Everyone who maintains a personal website remembers the Internet we miss. Customizable blogs, HTML/CSS on your social media page, all that. You could be on the same site as everyone else but you actually stood out. That feeling of freedom is why we choose to do this. Bring some sense of fulfillment back to our online experience. We get to be ourselves on our websites.

I'm not going to talk about how owning a personal website is freeing emotionally or anything. None of the sentimental stuff. I want to talk about "stealing" and what it means to me to be a Webmaster. All personal opinions here.

Webmastery is self-expression. It's writing. You're learning the deeper complexities of a language to be able to make something from it. You have to know the terms, syntax, and grammar of the language you choose.

Like language and writing, coding has rules. The one rule that's always been around is: Don't steal code you didn't write. We're all guilty of it but most of us grow up and realize we shouldn't steal from other Webmasters.

Those who have this warped idea of how coding "used to be back then" think that stealing is okay. Someone laments the old Internet ruled by bright blogs and blingees. When people tell them they can claim a space online for themselves today, they say that coding is a commitment now. They miss the old features of coding like... copying it from somewhere and just "putting it in the box." It was "so much easier back then." You're just "too young" to remember what it was like!

Congratulations, you have no idea what being a coder and owning a website is. You're just a loser. You act pessimistic when people tell you it's ALWAYS been a commitment to maintain your own website, not just now. If you spent enough time ACTUALLY coding and not just leeching off other people, you'd know that.

Anyone who owns a website knows that even with how many hours of sleep you lose and how much time you spend staring at text in an editor, you do this because you actually enjoy it. You code because you like it, not because there's an endless library out there to steal from and you pretend you did anything original after the fact.

It's embarrassing. Anyone who rips other peoples' code straight from their websites are the same as those who steal writing or trace art and act like they're original. You're not special and you're not cute. You're a piece of shit.

OK. The point is that to be a Webmaster of your own personal website is to try to actually make shit on your own. It's YOUR website, not the 10 people who you stole code from's. I know I'm using a couple things on this website I didn't make but it barely compares to all the stupid divs that make up this site because I'm stubborn about learning CSS Grid. I've spent time overhauling and learning how to make things look decent as is.

Why be so melancholy about an Internet you miss when you never took the time to seemingly learn coding in the first place? Read some W3Schools or MDN Docs. If you actually cared about being a Webmaster you would stop being incompetent. Don't expect this to be like Carrd.

WRITTEN: AUGUST 2024