Nothing, my comments might have either been deleted, most likely because they were detected as spam. Other comments like these were allowed to stay up, though :p
Rosemary approved my comment on her guestbook for public viewing :)
hill house
Yata replied to my comment on their guestbook :)
Yatagarsu's guestbook
des never replied to my comment :(
des's guestbook
hazilysora never replied to my comment either :(
hazilysora's guestbook
But Nicole for being the first comment on my guestbook :D Thank you!
casey left a comment on my guestbook, too!
I looked back on Petra’s page and she didn’t respond to my comment, but replied to other comments despite her warning that she rarely responds to any at all. Maybe my website isn’t creative enough? My website is too boring, too bland, not enough flare. I don’t fit in. I looked back at hillhouse’s website and my comment was approved! Maybe it was because I said I was also a lesbian. I feel a little better about myself now. I looked back at doqmeat/des’s website and they never checked out my website :( or if they did, they never commented on my guestbook, bummer. They left comments on sora’s site and their commont was after mine, so they definitely should’ve seen it, right? I ask myself, is there a place for me? While Neocities encourages users to explore their own creativity as a protest to modern web design, a core tenant of the Web Revival movement, I feel like an outcast among the outcasts. Neocities users like PetraPixel have carved out little places where they can be themselves, but what for the user who wants to explore but also go quietly? All websites are valid, not just the popular, pretty, well-coded and designed ones. People that are in niche, alternatives communities still judge books by their cover, not carrying to throw crumbs at the peasants admiring them from their shiny, tall pedestals. This project ultimately explores and exposes how, in order to participate in a social network, you have to abide by the rule of the users of the network, learning and mimicking their behavior to “fit in”. This is bigger than the conventional example of being a troll to start trouble and getting banned for egregious behavior. Sometimes these are explicit rules such as not being a dick to other users and being nice and respectful, but either way, they are rules and expectations to be follwoed no matter what social networking app or website you use. Choosing not to follow those rules means you generally don't get to participate, such as with my website. The activity tab on Neocities is interesting as it allows for transparency of user acitivty, but it also can serve as a means of surveillance to as all, or almost all, activity is visible for the public to scrunitize. Any comments, including accusations of disobedience of the rules, can be directly aired out to the offending user.
My website wasn't even recognized in the tagging system as I was unable to find it when searching through the tags I used to describe my site. Maybe it was because my site had less than 100 views, but it still further established my place in the website as a nobody. Even though I've been updatign my website like crazy as well, my activity still isn't being recognized under the "Activity" page. My page is so insignificant, unquantifiable that I effectively don't exist according to Neocities. My website wasn't cool enough or didn't look interesting for the vast majority of users to check out or feel obligated enough to leave a comment. The only people who left comments on my guestbook was an IRL person I know that was aware of this project and a user I discovered myself by looking at the newest sites, a site thast had less than 200 views. Maybe this shows the distance that forms between people in a community once they get to a certain amount of notoriety. This was only an intervention, an infiltration into these precious space people carved out for themselves in the name of a free and more creative web, but what for the person who wants to participate but isn't very good at coding, who just can't figure out how to put in crazy, colorful gifs oor more technical tricks in Javascript, who can't even figure out how to change a template? Are they forever banished into the realm of obscurity?
Nonconformity to the standard behavior of a website isn't a bad thing. Sometimes, the most creative and thoughtful things can be produced by thinking even more outside of the box, such as with websites like this:
Bosom Friend's site
When you're focused on the most popular, most well-designed sites (and other things in life), you also miss the hidden gems
