Notion's Notions

Why?

The current state of major platforms is actively hostile towards the user.

On a major social media platform, you are not the consumer. You are the product. Your data is the resource and the advertisers are the ones paying the bills. This forms the basis of surveillance capitalism. Google, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, even Tumblr has no incentive to listen to you or make the site more user-friendly if it means losing advertiser money.

Posting to any platform that is free-to-use with adds is providing free product for these platforms to show other users. They do not create anything themselves, they're just providing the host and pocketing the transaction fee of our collective time and attention. This is a model that plenty of services use, there isn't any issue with the concept, but major platforms have gotten too comfortable lately taking advatage of this while giving us very little in return. I started asking myself, "how much energy am I willing to put into making things for a large company to profit off of, one that continues to make the space worse for everyone in pursuit of profit?"

Much, much less than I had been.

I think that system is all well and good for chatting and sharing memes, but when it comes to my work, I feel a lot more protective. I put a lot of effort into this. A lot. More now that I have my own site, but I always put a lot in. Nice photos and edited videos and captions and music and voiceover and hashtags and consistant posting schedules and cross-posting and and and...

I don't think we can pretend anymore that social media is genuinely an easier way for artists to put themselves out there.

If I am going to put myself and my work out there for others to see, I will not do it while feeding into this process. I respect you too much to require you to subject yourself to these predatory practices just to view and interact with my work. This site is for you. Here you are not a commodity, you are an audience. And though I am still the product here, at least I’m the only one who might profit.

If you'd like to learn more, I've been working on a playlist to ease into the concept. I hope it isn't just interesting, but inspirational as well, I've included videos about the indie web and ways that we can replace the social and artistic need without these major platforms.

Documenting my Process

In STEM there is a concept called the "black box", a system with an input and an output, but not clear process in between. The Maker community's goal is to eliminate the black box, and create a more supportive and accesible environment where new artists and craftspeople can learn and share processes, as well as remove the separation from the origins and work that goes into everyday objects around us. So while I respect certain protected ideas that preserve the integrity of a work, especially if one needs to make a living off of it, I encourage the sharing of the process. Assuming the process itself of making is worth trademarking assumes that our own experiences have nothing to bring to the table, that given the same materials and the same technical background every human would make the same art. And I simply don't believe that.

(That being said, if I'm working on a project for someone else, I don't post anything until it has been made public or I get approval. And, when asked, I will refrain from posting any work-in-progress shots at all.)

I love photographing and documenting every step of a project, and believe sharing my process to be an important part of my place in the artistic community. If you feel inspired by something you see, I'm pleased by the thought that I could ease some of the frustration involved with doing something for the first time. It's also important to me to show that everything takes time, effort, and failure. When all we see are people's big successes, it discourages us when we don't immidiately have the same results.

But that's also why I'm happy to share my experience with building this website itself! Because it is just as much of a creative endeavor as my costume or puppetry work. It has just as many messes and mistakes and learning opportunities in its history.

The Coding Journey

I built this place myself! I was frustrated at the lack of options for most portfolio website builders, so I decided to teach myself some html and start from scratch. Currently I am hosting this on Neocities, as it's very user-friendly! Once I have finished everything, I'll consider moving to a more secure host.

If you want to read my real-time process and notes, you can check out the devlog below:

You'll notice in the devlog that it starts with "began overhauling the site". I started coding my own site for the first time in Feburary of 2023, the first time I had ever worked with html, and it was quite a mess for a while. I set it aside and created a personal site where I could experiment and learn, and somehow ended up messing up the design code for this one in the process. After a few more months of putting it aside, I finally felt like I knew enough to revisit it! In September 2023 I picked out a new template and dug in. And I'm very glad I did.

After a year or so of working on this site, it becomes less and less about the code. Sure, at first it was all new and challenging, but now it's a simple matter of copy and paste (plus the occasional unavoidable bug fixing, naturally). It's routine. I have other website projects that stress my coding skills and become new creative projects, but updating here is as easy as updating a journal. It really has become as simple as posting to any other pre-made social media platform. I have learned a lot from neocities, w3schools, and especially 32bitcafe and the people and resources there.

The Web Revival

I'm a real proponent of returning to the "old web", of handmade sites and unique blogs. Generally, the world of social media has replaced these in the social aspect more than it has replaced professional websites like this, but the aesthetic is still lost when everything is made from drag and drop widgets and clean minimalist squares. Learning html from scratch has been a real treat, I would recommend it to anyone who has thoughts they want to put out into the world. Once you've learned even the basics, it's hard to go back to those white and grey squares and bare bones customization. There is such an opportunity for creativity out there.

I firmly believe that if we're going to lessen our dependence on social media, the only way is to provide people with an acessible alternative and make it genuinely exciting. They don't have to be clean and polished and proffesional, just functional and personal and important to their creator.

A wonderful recource for why and how to start your own site is 32-Bit Cafe.

88x31 Buttons

Without an all-powerful algorithm digging up other people's pages, on the revived web - we use site buttons! The standard size is either 88x31 or 32x32 pixels, with the standardized dimensions allowing many buttons to fit neatly next to each other. On my site, these are all links to artists, friends, and collaborators, mostly in my local area. There's many benefits to this, I get to support my friends, they get a little more visibility (and this is often mutual), and you get a curated web surfing experience knowing you're following my recommendations! If we're going to build a community outside of social media, we have to bring back ways of supporting each other and forming those connections.

If you'd like to be on my button wall, shoot me an email! Don't have a button? Use this button maker, or I'll happily make one for you!

My site button: