(Warning: This blog mentions Neocities drama, Gen AI, politics and some swearing. Please take care before reading on.)
Welp, I wasn’t supposed to touch Nekoweb until early next year. But thanks to what happen on Sunday (which I’ll get in a minute); I decided that it was time to make one.
I’ll tell you, I kind of like Nekoweb's file editor better than Neocities’ file editor, where the former has an actual back button while the latter don’t! I also like the cat theme that Nekoweb has for their file editor as they're the main theme of their website. But what I don’t like about Nekoweb's file editor is that I have problems moving a document from one folder to another and (for me) the stylesheet doesn’t work for some reason. I don’t know, I’ll have to keep tinkering for a time being.
As for what’s going to be on my Nekoweb website (that I mention in one of my blogs back in April), it’s a Windows 7/Frutiger Aero theme site as I have some nostalgic for the aesthetic as I was in middle school during that era. And that I was 13 years old when I got my first laptop, which used the Windows 7 engine. Of course, I don’t want to put it here as this is supposed to be a Y2K/Hello Kitty themed site. But despite the difference appearance, my goal for my Nekoweb website is to mirror my Neocities website (which I still haven’t figure out yet) and have it as a backup, in case things go wrong.
And what happen on that Sunday, is an example of things that DID go wrong. For those who were hiding underneath a rock in the past few days, a 5 year user (who since fled to Nekoweb) made a grim discovery that the owner of Neocities, Kyle Drake, wrote a blog that he’s supportive of (*gasp*) Gen AI! Okay, “supportive” is a strong word as he list out both the positives and the negatives of AI. And that at one point, he was supposed to put it here, but he knows how touchy the topic is and didn’t want to upset those who don’t want to use it. Because of that, he decided to put it on hold for now.
But it didn’t stop some from panicking by saying they were disappointed with him before announcing that they’re fleeing the site for Nekoweb. WhAs for the rest, they were on the fence on either leaving as Nekoweb has a lack of social aspect that Neocities have or were “meh” about it as they wondered how AI is going to be used here.
For me, when I first heard what happened on Sunday, I kind of panicked (thanks to my autism) as this is the last thing for me to worry about. Cohost is dead. I haven’t been on Reddit in weeks due to my fear of the heavy political discourse (that’s been happening in the past few weeks) thanks to this year’s general election (which my last blog mention). And I’m planning to get off of Tumblr next week for the same reason I’m staying away from Reddit.
So basically, Neocities is the only social media place left that I can (mostly) stay away from the politics. Seeing that the owner is a fan of Gen AI and nearly everyone’s mixed to negative reaction over it; made me nervous as I wondered if it’s time for me to go. Of course, like I mention in the last paragraph, Nekoweb's lack of social aspect is what keeps me from leaving Neocities in the first place. Yeah, Nekoweb has a Discord, but not everybody uses that and people debate if it's a good replacement for fourms or so what.
Then after a day of calming down and gathering my thoughts over the situation, I decided that I WON’T be leaving Neocities as I'm proud of how far my website has come! Like as of right now, I have over 210,000 views and 167 followers and I feel kind of wrong for abandoning them because some year old blog (yeah, I’m surprised it took until NOW for people to find out and get upset about it) managed to ruffle some feathers. But like I mention on my recent profile page, it’s never a bad idea to make a backup in case anything happens here.
As for my general thoughts of AI, I understand why people don’t like as much as it’s steals from writers and artists, it’s bad for the environment and most importantly, it’s taking jobs away from people who can’t work in-person for various reasons. That last part is why I gave up looking for telework jobs as there’s a chance it’ll be taken over by AI anyways.
Then there’s the AI art that’s been coming out in the past few years that looks bad. Like, I can’t look up Hello Kitty wallpapers on Google Images anymore without seeing some AI crap of Hello Kitty, which I know it’s AI based on how it look! Then you wonder why people stop using Google all together…
Then my other biggest concern of AI is that it’ll be use to misinform people on the upcoming election that will trick them into either voting (or in the worst case, not voting) for all the wrong reasons! Heck just nearly 2 weeks ago, conservatives on mainstream social media were posting AI photos of puppies and little girls in distress after Hurricane Helene hit Southeastern America, which manage to fool both regular people and ACTUAL POLITICIANS!!! And they’re using that photo to show evidence that the Biden administration are failing to do their job (They ARE responding to the disaster, you assholes!)!
Hearing stuff like that made me glad I ditched mainstream social media years ago. But I fear what more misinformation AI will produce in the future. And that it might help Trump WIN his reelection because of AI!
Sorry for the little political rant, I’m just stressed out by the upcoming election. That’s all.
But at the end, I’ll still be using Neocities until the day it gets shut down or Kyle Drake eventually put AI in the code that will drive people away. And that I shouldn’t jump the gun that quick as it’s a bad habit of mine thanks to my autism and anxiety. At least I was smart enough to not delete my Neocities account that quick by forcing myself to calm down and think it over. Mostly staying away from the Activity feed when this blew up, also helped.
Like I said before, it’s never a bad idea to have a backup in case things go wrong. Now, I’m tinkering on and off making pages for my Nekoweb website. I finish the index page and I currently have rough drafts of some of the pages on my Notepad++. While it looks done, but I feel like it’s missing a few things to make it look, right. And that it’s not mobile friendly either. But I do know that once I’m done making my Nekoweb site, I might move my drawings over there as its AI-free (which is why people are fleeing to Nekoweb in the first place). So, it’ll be a bit until I feel comfortable to post on the Nekoweb website.
And I was supposed to beat Luigi’s Mansion (that stupid Boolossus fight made me quit) and play other video games that I planned to beat this month (for a reason, that is) when all this happened, oops! Sigh…executive dysfunction at its best (I hate having autism). At least this will (hopefully) keep me distracted from reading the news about the current events and election for a bit.
To end this on a light note, here are some screenshots of my upcoming pages for my Windows 7/ Frutiger Aero themed Nekoweb website:
Hopefully, there will no more nasty surprises in the next few weeks before the end of the year. But, I doubt that…