welcome to my little corner of the internet! what is this? I'm not sure - I'm sort of letting it come as it will. at one point i was tempted to call it a dream corner, a corner being a place where you are safe but can see the rest of the room. a dream feeling tied to how i sense the internet - something immaterial, something that hovers between us. like the collective unconscious. something that makes my head feel a little weird. something i can be part of and not really understand. and the urge to create in this space, and have it exist there. outside me but also nowhere.

here are the pieces that make this up, as I begin

an alternative to social media - so i want to express myself and connect with people, makes sense. I have always hesitated to post on social media. it feels super cringe. lately the things I want to express about myself are mostly around transness. there's the option to be vulnerable on social media and, like, hope it's received well and pretend you're contributing to making it healthier. maybe you are. but mostly when I get on social media i just want to post thirst traps or absurd things or "don't forget to tell your congressman to eat my ass," which is a bad idea. it always just feels like branding to me and i get tied up. but i also have lots of respect for people who are like, "i'm here because i love my friends and i'm sharing more of myself more freely and it feels good!" i'm like yes!! i'm so glad that feels good!! my alternative to social media for the past 7 years, since i stopped using instagram regularly, has been texting people pictures. i text like 3 people a picture and i've shared my life! this site isn't an intentional departure, really, i'm mostly just fucking around. maybe it will feel good.

an interest in the old web and participating in the decentralized internet - part of this for me is nostalgia, but also a sense for what is possible when we make it ourselves. being born in the late 90s i sort of missed the early internet, but i grew up doing some instant messaging, playing club penguin and other miniclip.com games, and then several years of pretty intene runescape in late elementary to middle school. runescape was so awesome for me - i feel like I learned a lot about socializing, working toward goals, managing money. I had friends on there. my name was wackypacks2 and i had long spiky hair. lol. and then later i got into minecraft on the massive multiplayer server ObsidianCraft, which was super fun. anyway, i have this image of the old web full of blogs and stuff with lots of organic content and shitty forums and pixelated aesthetic brutalism. i don't actually know much about it and one thing that's been cool to see in neocities is places where i can learn more as i choose to. nostalgia is something i'm cautious about and i don't want to bring anything back, but i'm really excited that this way of interacting with the web isn't dead, and am excited by reclaiming the internet. like being on platforms that aren't designed by corporations for data, power, and profit? kinda appealing. and tbh, one of the reasons i may be especially interested is the role the internet has played for trans people in the last few decades.

i like the idea of learning html and being able to create webspaces because i am often drawn to create things in the world, and having agency over a digital space can be such a helpful part of anything i want to do.

i also am interested in the balance between the personal and anonymous in spaces like this - like i get to choose exactly how much to share about myself. i'm going to go ahead and share some markers: I am white, 25 years old, transfem. I choose to share that i'm white because race feels like a central part of my story and i ground myself in my whiteness. being 25 seems to locate me in relation to the internet and to other users in a relevant way. and being transfem is part of what i love about myself and hope to share on this site. i don't think i will share pictures of myself, like it just doesn't feel relevant here, which is an interesting contrast with social media. I'm curious to feel out what it is i am drawn to share here.

i think that's all i have to say today!
love, ava 3/17/23