Oldwebplurid

In terms of our collective identity, we do consider webmaster as a hobby/identity to be a part of it, but we also feel that the internet, especially the old web, affects our experience with identity in a very particular way that means we feel we have a collective identity surrounding the internet.

The internet was a mixed blessing for us during our childhood in the 1990s and 2000s, because on one hand, the internet was full of good information, incredible websites (both professional and personal), and staggering creativity that stuck with us for a lifetime.

However, what we felt was an escape from the abuse we were experiencing offline quickly turned into another avenue for abuse itself. It was also where some of our abusers, including offline ones, got some of the information they used to abuse us.

Despite our bad experiences with the internet and our overall cynicism regarding the state of the modern web, we also feel that the internet is, in some respects, our home. It's the source of a lot of our trauma, but it's also where we learned a lot of important things, and it's where a lot of our important connections are - including ones that have lasted over a decade.

We also feel that a lot of the things about the old web are not impossible to achieve if you try on purpose. You can make a Neocities site, use forums, stick to smaller social media like Fediverse sites or very curated Tumblr spaces, and avoid larger social media that's structured in ways that discourage intellectual discussion (e.g. platforms focused on brevity).

Therefore, the old web is an important part of how we approach the current web, and even certain things about our everyday life, since we separate our offline and online lives much more than most people around us tend to, much more like a person from the old web days. It may be anachronistic, but we prefer to live this way and consider the old web part of our identity as a collective, both in terms of our actual experiences on it and how it influences our everyday life now.