I have suddenly become more interested in the world of the so-called “Small Web,” “Indie Web,” “Alternative Web,” and other parts of the internet that aren’t “Web” at all. It’s all quite fascinating to me, though I admit I am a bit intimidated by some parts of it that seem only navigable by long-enfranchised computer programmers.
Below are some preliminary thoughts–really a roundup of spaces I have been investigating. Soon I’ll do some more theoretical writing about why I think these things are interesting. For now, this is just an invitation for you to start digging around yourself. You might think to yourself thoughts like, “Ah, this is why cartweel suddenly started a Webring.” and so-forth and so-on. Have fun.
I’m not sure exactly what nomenclature folks would use who have been involved in this space for longer, so I’ll just go with what feels right to me now and amend later if necessary. From my perspective, the Indie Web means people who are trying to divest from (or who never got onto) the monopolist sites (Facebook, Twitter) that take the lion’s share of people’s involvement in online spaces today.
This can be:
What I have experienced recently, and that I not-so-secretly hope to cause others to experience, is finding my way onto the Small Web and then having that experience lead me (or perhaps opening pathways that I have then chosen to follow) to other, even weirder online spaces. (See below!)
Here’s a Youtube video that talks about the Indie Web and, importantly, its relationship to (rejection of?) crypto-nft-ism, and the power/peril of a nostalgic internet.
Youtube Video: You should Check Out the Indie Web
Want to explore the Indie Web? Check out Marginalia, an "independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed."
This is the rabbit hole I’ve fallen down most recently. I first encountered it via this great talk by James Tomasino.
Youtube Video: Rocking the Web Bloat: Modern Gopher, Gemini and the Small Internet
I’ll be the first to tell you that I barely understand any of this stuff; I just learned (from the above video) what an internet protocol is, or that there are parts of the internet that are not the World Wide Web. If this is new to you: In common usage “the internet” and “the web” are synonymous; but technically they are not. That “http(s)://” and the “www.” stuff at the beginning of an internet address are literally an address; they tell you that you are going to a specific (but huge) subsection of theoretical internet space.
(Sidebar: Actually I have had a vague sense about the distinction because, for reasons of irl culture, Klingondom is joyfully chock full of programmer types, which has led there to be the distinction between ‘Internet (sic), meaning the internet, and weQmoQnaQ, meaning the “World Wide Web.” Now the distinction is much more clear to me. What’s Klingon for “gopher?” Maybe woSwa’, meaning an “armadill-like” or “hedgehog-like” animal? jISovchu’be’.)
Long story short: http is a certain “protocol,” of which there are others, including Gopher and its recent progeny, Gemini. Both of these lesser-known and much-lesser-used protocols are kept alive by enthusiasts who, for one reason or another, are seeking a different kind of online experience: One that is DIY, text-oriented, maybe javascript-less, and, in Gemini’s case, internet security focused. Watch James Tomasino’s video, linked above, for a much better explanation!
I’m still just starting to explore Geminispace, so I don’t think I can give you a little list of the cool stuff that one can find there, but let me just say that within a half hour of getting into the Gemini protocol I was reading mirrored documents from the Anarchist Archive and sampling someone’s diary cataloguing their ongoing struggle with migranes. Last night I stumbled into something like a webring (gemist argot is “orbit”) that then popped me back into indie http space to find cool conlangers making weird esoteric programming languages. What I’m trying to say is that I really felt like I was SURFING again, and it was a blast.
Doing only a little looking into online spaces like the Gemini protocol lead me to a major question: How the fuck do I even access that?
The basic answer is, there are two options: You’ve either got to use one of several clients (think “browser”) to be able to access the protocol; or, you can reach it through the World Wide Web via a small number of proxy services. Using a client requires a non-trivial amount of trial and error to find a client that works for you (the Gemini homepage on the web lists a LOT of options in various states of out-of-the-box useability) but allows you to really customize your time in Gemspace. I’m talking specifically about Gemini now because I haven’t even TRIED to get into Gopher yet. That’s one of the points of Gemini, actually; it’s supposed to be more accessible to a contemporary web user than Gopher.
Project Gemini “website” hosted on Gemini proper, accessed through a proxy
Gemini software, including a list of clients
My experience is that it was really fun to use one of the proxy services to get my feet wet in Gemspace. I think that the existence of these proxy services and their prominence on the Gemini Protocol’s homepage on the web (gemini.circumlunar.space) speaks to the idea that Gemini isn’t merely (or in some negative sense) a “walled garden” meant to be kept private from the unwashed, unprogrammerly masses. Onramps exist. The people behind Gemini are trying to make it easy to at least get started through proxies, hosting services, and page builders like Flounder.
Which is not to say that last night I wasn’t pretty frustrated while trying to set up a proper Gemini client. Probably this is something that would be trivial to an enfranchised programmer; I had to recruit the services of my ever-patient programmer boyfriend. But once I gave up on one client (that must have been glitching, I say, trying to save face) I found another–“GemiNaut” that worked great right out of the box.
I am still developing thoughts on this, but I’ll also briefly note here that one of Gemini’s major guiding principles is limited “extensibility,” by which its developers mean that it will achieve a stable scale and complexity and then that complexity will be STOPPED. Therefore, theoretically, it will be easy for new people to get involved and not have to then navigate an ever-broadening, ever-deepening pool of possible Gemini extensions, complications, patches, mods, and so forth. It’s just this. I can see that the apparent (to some) lack of features can be seen as something that is anti-approachability; but I am intrigued by the idea that, by keeping the system simple, it then, by virtue of that anti-extensibility ethos, remains within something like a… I dunno a SKILLS COMMONS or something like that. Like I said, thoughts developing.
Lastly: The Gemini community seems to be taking things like capital-A Accessibility wrt visual impairment very seriously. Part of the benefit of it being easily parsible text only stuff is that it can be easily read by screen readers and so-forth. There’s even alt text for the (ubiquitous) ASCII art!