What drove you guys to make a website?

[levya]

I first got into coding in the early 2000s when making my petpage on neopets, but stopped after neopets added more restrictions that broke my page. after that I made sites on freewebs and other site builders, but I didn't stick with them for too long, and then after that I got into social media and I pretty much forgot about coding.

then a couple years ago I saw a twitter friend post their neocities site and it made me really want to get back into coding! so I initially made my site for nostalgia reasons, but now I want to make it a site that recaptures the feeling of fun and adventure that I used to have surfing the web. I want it to be something that other people are excited to discover and hopefully it will inspire more people to make their own sites~

[Vencake]

I first got into coding in the early 2000s when making my petpage on neopets, but stopped after neopets added more restrictions that broke my page. after that I made sites on freewebs and other site builders, but I didn't stick with them for too long, and then after that I got into social media and I pretty much forgot about coding.

then a couple years ago I saw a twitter friend post their neocities site and it made me really want to get back into coding! so I initially made my site for nostalgia reasons, but now I want to make it a site that recaptures the feeling of fun and adventure that I used to have surfing the web. I want it to be something that other people are excited to discover and hopefully it will inspire more people to make their own sites~

Omg I started 'cause of Neopets too! I wanted to make my profile page appealing and I was so proud when I could put just an image on it correctly lol.

I remember freewebs too (webs now iirc).
You said you got back into coding a few years ago - did you have to catch up much? Or did you adapt to the advancement of website making? Asking because everything changed and I felt like I had to learn from the ground up again!

[hat]

I also got into HTML from pet pages. I can't say the pages I made when I was 7 were more than copy pasted work from other pet pages. I have to feel a little forgiving with children stealing because of it... I was never able to figure out how to get images to work so it really put a damper on things!

I remember I made this Aisha frame in MS paint (obviously not a transparent gif) and I tried so so hard to get the text box inside of the image! I never figured it out.

[levya]

You said you got back into coding a few years ago - did you have to catch up much? Or did you adapt to the advancement of website making? Asking because everything changed and I felt like I had to learn from the ground up again!

I remembered the basics which helped in initially setting up my site, but I definitely had to look up lots of tutorials for more advanced stuff like making stylesheets and using iframes! I still feel like I have a lot more to learn that I never thought about as a kid haha

[kupus]

I first got into HTML because of blogging, when I was around 8-10. I really looked up to my best friends older sister, because she had a super cool looking blog and the blog was actually mildly popular. She kept winning contests with it too. After that I kind of abandoned html and css, with maybe editing my tumblr a bit in high school but nothing too much, frankly I completely forgot how to do anything with it except for change colors on already defined properties lol.

Aaaand then I got into a web design class in uni, and some time around the middle of the semester I remembered neocities existed and I made my site very soon after.

[CooperationIsKey]

I've been making websites since I was about 13. I started, like many others, with Neopets, decorating my shop and pet pages and stuff. Then I branched out onto Geocities and had multiple sites there, including several iterations of a personal site. I even had a big personal site I was going to publish at one point but it never made it to the web, but other versions did. Even after Geocities shut down I had a personal site hosted on a couple friends' servers. I shut down my old site when I switched online handles (I wanted a fresh start after using the same username since high school lol) and while I missed having a site, I didn't make a new one until I discovered Neocities, but once I found it I quickly was developing a new personal site, and eventually a few different fan sites as well.

I just really enjoy the creative outlet of websites, it's fun and a neat way to share what you love with the world.

[NinAcTi0N]

Honestly, I haven't really commented here because life got to me, but it's genuinely fascinating to see how you all came to build your own webspaces! I, weirdly enough, never really touched the coding part of Neopets (probably because I was a very young kid and was mostly focused on the flash games lol), and had no idea it even existed, though I did have some contact with DA and ArtFight's customization, and nowadays I have it with Tumblr too! ★

It's very empowering to be able to stylize things to your heart's content when the box isn't defined ^^ It's up to you to shape the box in any way you want, AND figure out ways to think out of it too! It's nothing short from some funky mad science done on computers!

[jessica]

reviving this thread >:] get ready for my novel bc i have a long answer on this

i started making websites in 1999 basically, my older sister (who was 14) came across gurlpages which was a free web host aimed at younger girls, and said to me "hey, want to make a website?" and showed me all of these pages with like, unicorns and other cute graphics. there was also a whole section for poetry, which my sister got really into.



i really liked the powerpuff girls at the time, so we decided to make a powerpuff girl fan site. my sister got it started, showed me how do to really basic html (images, links, setting a background image, font color, that kinda thing) she had also downloaded a cracked version of paint shop pro, and showed me how to make basic graphics. tbh i have no idea how she learned, but she just kind of showed me and then left me to it because she lost interest, lol.



my first website :')

i found everything about the early web really magical, though, and continued to browse other websites until i found a community of ~kawaii~ websites, which were very focused on original graphics & design, cute characters, pixel art, that kinda thing. those inspired me to start taking website creation more seriously, and around 2002 i convinced my parents to buy me a domain (which i still have - mooncandy.net hehe) and made my first personal website.



i started out with a free layout from some free graphics website, and started drawing layout ideas in notebooks that i'd then recreate in paint shop pro and use. they were all pretty bad, but i learned a lot by trying out new stuff. by this time i'd joined some forums where people would share their website and get feedback, and exchange graphics. people were pretty critical lmao (like "why isn't your text antialiased? it looks sloppy" and "that cat pixel looks really similar to one steph made, you should be more original") but it motivated me to try harder and do better, and eventually i had a pretty successful website and then a few others.

some random, uncoded early layouts:







uhhhh then, eventually, i started college, and didn't really have time for websites. i also didn't really have the right tools on my college laptop, and the community died down. most folks were around my age, and in similar situations. we kept in touch, but most people closed their websites and such. i kept my domain up because i hosted some friends, found hosting that was like $10/year, and also just couldn't bear to let it die. it was basically in standby mode for a long, long time and just linked to some of my social media profiles. i also installed wordpress at one point, but never actually did anything with it.



now, to answer the actual question (lol) why did i decide to start making websites (again, i guess) over the years i've tried to find apps to let me create pixel art on my phone or ipad, but not much existed up until recently. i found pixaki a few years ago, and that finally was something i could use to make serious pixel art (i didn't have my own computer for a long time, just one from work) i had a lot of fun with it, and shared the stuff i made with some friends on discord (i still talk to a lot of folks i met on forums back in the day) but discord resized tiny images so they looked really shitty, and i had the genius idea of making a simple html doc with all of my new pixels on it that i could just share. i started adding bits of css to it to make it look neater, and over time it started to resemble a little portfolio, and i thought it would be fun to actually make it into one. that is the birth story of https://mooncandy.net/rave

side note, i have worked in tech for a long time now, so i have gained a lot of professional experience in web development (mostly indirectly) and a big motivation of mine with this was to try and put some of those skills to use, and to expand on them. so a very big part of why i create websites now is to grow & learn new professional skills through fun, hobby projects. for instance, i've been learning vue.js, and the way i'm doing this is by creating a personal website in vue as i learn. it's way more fun than taking a class.

anyway, that's pretty much it. i also discovered neocities while i was making my portfolio, and decided to make a little project on there. that's where i met robyn, who was a part of the same communities as me back in the day chatting with her & pomelo has inspired me a lot, also, especially when it comes to growing my skills in graphic design & pixel art. wahoo

[AngelEyeSprings]

I haven't used social media in a very long time now... So someone somewhere linked to a Neocities site.... I think last year in the spring I went down a rabbithole of checking links to other people's sites. I found Cabbage's site and was amazed at the creativity and allll of the links there.

I felt like I couldn't really express myself online individually and was unhappy with stuff like Discord. So I made a Neocities site. I'm not good at html and didn't have any expectations, but I'm very happy and grateful at all of the connections I've made... (I'm writing this as I've taken a ~2 week hiatus from NC and planning some updates )

[clayton]

it ain't much but I made this landing page a while ago, I want to say 2018 or 2019... mostly just to have something presentable when visiting this domain, where subdomains are used for more specific projects. this started with just the table and blue bird, images provided by a friend (I don't think he drew them though and I don't know the original artist unfortunately). I tried out making my own pixel art for the first time with the cockatiel later on, modeled after my at-the-time girlfriend's pet. the birds don't really behave like birds but it was all I could figure out how to do at the time, I thought it was cute, and most importantly my gf loved it definitely a bit overdue for an update though!

my regular work on websites isn't as creative as what y'all are doing... I make tools (like https://loved.sh or https://osu.wiki) that try to provide some specific features for players of osu, and I also work on osu's own website sometimes

so I wouldn't say I was ever really driven to make a website specifically, it was just means to an end, or something like that. but I think discovering this little community and everyone's websites and artwork has changed my mind about it! you're all so inspiring and I think it awoke the artist in me I'm not sure how much time I can put into it yet, but all of you might become my reason for making a (way cooler) website soon!