the web is a place to be free.it was never intended for you to live your entire life on and feel shame on. the internet is and always will be intended as a space to let loose and show off what's deep inside of you, even things that would have you looked at funny in real life. the internet was not intended for you to gain a repuation that could be lost in seconds with one slip up.
that's the TL;DR of this manifesto.
do you remember when the internet was just a room inside of your house? living room, your parent's bedroom, even. do you remember when your main goal was to surf the web? as in to actually explore, to see and learn something new? that has been ripped away with the inevitable coming of the current internet, or web3 as i like to call it. i do think that web3 and how the internet was intended to be can live in harmony, but it's come to a point where that harmony has become disrupted. everywhere you go, you must carry a persona, you must carry the burden of being somebody who isn't you. "will they think i'm weird?" "how can i make money off of this?" flows through your mind even inside of glorified chatrooms (your instagram story, your twitter timeline.)
this isn't you.
it's no secret to anybody who knows me that the internet is a space for me to let out all of the darkness that wells itself up inside of my brain and to be truly passionate about things that nobody in real life cares about (due to trend cycles and how fast things you ""should"" care about come and go.) growing up, i spent a lot of time on tumblr, obviously, but not much time on the fandom side. a lot of fandom tumblr went against my values, but where i did spend a lot of time was the sides focused around aesthethics & posting images you like / aspire to be / trying to inspire people / being you / arts, crafts(...) and the fangirl side of tumblr. you could say "hey, isn't fangirl and fandom the same?" well, sorta, being a fangirl makes you inherently part of a fandom but being part of a fandom doesn't inhrently make you a fangirl. whilst fandom tumblr was judgemental and cared a little bit too much about things that they shouldn't (fanwars, etc) the side of fangirls was always kind and openhearted to all. that's not to say there aren't assholes everywhere, but you get the point. this matters because a big part of why i feel the way i do is due to that. a big BIG BIG part of this website as a whole is to bring solce and comfort to those who feel outcasted in the current scape of the vast, judgemental internet. you're being judged over things that have never been judged before.
passion is important to me, it's important to the internet as a whole, and it's important to you. where would you be if you simply followed the mold and held absolutely no passions outside of what other people will think is cool?
my manifesto is different in terms of my views, i don't think social media needs to be completely ditched, the ideals from social media, however, need to go. i do not think that everybody needs to have a website. having a website is a matter of 1) are you passionate about it? and 2) do you have something to say?
of course everyone should have one if they want one, i'm not arguing against that, but sometimes, people need to stick to social media and leave website building and owning to somebody else. i left neocities primarily due to the type of person now making websites. i'm seeing do not interact lists on websites...
when making a website, you leave social media and petty social media discourse at the door. a do not interact is nonsensical on a personal website, there is little to no interaction with the person reading your page. i don't think anybody who has one or reads and heeds them even check their emails. how are they going to interact, exactly? are you trying to stop them from looking at your website? that's not going to happen. stick to apps that have a block button, please.

back to my main point, being online is now way harder than it needs to be and was ever intended to be. who would have thought 10 years ago that your biggest worry is no longer somebody stealing your oc, or tracing your art, it's now some guy feeding your work into a machine and telling it to spit out more. being a musician, you won't get attention until you throw your dignity out the window and memify everything you say and do.
a writer? guess whose feeding your fiction to a machine and telling it to spit out more instead of emailing you telling you how much they enjoyed it and would like to read more?
you're watched endlessly, turned into nothing but a mindless spectacle meant to grant gratification to anyone who crosses your path. you don't give it? you're horrible.
you're 14, you're 15, you're 16, you're watched until you mess up so that it's not only 30 people at school shoving you around, but thousands, thousands of people including adults in their late 30s, mid 40s, you no longer have to be famous to be infamous.
you just have to be a dumb kid online, or a dumb 20 year old online, or a disagreeable 45 year old online.
this isn't how it should be. i want to bring change to the internet, for everyone, i want people to feel secure and safe, and i want for everybody to be be themselves LOUDLY, unapologetically. i want you to open that fanblog or that diy blog, even if your sewing skills aren't good yet. i want you to show off your collection even if nobody is watching. i want you to write pages and pages about your favorite video game and i want you to drop it on your website, and close the page, and if anyone has something to say? they can email you. they can write you the longest hate email ever if it bothers them, and you can smile at it because what you said mattered so much that somebody wrote passionately about it.
nothing should be able to take away what makes you into you. in real life, we've made it unacceptable to be yourself, and now the internet is turning into the same... when the internet isn't real life. it should have never become conflated with real life. it's time for things to change.

now you're thinking "well, alaina, how can we make it all better!? we're doomed!" NOPE. here's how you help.
surf the web, click though webrings, click through the explore on neocities and nekoweb, click the links in peoples bios; when you find something that resonates, email them. strike up a corespondance through email. we need emails and pen pals back.
if you're here, you probably already have, but make your own website. make one and let go of the rules of social media in your brain. let it all go, don't overthink, just write something and publish it.
teach others. if you know how to do something, write something teaching others about it! especially coding, if you want to, let people tinker with your sites code to help them learn.
be open minded. always. learn from others. drop your ego and LEARN.
if you want to keep social media, drop the rules of social media. be yourself, its your space, just like how a website is your space.
write. draw. create. create. create. create. we need to create. create with your brain and own two hands, create something that doesn't have the help of a machine.
be YOU. not what people tell you to be, BE WHATS IN YOUR BRAIN