“The yesterweb started out a lot like melonland (that is to say, melonland was modeled on the early yesterweb) - but over time the staff on the yesterweb grew increasingly serious. They felt it was their mission to save the web; that they were revolutionaries. At the start they believed that you could save the web by making homepages, I believed that too and still do! It was fun and it inspired a lot of people, myself included!

However quite quickly that vibe started to change. The staff started to believe that homepages were not enough to save the web from corporate greed and boredom, and they even started to blame their community for not doing enough and being too comfortable. Ultimately they fixated on the values of Marxism as a model for their “New Web”, and they said that homepages were a distraction.

I felt that they were wrong. I felt that copying old ideologies like marxism was just repeating the past, and that to make the web better we would have to invent something new; and I felt that art and the power of creativity and generosity could be the founding values of that new approach to the web.

Anyway, all of that came to a head when I reached out to the YW staff in hopes of forming a support group for indie communities (32Bit Cafe were also invited, and Cinni's AngleCafe), a bit like a United Web Communities. However, the meeting did not go well. I felt that they were uninterested and just wanted to attack me for having differing ideas for the web; although in retrospect I think they were just burned out and stuck down a path they were not enjoying anymore.

The morning after our meeting I made a bad choice to delete the group chat I had created for the discussion; I remember I was in tears doing it, and I was disproportionally scared, I just wanted to escape. I didn't think they cared, I didn't even think they noticed. However, a few days later I noticed links to MelonLand had been removed from the YW site. When I asked them why, they accused me of wasting their time, manipulating them, being power hungry and generally being unfit to lead a community; and then they locked me out of replying on their discord. We had a private chat, but I was upset, and they didn't want to believe me, and nothing was resolved.

Looking back now a few years later; its all kind of silly. I acted irrationally and I didn't know how to handle my emotions; while, on the flip side they acted too rationally and forgot what passion is like :drat:

I think I've grown up a lot since then, and it's kind of shocking to me that I could be so dramatic only 2 years ago! However it was the late pandemic, and I'll accept that everyone was a bit crazy back then; the world had become very scary and things that should not have upset us became very upsetting.

Anyway, the outcome was that MelonLand, the Yesterweb, 32Bit Cafe and AngelCafe split - we all went our separate ways and disconnected from each other. MelonLand as you know is still here. The Yesterweb shutdown within 3 months because the staff were burned out. 32Bit Cafe continues and ML has a respectful but distanced relationship with it. AngleCafe is still online but mostly unknown. (Their's an extra story of how Netescape also split a few months before MelonLand, and I think possibly evolved into NekoWeb, but you'd have to see if thats true)

If I could go back, I would do things differently, but I'm not sure the end result would be any different. I still miss the early yesterweb though with its energy and ideas. If I could make it right with them I would, but I think we have all moved on to other things. I wanted Sadness/Goblin Heart and myself to be friends and Im sorry that never happened; she encouraged me to write when I didn't know I could write and that's something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

However all that said, I think the YW staff treated me and their community badly; they might have been right about me being unfit to manage a community back then, but they could have helped me. They gave people an e-home for a while and that was wonderful, but then they told people they were no longer welcome in that e-home, and that hurt. :sad:” “