What is this?
My Plans For This Site
Welcome Welcome!! The first thing I wanna say is, no matter WHO you are, you’re welcome here. And I mean that.
On twitter for example, I see many profiles which say in their bio stuff like “If you’re this type of person, this
demographic, or have this political view, your kind isn’t welcome here.” And I always thought that was so
excessive and unnecessarily judgmental. So I’m going the exact opposite direction and saying that no matter
WHO you are, you are welcome here. The only people I’ll take issue with are individuals who’ve given me a reason
to take issue with them specifically.
Anyway, what is this place? Hello! This is Hourglass Meadow! Actually it’s not.
It’s Lamppost Meadow. I seriously accidentally typed Hourglass Meadow instead of Lamppost Meadow and
decided to keep the mistake. Goodness, I keep veering of topic.
What is this place?? I don’t really know. I have short term plans for this site,
but there isn’t any one big goal I have for this place. This is my own little corner of the internet.
I plan to express myself here, to share myself and my hobbies and passions and endeavors just in case
somebody comes along and reads it. The Lamppost Meadow is a place for travelers to pass through while
they stroll the magical place called the indie web. In short, this is a long term art project. I’m an
artist, and when I discovered this part of the web, I immediately knew I had to make my own place. This
site is an expression of my creativity. Another Medium, if you will.
Basically, I seek to give others the experience I crave. I love people. I'm so
fascinated to get to know people. To try to peer into their soul. To find out why they are the way
they are and learn all the decisions that brought them to where they are and made them the person
they are today. When I see houses or especially apartments with lights in the windows, I often wish
I could become an ethereal presence so that I can just observe people and learn how they live, how
they express themselves, see how they set up their environments, how they shape their spaces and how
their spaces shape them. So that’s what this site is. I love finding websites where it’s just a person
being like “Here’s me, and here’s my life.” It doesn’t even have to be them describing stuff with words.
Just seeing the unique way their site looks is enough to fill me with wonder due to how unique and personal
it is. Uniqueness is so beautiful to me.
This site is a long term art project designed to grow and change with me.
How I Started
I found out about The Indie Web on February 22, 2026. On that day, I watched a video by onionboots
(tracker removed from URL), talking about how the internet used to be this magical uncharted territory, where
people mainly just communicated and and connected and shared themselves online in a very personalized manner.
And normally I don’t watch that kinda stuff; videos like “Look what THEY took from us. Things used to
be so great and now they’ve gone to shit and will never get better.” Cuz there’s no use to feeling like that.
Except this video was called “A Web Revival: the Internet didn't die, you're just not on it” And.. just now when
I got that link, I realized the video is unlisted... weird. I wonder why he did that. It wasn’t unlisted when I
first found it. Youtube relentlessly recommended it to me.
Anyway, so I found it, and as I watched it, my eyes lit up and my heart leaped within me and my pupils turned
into stars and I got EXTREMELY excited. I COULD MAKE MY OWN SITE!! I CAN MAKE MY OWN
PERSONALIZED CORNER OF THE INTERNET WHERE I SHARE MYSELF AND MY ART AND LET
OTHERS INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER AND WITH ME AND OH, I COULD MAKE ART FOR
MYSITE!! I COULD LEARN NEW ART MEDIUMS TO ENHANCE MY SITE! I COULD LEARN
SKILLS LIKE CODING AND PIXEL ART AND OH
I CAN TURN MY HANDWRITING
INTO A USABLE FONT...
I knew I would have to learn coding in order to do it, which I was intimidated by, cuz
as a kid, I tried learning C++, and couldn’t fathom it, both because it was too advanced, and in more part
because I had no real goal or anything specific to apply it to. Code just intrigued me, and I failed, so for
all this time, I just thought code was a thing I can’t do no matter what. But I decided to give it a damn good
try anyway. Also, I know visual editors exist, but if I’m gonna learn web design for my own creative project,
I need all the creative freedom I can get, so code is the best option for me to start with.
I had heard about the old web. I heard so many times people reminiscing about the old days of
the internet. How exciting it was to surf the web, before it all became standardized charted territory and now the
only places to go are these platforms run by soulless tech industry giants. I’ve wanted for so long to go back and
experience that internet because, while I was alive during the latter days of that version of the internet, like
the dawn of youtube and stuff, I was too young to experience it. We were very strict Christians at the time and
pretty poor, so even if it were possible for me to go on the internet, I wouldn’t have been allowed to. Hell, the
earliest PC I remember us having had a floppy disk drive. I don’t remember ever seeing it used, but one time I
asked my sister what that thing was, and she was like “Oh that’s for the square disks” and I remember being very
confused about what the heck a square disk is.
Anyway. Ever since I heard about that internet, I’ve wanted to bad to go back and try it. But alas, time travel
isn’t possible. “And,” I thought, “even if I could go back, it probably wouldn’t even be all that great. I’ll
probably find a few sites which look nice and nostalgic, but after a minute I’ll think ‘Uuuugh this is so BORING.
No WONDER this version of the internet died out. There’s nothing to do here.’” And even after finding that
video and getting really excited about making my own site, I thought the same thing. That it’s probably not all that
great. But I decided to go on there anyway and try it out, and lemme tell ya... it was EXACTLY AS I IMAGINED IT.
IT WAS MAGICAL, MESMERIZING, INSPIRING, BEAUTIFUL. SO MANY UNIQUE PLACES, EACH A
REFLECTION OF THE OWNER’S UNIQUE SOUL. This was my first ever time surfing the web. I had never
before just went online and explored like that. Inspired, I knew I had to try to make my own place. But I only
had a vague sense of where to get started and where I could host my site.
I told my brother all about this, and he recommended to tell TWL, a guy I kinda know irl, about this. I was
like “Why? What for” and he was like “just to talk.” So I did cuz why not. Now, TWL is a VERY tech-savvy guy.
He’s a Linux guy who runs Arch and has many specialized skills when it comes to technology. So I told him about
this, and of course, he was familiar with it. As we talked about websites and hosting and stuff, I expressed
that I’m probably gonna have to host my site on Neocities, cuz idk how else to do it, and I’m not in a position
to be able to self-host. But also that I’m wary of using free services that normally cost money, cuz how are they
staying in business, and also, I don’t know them so I don’t know if I can trust them. That’s when he offered to host
my site for me for free on his virtual private server he’s renting. I accepted, cuz what a deal, right?? That’s an
INSANE deal. He’s super cool cuz he’s still helping me with stuff here and there with the many topics you gotta learn
about in order to do this kinda stuff that I’m doing. Anyway, I’m running out of energy, so fast forward to now, I know
a little bit of HTML, even less CSS, and I know how to log into TWL’s server from my PC using the terminal and send files
to his server in order to host my site, and I’m having fun learning all these things and doing stuff and troubleshooting
and figuring out stuff when it doesn’t work and it’s just so coooooollllll :333
8777.ch is TWL’s site. He’s just given me this subdomain to use.
Lamppost Meadow 0.7.1 Pre-Alpha
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