The Web Revival is one name for a wider internet-based movement! The name itself is derived from the Folk Revival of the mid-20th century. The Folk Revival promoted a feeling of humanity, creativity and equality at a time of rapid mechanisation; whereas the Web Revival promotes these values in the face of the rapid digitisation that surrounds us today.
The Web Revival is about reclaiming the technology in our lives and asking what we really want from the tools we use, and the digital experiences we share. The Web Revival often references the early Internet, but it's not about recreating a bygone web; the Web Revival is about reviving the spirit of openness and fresh excitement that surrounded the Web in its earliest days.
The Web Revival is not one single movement, but a loose collection of ideas and groups that fall under many names, such as:
Some other names related to the Web Revival:
Web Revival enthusiasts come from all walks of life, however most share a few things in common:
These ideals are expressed by creating websites, zines, online spaces, video games, artworks, journals and much more!
Web Revivalists will often choose to use alternative technology and software in their lives, or to modify and remix the technology they find around them. Reusing obsolete things (like older digital cameras, mp3 players, site builders etc.), can be a form of environmental, anti-corperate and aesthetic rebellion.
The goal is to find what was best about the early web and what is best about new technologies and merge the two into a model for tomorrow; while kicking all the Zuckerberg's and Musk's to the curb so we can get on with our lives. The citizens of the web deserve more respect than to be boxed into cubicles, limited to 280 characters, studied and rebranded.
The Web Revival is about building a sense of mystery, humour, humility and optimism in technology. The Web Revival above all else values action; we avoid perfectionism because it limits action - the Web Revival encourages creating and sharing things, even if they are small, broken, incomplete and Warning Under Construction.
This is a quiz and manifesto to help you tell if a website is a web revival site! Each question has a score at the end, add up your score and see how it works out!
The web revival is about reviving a spirit of exploration and discovery, that means trying ideas and creating things that are unlike anything that existed in the past.
The web revival is about twisting history, and finding the ideas and materials the web abandoned, then remixing them into the modern age. History is a tool, not a destination.
Everyone has limited knowledge, how you use that knowledge is what makes a site unique. Its good for things to be broken, that's an opportunity to learn. There is no end or finished project; and if you finish your site, you may have missed the point.
The web revival is depends on generosity, it's a web without walled gardens or unnecessary restrictions. Go out of your way to share knowledge and materials, and support archives and community efforts to share knowledge.
The web has a history, an aesthetic, and technical boundaries. Always respect the materials you use, the people who created them, and the context they came from. There is a difference between bending media into a new form, and forcing it to be something its not.
The goal of any new media should be to inspire and delight people. Money or usefulness are fine outcomes for a project, but they must be secondary to the goal of inspiring.
We all build personas for the world to see, but the web revival is about cutting those personas down to size, and creating web spaces that are honest and genuine to who you are. That does not mean sharing your real identity, but it does mean that the identity you do share should feel like its made for you, rather than fitting into someone eles's mold.
Link to others, and ensure links to you don't die. Links are the lifeblood of the web, they are the web's most authentic feature. Its an honor to be linked to, and its an honor to link.
The web revival is about collaboration. Ask questions and answer them too. Help build other peoples projects, not just your own, and when you do create projects, build them to last so that people can depend them.
The web revival is about remixing the ruins of older eras of the web. Everything you create will one day be a ruin too, and it will be remixed again. Design your site to be a graceful archive, don't delete it, don't break links; and let people know when you have moved on. Your site is a resource for the future, so make sure the future can reach it.
Mess with people, push them, force people to look at things differently, but do it with their best interests at heart. People deserve a web that's more than a polite novelty. People deserve a web that speaks to their chaos and shouts back, but does not bully them, put them at risk, bore them, steal from them, or treat them as metrics.
The total possible score is 22!
The phrase “web revival” has evolved over many years. A variant of the term appears in Gizmodo's 2014 article about Neocities “The Great Web 1.0 Revival”. However, the modern meaning described here evolved as part of a group discussion that took place on the Yesterweb Discord server in 2021.
Prior to that terms such as “Bespoke Web”, “Indie Web” and simply “Neocities” were often used.
In 2021 due to the popularity of the Discord group, the term “Yesterweb” was frequently used to describe the wider web crafting community, however, some felt that it was inappropriate to overuse the Discord server name, particularly when talking about sites made by people who were not part of the discord server.
Web Revival was one suggestion that came about during that discussion; it was initially a play on the “Folk Revival” as described above, and it also included the suggestion that webmasters could be referred to as “Codeniks” after the 1960s “Beatnik” culture.
Initially, it was not a widely popular term; however, it was fully adopted by MelonLand in late 2021 and was further promoted in articles such as “What Is The Web Revival” in 2022. The Codeniks phrase was never adopted, but the Web Revival phrase eventually gained widespread use and has largely been the primary phrase as of 2023.