Reclaiming the Internet with HTML Energy

Sunday - December 24 2023, 11:10 UTC - 11 months ago

The HTML Energy movement seeks to reclaim the internet by encouraging creative experimentation, user exploration, and a focus on individual expression. Through HTML, anyone can publish a website for free and create unique website experiences. HTML Energy sites can take the form of digital gardens, interactive poetry generators, or personal sites.

Websites weren’t always slick digital experiences. There was a time when surfing the web involved opening tabs that played music against your will and sifting through walls of Times New Roman text on a colored background. In the 2000s, before Squarespace and social media, websites were manifestations of individuality—built entirely from scratch using HTML, by users who had some knowledge of code and a desire to be on the internet .

Today, the majority of the internet is optimized for social engagement, e-commerce, and streaming. Most internet traffic is concentrated in a small number of sites, all of which are owned by the same handful of companies. From lengthy ads to aggressive cookie settings, minor obstacles and nuisances are baked in. Users are constantly reminded that their access to the internet is conditional on the monetary interests of a few .

The situation with X (formerly known as Twitter) perfectly encapsulates this state of internet ownership: it only took one executive to spark a mass exodus from the platform and to fragment its long-lived communities.However, despite the monopolistic landscape of Big Tech, one fundamental reality continues to justify the internet’s democratic reputation: anyone can publish a website for free with HTML .

With an abundance of real estate, the web technically has space for everyone. It’s just a matter of traffic.As Cost explains, it is precisely how forgiving HTML is that gives eager individuals an opportunity to self-publish on the web. With HTML, a site will still load even if a line of code is missing. The HTML Energy movement embraces these possibilities: learning via trial and error is welcomed, and creative experimentation is encouraged .

Since the rise of site-building tools like Wix, the intricate and sometimes clunky experience of hard-coding fonts or pixel spacing into a site has been replaced by templates and conventions of user experience design. As mainstream digital experiences trend toward a homogeneous visual language, the human touch gets lost in the many layers of abstraction. Site creators grow more distant from their sites, and the web becomes more transactional .

But the HTML Energy movement calls on people to reexamine our relationship with technology. Crafting a site using HTML allows programmers to explore what a website can be. Unlike their corporate counterparts, people creating sites on their own don’t answer to shareholders. They don’t have the pressure to create profitable experiences, so their creations can take an endless variety of forms. Common types of HTML Energy sites include digital gardens, where elements change with the seasons; interactive poetry generators, where inputs from the user give rise to new meaning; and personal sites that share intimate details about their creators’ lives .

In an internet that is increasingly consumerist, HTML Energy sites offer a gentle reminder that websites can be meditative experiences.The HTML Energy community advocates understanding HTML for what it quite literally is: a language. And it celebrates the way the rudimentary character of that language demands intention from the user. As an an almost limitless space for self-expression, the internet is still malleable enough that it is possible to mold it into the digital home we desire .