RSS feeds are kind of awesome???

I'm kind of addicted to the idea of an RSS feed. Obviously I have one running now for my website, but like, it's kinda like a thread? Or more specifically a way to serialize content from a website into an ordered thread in any way you want? That's so cool??? In the mainstream net, if I wanted to show my friends something I wrote or posted or said or whatever, I'd have to DM it to them or send it in a Discord channel. With an RSS feed I can just give them the link in whatever way is most convenient, and their reader will automatically bring them new things from me when I post about them. And they can do the same the other way around. And it can be between friends or the wider Internet public or a specific group or anything. This is so cool??? This is awesome??? Huh???

Like this, right here??? This is an independant message being sent via the Internet that is unaffiliated with any kind of social media, this is only dependant on a web host to bring you RSS updates and a feed reader that interprets the .xml code and spits out a basic text post. You could create a website that was just a homepage and an RSS feed and that's all you'd need to have a presence. I mean, that would be somewhat inefficient and a waste of a webhost like Neocities where you could build a site and have an RSS feed, but regardless, this is a thing that you could do. You'd be taking advantage of a really simple syndication (good string of words, we should name something after that) to send people who follow your feed anything you want, at any given time, for any reason you so choose. Like this post has no point, it has nothing to do explicitly with my website, but I decided it would be fun to write and send out to anyone following my feed. And you know what? I can just do that. For free. On the net. Because the Internet belongs to us, and we can do what we want with it. We are not controlled by corporations and advertisers and government groups and social media conglomerates and whatever. We have all of the power over what happens, and at any time we can choose to say "Fuck all that noise!" and do our own thing. Like this. Here. And my website. And my friends's websites. And every other bit of the indie web full of people who decided "fuck that noise" and did their own thing.

So I guess this was about my website after all. I mean, I made it in the first place because of the enshittification of the Internet and the fickle nature of social media platforms. Tumblr deletes trans woman and POC just for existing. Twitter is a nazi haven akin to 4chan. Bluesky is full of the most insufferable liberals you can find on the Internet. Reddit is the hell that all forum sites go to when they die. What are we supposed to do? Fuckin' Miiverse I guess??? No, we're allowed to not use social media, or not be online, but at the same time we're allowed to make our own connections. To make our own places. To carve out our own little corners of the Internet and make our own way in the World Wide Web. Tumblr doesn't get to tell you what content is and isn't okay to post online, or what you are and are not allowed to discuss about yourself if you choose to do so. Instagram or TikTok or whoever does not get to tell you what is and isn't "advertiser friendly" and demand that you abide by that. The government can't tell you that you can't access the Internet without uploading your legal ID to an unsecure data server that will absolutely get hacked and dumped and leak personal data all over the web. They can't. Because we have the power to control the Internet and do what we want.

Okay, this got a lot longer that I intended, and it's now an unlisted blog post. There's some buttons and miscellaneous links to some resources I've used, I highly recommend you make your own Neocities account and grab a URL you like. Start making a site. Even if it's simple. Even if it sucks. Make your own place. Make sure all your social media pages have a link to it, and from your site to your socials. Have a blog or something simple. Run an RSS feed if you're feeling up to it. There is nothing more liberating online than running your own site and being unafraid of the investors and boardmembers and advertisers and anyone else who might delete you from digital existance by removing you from any and all social medias. You do not have to live in fear. They thrive on your fear. They are counting on you being too deterred by the process to ever leave them, to ever take your existance into your own hands. It's free and it's easy and they don't want you to know because then they risk you spending less time viewing ads, or worse, logging off.

The Internet is yours, so fuck all that noise.

I use sadgrl guides a lot, this site's layout was made using her old HTML/CSS site generator. She has guides on lots of other things too, I recommend bookmarking her for later.

Atabook is the free guestbook host I use. Really fun bit of interactivity for site visitors and hosts.

Several of my friends have made websites using petrapixel's layout generator, and it's worked out pretty well for both of them.
https://petrapixel.neocities.org/coding/layout-generator

Here's some more miscellaneous resources.

If you want to make an RSS feed, I've made a template that you can use for free. Click the link below to view the raw .xml file. Right-click, select to view the page source, and just copy the code right into your own file hosted on your site.
https://transgirl-gaming-thoughts.neocities.org/rss-template.xml
The instructions I include in the file itself should be mostly self-explanatory, and a little fiddling can help you figure things out. Make sure to validate your feed with the W3C Feed Validator I link above.

I also recommend the Feedbro browser extension as an RSS reader, but there's a lot of readers out there so of course do your due research and pick one that's right for you. Feedbro is on Firefox, and even Chrome and Edge if you're evil. Very easy to use, highly recommend.

Now go. The Internet is yours.