This is The Stepback, a thoughtfully curated weekly newsletter dedicated to dissecting one essential, thought-provoking story emerging from the ever-evolving world of technology. Each edition aims to illuminate a single issue or development with precision and depth, helping readers see beyond the surface-level headlines. For readers who are fascinated by the rich interplay between technology and digital subcultures, following Stevie Bonifield provides additional insights into the fast-shifting sphere of internet culture, where trends, aesthetics, and ideologies evolve at lightning speed. Every week, The Stepback arrives precisely at 8AM Eastern Time in the inboxes of its subscribers, offering them a compelling morning read. Those interested in joining this expanding community can easily opt in to receive The Stepback and experience these analyses firsthand.
The roots of the modern indie web trace back to a period shortly after the closure of GeoCities—a once-legendary free web hosting service that Yahoo permanently shuttered in 2009, at least in its American iteration, while its Japanese counterpart persisted until 2019. Founded in 1994, GeoCities became one of the earliest and most beloved platforms to democratize the act of building on the internet. It empowered millions of ordinary users—students, teachers, hobbyists, and fans alike—to create their own HTML websites devoted to topics as varied as pop culture phenomena, personal journals, or educational resources. These hand-crafted pages represented a digital tapestry woven from the creativity, curiosity, and sometimes chaos of their creators.
When GeoCities eventually went dark, the vast constellation of homegrown pages it hosted largely vanished with it. While a portion has been preserved through efforts such as the GeoCities Gallery, these saved artifacts function more like fossilized reminders of a bygone digital civilization—snapshots of the early web locked permanently in time. They remain meticulously organized into nostalgic categories reminiscent of old GeoCities “neighborhoods,” thematic clusters like Area51 for science fiction enthusiasts or SiliconValley for tech devotees. Now, their digital dust gathers around broken image links and dead hyperlinks, yet they still provide a strikingly raw, unfiltered window into the aesthetic exuberance of 1990s web design, where vivid patterns, animated graphics, and unrestrained self-expression reigned supreme.
While many early internet users who once built or browsed GeoCities have long since migrated to the streamlined convenience of social media platforms, a few visionaries remained captivated by the original spirit of that handmade web. In 2013, one such figure—developer and entrepreneur Kyle Drake, who also contributed to the archival GeoCities Gallery project—founded Neocities. His vision was to resurrect the essence of GeoCities in a modern context: a free hosting platform designed for anyone wishing to create personal websites using HTML. Users could either upload their own code or craft pages directly within Neocities’ built-in browser editor, an intentional tribute to the do-it-yourself ethos that characterized the early web.
More than a decade later, Neocities stands as the beating heart of a broader cultural movement reviving that earlier digital era—a movement now affectionately known as the indie web. It captures a yearning for an internet less polished, less optimized, and far more human. In this space, imperfections are embraced; websites can be perpetually “under construction” without judgment. The emphasis lies in individuality and authenticity, not algorithmic approval or viral traction. Over the last several years, the momentum of this movement has surged, reflecting a collective pushback against artificial intelligence, pervasive automation, and socially numbing algorithmic feeds. Participants in this renaissance envision an internet once again powered by people rather than platforms.
Though Neocities forms the nucleus of this revival, new players have joined the constellation—most notably Nekoweb, which emerged in 2024 and rapidly attracted a vibrant user base. Together, Neocities and Nekoweb serve as the primary hubs of this rejuvenated web, providing fertile ground for creativity to flourish unfettered. A casual perusal across these sites reveals a compelling amalgamation of past and present: whimsical anti-AI webrings linking likeminded creators, nostalgic pages designed after the bright, boxy aesthetics of the ’90s yet themed around personal obsessions such as Hobonichi Techo planners, and experimental recreations of retro operating systems like Windows 98, rendered interactively in-browser. This unlikely blend of humor, nostalgia, and technical experimentation underscores the movement’s intergenerational energy. Interestingly, the indie web community is predominantly composed of younger users—most under thirty—whose personal experience of the original GeoCities era exists only through hearsay or archived pages. Yet their reverence for a time they never lived exemplifies how cultural memory circulates and transforms online.
The indie web, much like those early networks of neighbors, also carries a tone of resistance. Its recent surge has been inextricably linked to growing disillusionment with the algorithm-driven modern web. Within this ecosystem, creation doubles as rejection—a refusal to surrender creative agency to AI systems or endless content feeds engineered for addiction. The opposition to AI runs deep: in fact, the community’s collective unease was made plain when Neocities users discovered traces of an experimental AI assistant, “Penelope,” within the platform’s code editor. Their immediate backlash culminated in a petition demanding its removal, underscoring how fiercely the space guards its human-centric philosophy. Some disenchanted users even migrated to Nekoweb, drawn by its explicit promise to block AI data scrapers and forbid machine training on user-generated materials, a stance Neocities has since matched with its pledge not to sell user data to AI firms.
Ultimately, the indie web represents a quiet revolution—a reclamation of online territory for human expression. Its adherents insist that it is not about optimizing for speed or aesthetics, nor about courting traffic or monetization. Rather, it is about creating for creation’s sake. Freed from algorithmic judgment, participants design their sites precisely as they wish, confident that authenticity will matter more than metrics. This freedom produces an eclectic digital landscape: hand-coded pages bursting with pixelated GIFs, irreverent color palettes, and animated backgrounds that sometimes dazzle the eye to the point of dizziness, though always in a celebratory way. Many of these designs pay homage to the idiosyncratic styles of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. One notable example, the Frutiger Aero Archive, lovingly documents the sleek, shiny design language that dominated early 2000s visual culture. In total contrast to today’s stark minimalism and rigid grids, the indie web luxuriates in sensory overload—its very messiness testifying to its humanity.
What further distinguishes this movement from algorithmic social media is its focus on deliberate, organic community building. The reemergence of structures like webrings—circular networks that link sites with shared interests—symbolizes that ethos. Equally popular are “web gardens”: compact badge-like graphics, typically 250×250 pixels, that offer a visual and thematic “sample” of a site for others to host, serving both as art and invitation. Many creators even dedicate a “neighbors” section on their pages, paying homage to the neighborhood metaphors that once organized GeoCities itself. Within these pockets of the web, the emphasis is on genuine connection over viral reach.
Certain groups, notably artists and LGBTQ+ users, have found a particularly supportive sanctuary within the indie web. For artists, algorithmic feeds saturated with AI-generated imagery make authentic visibility increasingly hard to achieve. Meanwhile, shifts in moderation practices across major platforms have amplified feelings of alienation, particularly following decisions like Twitter’s post-acquisition removal of policies protecting transgender users from deadnaming. On the indie web, however, these communities rediscover both freedom and belonging, reflected vividly in the numerous webrings dedicated to queer identity, fan art, and digital self-expression that flourish on Neocities and Nekoweb.
What may strike newcomers most profoundly, though, is not simply how the indie web looks—but how it feels. Venturing through these digital labyrinths evokes a sense of childlike curiosity rarely associated with today’s sanitized networks. As one browses link by link, wandering down rabbit holes of interconnected personal pages, the experience recalls an earlier internet era when every click promised surprise—sometimes charm, sometimes confusion, occasionally even unease. Some sites contain heartfelt journal entries offering glimpses into the author’s interior life, a refreshing contrast to the detached irony and performative brevity that dominate modern social feeds. Occasionally, visitors even encounter eerie or eccentric pages that rekindle that long-forgotten thrill of discovering something unexpectedly strange, clicking through entry screens emblazoned with the legendary “Click here to enter!” and feeling a fleeting moment of hesitation.
Unlike modern social media, these pages ask nothing of their visitors. There are no manipulative pop-ups urging users to stay longer, no infinite scroll designed to maximize engagement, no relentless prompts to like, follow, or share. Many sites remain delightfully static, unconcerned with mobile formatting or search optimization. They simply exist—quietly and unapologetically—as online reflections of personal creativity. For many, this simplicity feels like a revelation, allowing them to remember what it meant for the web to be generous rather than extractive.
Looking ahead, it is possible that the indie web’s slow but steady growth will accelerate as social platforms tighten moderation, expand age restrictions, or flood further with machine-generated content. For those weary of the algorithmic status quo, these decentralized platforms provide an appealing refuge—spaces where individuals retain full control over what to include, exclude, or create. Ironically, while this decentralization makes sweeping regulation more challenging, it simultaneously empowers users with autonomy more complete than any centralized platform could allow. In parallel, as generative AI discourages some from learning to code, the indie web may preserve a dwindling culture of hands-on development. To participate fully, one must still grasp the mechanics of HTML, CSS, and perhaps a touch of JavaScript, continuing the lineage of self-taught creators whose personal sites once defined the early internet.
The dissolution of Twitter as a dominant social hub may also inadvertently be fueling this shift. With no single “main square” online, users have dispersed into smaller communities, making the return to decentralized, algorithm-free ecosystems feel natural. Yet as the indie web expands, it will inevitably wrestle with familiar dilemmas—trolling, harassment, and the limits of free expression in fragmented spaces. Its core principles of autonomy and openness will be tested against the social need for safety and moderation. Still, one thing remains clear: enthusiasts of this movement are unlikely to embrace AI-powered browsers or similar automation-heavy innovations anytime soon.
Interestingly, another nostalgia-driven resurgence accompanies the indie web’s creative revival: the tentative comeback of browser-based games. Simple, charming experiences—such as Messenger, a whimsical digital adventure centered on delivering mail—echo the heyday of Flash and Java-based amusements that once peppered personal webpages. Some indie web creators even embed modest games directly into their sites, reviving the sense of playful discovery that characterized early online culture. To the surprise of many, certain relics like Neopets continue to exist, testament to the persistent affection people feel for interactive, persistent digital worlds.
For those craving deeper cultural context, several contemporary works capture the enduring fascination with the old internet. Adi Robertson’s review of Hypnospace Outlaw explores a video game steeped in the aesthetic and moral dilemmas of the 1990s web, complete with copyright issues and emergent cyberbullying. Jody Serrano’s 2022 Gizmodo interview with GeoCities’ founder revisits the monumental challenges of moderation and preservation that have always haunted online communities, drawing lessons still relevant today. Similarly, Polygon’s 2022 feature on Neocities highlights the platform’s expanding gaming community, illustrating how the indie web continuously intersects with interactive media. Finally, Sara Davis Baker’s evocative video essay, “The Internet Used to Be a Place,” examines the metamorphosis of online culture over the decades—its gains, its losses, and the nostalgia for something intangible yet essential.
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Sourse: https://www.theverge.com/column/829831/indie-web-geocities-neocities
