Neocities are not cities, they are allotment gardens🌼

In December I have a bit more time to wonder around the Internet, so I have opportunity to check out what other websites on Neocities are all about, and it's really fun experience. There is so much creativity going on on so many websites, some of them have super funky graphics, or impressive layouts, often inspired by desktop environments and once in a while I'm finding blogs that are so full of quality articles and at the same time don't have that corporate, polished feel, but rather friendly and funky style.

One of a cool blog like that is Wiggle Monster by Wii Chicken and it's stunning how many post they've written, how the flow of the writing is natural and how alive that website looks. On of their recent article link's here was about the milestone of 200 000 hits on website... and trolls that comes with it.

Few days ago before that I've visited some funky pink website with the entire custom pink desktop layout with the chat hidden in one of the windows, not sure, I'll link if I find it again. And scrolling up the messages right after I wrote some nice stuff, and next to other usual encouraging comments, a bunch of gibberish appeared with texts like "Trump won yeah" or just some spam words.

This and n-words in Wii Chicken's guestbook got me thinking about what makes people spam like this. And I think it seems that the websites that are virtually invisible outside of Neocities sphere will never experience that as the people that want to run their little plot of cyberland are not interested in spamming and trolling (at least I've never seen that, maybe I'm too new here). The entry barrier of bothering with html to be seen by anyone quickly discourage people that just want a burst of attention and rage. The social media are almost perfectly designed for that, the potential audience is huge and the algorithms look favourably at posts that can instantly engage viewer. The explicit n-words might not get a pass by word filters, but anything close might do. Inside Neocities sites the webmasters can do whatever they want and just delete spam posts in their chats, and within neocities social activity tab you won't get any large traction unless you've made an excellent website with tons of followers, which take time and effort.

In a way Neocities are not cities where the traffic is large and everything can get very impactful, the websites are usually like that image from above: a tiny house with a garden, often with no mass appeal to draw crowds, stands just out of nostalgia and are located far away from city drama. Who willingly drive so far away to make a graffiti with the n-word on a greenhouse or shout some nonsense around the house when almost no one hears them.

Those two examples of spam on neocities sites are probably caused by folks from some city, the house in the village became so visible on the google maps, and had so many visitors that some idiot finally showed up and tested the patience of the webmaster. Maybe in a way, that's the compliment to the owner, but I bet it will get annoying very quickly if the spam keeps flowing up, but that's exactly why we're here. To be far away enough that few people will bother.

So don't worry about some random city folks dear webmasters, if anybody spray some bullshit on your driveway, just hose it down. And take care of your garden, weeds will grow somewhere eventually if the soil is good 🌼