I have been busy redesigning this blog after several obsessive visits to Neocities. I thought Neocities was just another website hosting place, until I found out that it’s not just a website hosting place. It literally a place where 2000s blogs thrive. I even found most of the bloggers are using imood! (and yes, I’m so tempted to re-sign up! I did)

I just love how unapologetic the Internet and the blogsphere were back in its heyday. True that folks with interests in blogs, anime, mangas (those three were usually intertwined), and 1st or 2nd-generation KPop stars were deemed as outliers back then, but that was when things were genuine. We read blogs of someone battling with mental health and sadness and cheered them on, we also followed someone’s classes and exams, and everything was mostly with pure intentions and friendship. Blogs were diaries and opinions, instead of “5 Ways for You to Have Summer-Ready Body!” or any SEO-related articles. Bloggers experimented a lot back then; colorful explosions of JavaScript, iframes, glitters, and <marquee> were the “it thing”. Suffice to say, I’m so so glad to see those online diaries and musings and writings are coming back. I know they never left, it’s just that… It’s beautiful to finally find them again, you know? It feels like meeting a long lost friend.

On my blog, I added some pixels/tiny pixels as I really love them, hahah. I also used Bitmap-style font (“rainyhearts“) in some areas, and I really need to find time to make myself a clique/pixel banner! I also found out that to give the “retro” vibe on your site (that overlay diagonal transparent lines), you can use 100% CSS. I mean, the last time I worked on such thing, I had to create a transparent image on Adobe Photoshop to be set as an overlay image, hahah. How the technology has advanced! This is what I use for this blog:

body::before {
content: "";
position: fixed;
inset: 0;
background: repeating-linear-gradient(45deg,
  rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.02),
  rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.05) 1px,
  rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.03) 3px);
pointer-events: none;
z-index: 1000;
}

I took the code from itinerae‘s website with some adjustments (and refresher) from CSS Tricks.

I also added background image and worked on the layout. I really love itinerae’s and rem’s planet’s designs and layout! Their blogs are so pretty and I love the small details on it.

I’m so excited to blog again, thanks to the bloggers on Neocities.