Noobscape Year-1

Wait, it's been a year already?

August 17, 2024

It's hard to believe that another year has already flown by. It really set in when I had to renew the domain name lol. I started the neocities account and registered the domain on August 16, 2023. I assume that the footer says August 15 because that was probably the day that I started writing code for the site.

Today I don't really intend to dive into the evolution of noobscape.net with this post, because I don't think that's interesting to anyone. Rather, I'd like to talk about why I created this site and where I was at in my life when I did so.

In early August of 2023, I was laid off from a pretty solid job. I had only been there for 5 or 6 months, but I did get some good experience out of it. It paid decent, had benefits, but it was pretty stressful and not in the ways that I was looking for. Of course every job is stressful in some way, but there are certain types of stress that I would prefer to avoid. I was intending to leave, but nothing was concrete. I wanted to have something lined up, and I wanted to leave my work in a state that I was satisfied with. That wouldn't be the case.

I was working a normal shift, left for lunch, and when I came back I was called to the HR office. I wondered, "Huh, wonder what I did to have to go to HR."

Based on the look in the faces of both the HR person and the head of my department (who was also there), I immediately new something was amiss. They tore the bandage off right away; I appreciated that they didn't try to dance around it. Within 15 or so minutes I was told that I no longer had a job, grabbed the things from my desk, and said goodbye to my awesome former coworkers. I wasn't allowed to wrap up whatever I was doing, everything was just left as it was before I took my lunch. I found myself caught in a wave of a company-wide layoff, and I had the least experience in my department so I wound up on the chopping block.

It was a strange feeling. I was relieved to be free of the stress and I was glad that my projects were no longer my problem. I was angry at myself for leaving that work for my coworkers (they had projects of their own and didn't have the time to pick up mine), even though that was out of my control. I was upset because I was now unemployed with nothing lined up. I had just moved into a new place with my roommate, and now I had no income. Once I was finally alone in my car, my state of shock was broken, and everything hit me the moment I sat in the driver seat and shut the door. I cried an ugly and terrible manly cry caused by built-up bottled emotions being set free in tandem with what had just happened.

I was finally free of the stress from that job and found that the opportunity for something new had arrived, but unfortunately for me I chose to make a series of poor decisions rather than good ones. Instead of being a responsible adult and getting a new job right away, I decided to float entirely on my savings and do nothing for a while. I guess there's nothing wrong with taking a break, but it was more than a break. While I didn't want to admit it, I no longer cared about myself or my future, and I believed that I was worthless. I began to smoke an absurd and unhealthy amount of pot (which didn't really help my mental state) and kinda do whatever I felt like doing for too long. It was an irresponsible thing to do, and I couldn't be any more appreciative that my awesome roommate put up with me. As long as I was still paying my share, he didn't seem to care what I did. Plus we got to hang out and play games pretty often which was pretty sick ngl. If you're reading this, I love ya m8. I don't think I made my mental state very obvious, and I intended to keep it that way. I'm a bit too prideful and stubborn sometimes, and I didn't really want help from anyone. I just had to figure things out for myself.

Noobscape.net began late during this period of irresponsibility. In 2023 I felt that the mainstream internet had become much more depressing than usual. Everybody is screaming all at once, finding a new thing to bitch about every hour. It's not really a new thing, it's just been greatly amplified and its harder to avoid when you're online. I guess that's just humans being humans though. Internet or no internet humans will find something to complain about or get mad at regardless of their situation. It has just become very efficient and algorithmically streamlined, especially as more people go online these days. I've since come to the conclusion that it's unhealthy to worry about things out of your control, you just have to get on with it and make the best of things.

Social media platforms and tech companies in general seem to be feeding into this more and more since that's where the money's at. It's disgusting, but what can you do. This pushed me to create a place where I could get away from it all. While neocities sorta counts as a social media, it's completely avoidable. If you want, you can just host your site there and not interact with the community whatsoever. I do like to see what other people are making though, and neocities has more of a tight-knit vibe to it. It serves as a good way to find other sites too. There is no algorithm, just your own exploration through neocities search and through the sites you discover.

I wanted to create a place with my own hands (or fingers I guess) that I could call my own. A place with my own personal touch where I could freely be myself. I had all the time to do so, and I didn't just want to sit around and rot. And thus, noobscape.net was born.

I did grow up a little and get a job within a month so that I could have some semblance of structure to get out of the slump I was in (and to get sum monay). I returned to my previous place of employment. The pay wasn't great, which is why I originally left (I left on good terms btw), but I geniunely enjoyed working there. Up until this week I've remained a bit too comfortable there, and I'm glad to say that I'm finally moving onto a new and exciting opportunity. I'll be travelling more in this new job, which I think will be cool and kinda peaceful. Obviously things won't be perfect everyday (it never will be), but it's fulfilling work and I'll sometimes be able to stop and smell the roses from time to time. It's a great combo. While I'd slowed down on the smoking for quite a while now, I've gone clean this month leading up to this new job and it feels good.

I feel that I've grown as a person over this last year, and I'm ready to continue growing. I may not spend as much time on this site or on the internet in general, which I'm ok with. Time in this world is limited, and I want to spend the majority of it in the real world with the people I love. I'm happy to report that I've spent plenty of time with my friends and family over the last year, and I feel very fortunate to have them around. It's fun writing things and trying to be somewhat informative, and I've created a great outlet for myself to do so when I feel like it. I hope that everyone who reads the stuff on my site gets as much enjoyment out of it as I do writing it. I hope that I've inspired people to make their own websites and to do their own thing.

My goal with this post wasn't to be depressing or to give myself a pity party or anything. I just wanted to be real for a moment and write about this experience of mine. If someone gets something out it, great. I've also written this for myself in order to reflect. Noobscape.net isn't single-handedly responsible for improving my mental health or anything, but it's certainly helped I think. It's not going anywhere anytime soon.

Here's to another year!