“Internet Soul” is a homage to the internet of old: combining nostalgia, post-capitalist resistance, and queer expression. As a child of the early 2000s, I remember exploring the internet in the earlier days of web 2.0 and being fascinated by the world being built by other people inside the screen. In recent decades, social media platforms have moved away from this network of creative expression and further towards algorithmic content that must fit a mould for “success”. This is why I was inspired by the work of artists on the “Indie Web”, still building independent websites and blogs. Like theirs, this site was built from the ground up in HTML and CSS. This would not have been possible without the work of other internet users, whose ideas and skills have been shared and passed down or future site builders to borrow and learn from.

While for many, the physical world may be a playing field for creative rule-breaking, this isn’t always the case for queer youth. I was taken by the stories of trans, queer, neurodivergent, and other marginalised people who forged their identities creatively on the internet. This site is dedication to them, and to anyone who has felt trapped or unsafe to represent themself in the “real world”. These individuals were the drive behind many of the aesthetic choices I made when building this site: a focus on “cute” pink colours and characters echoes my own observations of feminine-aligned aesthetics being taken less seriously by the mainstream and more freely expressed on the internet.

An important part of this project for me was utilising the ability to add comments to a website as a way for users to share their own stories. It’s my hope that this site will remain online for many years and exist as a space for future visitors to read others’ stories and comment their own. The internet should be a space for making and sharing, something that mainstream platforms have unfortunately forgotten in favour of profit. This message feels especially important in our current era of AI politics. We must not forget that the internet was created for us to connect.