internet feels like it has shrunk to a handful of apps, and stopped being a place you once explored and browsed. The good news is, the internet of old still exists.

The Commercial Internet Is Loud, But Not Interesting

Here’s something you might not have thought about in a while. Instagram feeds used to have an end. If you scrolled for a while, you’d have seen all the photos and videos your friends posted, and Instagram or Facebook would tell you that you’re all caught up and to come back later.

That feels odd today because every major website on the internet is built on a seemingly endless feed of “content.” The interfaces are very polished and slick, but they all look the same. There’s a reason for that uniformity. It works best to hook our attention. That’s why every app became a Snapchat clone or TikTok clone.

To Instagram, the ideal user is one who scrolls through reels all day and regularly clicks ads served every few reels. What shows up in those reels is secondary, and only matters if it can keep that thumb scrolling up.

Now it doesn’t take effort to poke holes in this design. Mostly because keeping a human scrolling through an algorithmic feed doesn’t make them actually engage with what they’re looking at. After a while, the motions become mechanical when the algorithm cannot produce genuine surprise or discovery. That’s what “zombie scrolling” is.

That’s why the old design of Instagram where the feed had an ending feels odd today.

It’s also what the old internet felt like. You would jump from hyperlink to hyperlink, down and up rabbit holes. Search engines felt like they would take you places. Every site felt different with that distinct handmade quality to it. It also felt like a place.

Webmasters wrote and designed just as a way of self-expression. People weren’t trying to sell you stuff or hijack your attention. The sites would just welcome you as a cyber wanderer.

The Internet Of Old Still Exists

Even when you use typical search engines, like Google, you just get those same boring links time and again, optimized around monetization and keywords. However, the old experience of “surfing” the internet is still available. That is if you know where to look.

A good place to start is VHSearch. It’s a search engine that exclusively searches the “indie” web or the small web. Wiby is another. So is Marginalia. I could explain what the indie web is, but why not just dive in first?

Let’s look something up. I tried “food.” It returned 10 pages of links.

Clicking one of those links takes me to Nel’s Net Cafe—a charmingly old school neoncore blog. It features Nel’s hobbies and many delightful projects. Pictured here, Ms. Lamew looks cozy in her shawl and we also have a functional crocheted Balbasaur. And this Net’s home page with a guestbook and a welcome track.

Going back to the search results, I picked Doll Printies this time. I had no idea what it was until I clicked a few links and realized that it’s a website where you can download packaging templates for a lot of products. Snacks, electronics, toys, even doll furniture. Browsing a little longer I realized that these packaging items aren’t life-sized. They’re meant for doll houses, hence the name. So if you wanted a tiny paper-made Play Station, complete with game discs, you could download the templates here, print them, and fold them yourself.

Doll Printies also has a link section which takes you to similar sites where you can download life-sized and tiny papercraft models. I felt like I could spend hours here without being bored, and when I left I had the strongest urge to pick up papercraft.

Static Sites That Feel Human

Back in the day, there was a site called Geocities, which allowed people to build HTML-based static websites and host them for free. When social media sites arrived on the scene, Geocities eventually shut down.

That platform rose again as Neocities and it’s now a popular cornerstone of the “small” or “indie” web. And if you noticed, VHSearch exclusively searches the Neocities database.

I’ve mentioned these sites are static, but what does that mean exactly? A static site is fundamentally anti-algorithm. It doesn’t change on every visit or serve personalized content to the visitor like the big sites do. Everyone sees the same content, every time, unless the webmaster makes actual changes to the website. They’re hardcoded in simple HTML, CSS, and Javascript.

With VHSearch, we barely scratched the surface. You can browse the vast database of Neocities by tag or category. It’s called a “web ring,” where you find lots of related links on the indie web.

The Frutiger Aero Archive caught my eye because I adore the aesthetic. You’ll see it’s designed in the Windows Vista style, offering a ton of customization software, icon packs, history of the trend, and old-school flash games. I played Pacman and Wall-E Space Escape.

There’s even a web ring here that showcases links Geocitiesrelated to the Frutiger Aero trend. So we went from one web ring to a website which nests yet another web ring, and if we click any of them, we were to click one of these, we’ll find yet another web ring.

The link I clicked is an online radio where you can chat with people. Hopping links like this took me to a art site which had a retro Star Trek shooting game, a photography journal of discarded bread in public, and whatever this is.

What Browsing the Indie Web Feels Like

It feels like rediscovering something you completely forgot existed, having lived on the internet of algorithms for too long. Jumping from web ring to web ring, and hyperlink to hyperlink, you never know what’s coming up, but you do know it’ll be something someone out there is truly passionate about, and something they made out of love.

You won’t find any ads, any affiliate links, or e-commerce stores. That’s because you’re not “consuming” content or products, you’re actually engaging with people and things that interest you.

More to the point, it leaves room for you to discover new things that might interest you. Where algorithms trap you and feed off your attention like parasites in a bubble, the indie web lets you expand and explore beyond your comfort zones. Surfing the indie web for a while, you might come back with a sudden urge to get into papercraft or a newfound appreciation for conlang (artificial languages) having never cared about either of those.

If you’re sick of algorithms dictating where you go, what you do, what you see, all the while spying on you, the indie web is exactly what you need. It’s slower and more careful, which makes the internet feel like a place again.

The indie web has grown a lot in recent years, and now is the perfect time to make your own website. You don’t need to spend any money to get a site up or market it. All you need is some knowledge of HTML and CSS to get your indie site up and running. You can sign up for a Neocities account and have your site hosted on Neocities for free.