Putting the “Person” in “Personal Website”
Writing about the big beautiful mess that is making things for the world wide web.
I believe everyone could benefit from a personal website. Its form encourages you to look inward, whereas every social platform on the internet encourages you to look outward.
A personal website has affordances which encourage you to create something that you couldn’t otherwise create anywhere else, like YouTube or Reddit or Facebook or Twitter or even Mastodon. Why? Because the context of those environments is outward looking. It’s not personal, but social. The medium shapes the message.
Additionally, a personal website and a social platform are two different environments: one I’ve cultivated, the other I’ve been granted.
Like dancing or singing, you don’t have to be skilled to do them. Personal websites should be the same. They’re for everyone. Like dancing and singing, their expression can be as varied as every individual human.