What is this place?

Created: 20th November 2022

Last update: 7th August 2025

Hi, I'm Bethan and this is my site.

Back in 2022, I learnt about the indie web and spent an evening learning basic HTML and CSS to develop my own webpages. I have already been making printed zines, and I thought, well, what if I started making zines that could be viewed online?

I am not old enough to have been around when basic websites like this were more common, but even so, I do appreciate the charm of independent websites. (This hidden gem is a personal fave). And I also have some useless bits of writing that I want to make into a zine but also feel like are too self-indulgent to sell, or look someone in the eye while handing over...

I only have one bit of writing that is staying here (for now) - the rest I was either too embarrassed about, ended up never being written, or were just made into printed zines. But I still like the charm of this sort of website (particuarly the novelty of collecting blinkies) so it's staying here for now!

So here it is! My love letter to the old internet.

So far, my only rambling that I still have is this Joanna Newsom 'shrine' that I wrote back in 2022 - it feels very personal and self indulgent so I feel weird reading it myself, but maybe you'll enjoy it.

Here are some links that will explain the indie web better than me...

• an old website explaining digizines and zines
• Wayback Machine, which archives old websites (they also have a great gif search engine called gifcities.org which helped me make the footer party below)
• Neocities, where I platform this site
• Yesterweb.org - a community which seeks to keep the old web alive

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