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:

• Wild Web - Punky freeform, zine crafting, art homepages and chaotic sites - Such as MelonLand
• Net Positive - Sites focusing on whimsy, learning and encouragement such as 32bit Cafe
• Smol / Small Web - This name is often favoured by minimalist sites such as m15o’s Status.Cafe
• Indie / Open Web - Professional independently-run sites with a focus on free and open source code - Indie Web
• Old / Retro / Web 1.0 - Retro enthusiast sites focused on supporting and using old hardware - The Old Net
• Garden / Poetic Web - Sites focused on reflection, gathering thoughts and obscurity - Naive Weekly
• Neocities - A brand name for the web hosting company and community that houses many Web Revival sites - Neocities
• … and many others!

Web Revival enthusiasts come from all walks of life, however most share a few things in common:

• Creativity is First- Most see the ability to design, decorate and graffiti digital spaces as essential and powerful
• The Internet is Fun - Most want the Web to be a playground that's free to explore and enjoy
• Corporations are Boring - Most are sick of the monetisation, data abuse and endless breaches of trust in corporate culture
• The Web is Friendly - All feel that the Web should be friendly and supportive; caring is a radical act
• Right to Repair - They value the freedom to make, break and repair their stuff - tinkering is a form of debate and protest
• One World Wide Web - They want free open knowledge and global connectivity, without paywalls, bubbles or borders
• Chaotic Effort - They believe that value comes from time and effort put into projects they love for no reason other than love
• No to Web3 - To most, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, unfairly trained AIs and buzzword tech are unwelcome and uncool

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.

• See Manifestos of the Web Revival - A list of personal essays by Web Revivalists!

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!

• Could this page have existed 15 years ago? (No +1)
• Was there at least one idea on this page you've never seen on another site? (Yes +1)

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.

• Does this page look weird, playful or unusual? (Yes +1)
• Are there assets or features related to something from before 2010? (Yes +1)

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.

• Is there something broken on this page? (Yes +1)
• Is this site clunky or lacking polish? (Yes +1)

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.

• Is there a resource of things you can download for your own site? (Yes +1)
• Are there links to guides, or tips, on how to host your own site? (Yes +1)

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.

• Does this page have credits or links to media it uses? (Yes +1)
• Is this page bloated, slow, or trying too hard to be a novelty interface? (No +1)

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.

• Is this page trying to sell me something? (No +1)
• Do I feel refreshed after browsing this page? (Yes +1)

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.

• Do I feel like I got to know the person who made this page? (Yes +1)
• Did I learn something about the world I never knew before? (Yes +1)

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.

• Does this page have links to other web revival sites? (Yes +1)
• Can you find this page via a link on a web revival site? (Yes +1)

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.

• Does this page link to any external forums or communities? (Yes +1)
• Is this page hosting a webring or any other community project? (Yes +1)

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.

• Does this page block me from accessing content or making archives? (No +1)
• Does this page offer archives of its own past media? (Yes +1)

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.

• Did this page require me to work in order to explore it? (Yes +1)
• Am I unsure if this page is safe? (Yes +1)

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!

• If you got a score of 17 or more, then it's a web revival site!
• If you got a score of 12-16, then it's prob an IndieWeb site!
• If you got a score of 6-11, then it's a normie site!
• If you got a score under 6, run away!

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.

• Melon's What is the Web Revival
• Is it Web Revival https://thoughts.melonking.net/thoughts/is-it-web-revival
• Maggie Appleton's A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden
• Mike Caulfield's The Garden and the Stream: A Technopastoral
• In Defense of the Poor Image and Is the Internet Dead? essays by Hito Steyerl
• Hackers (1995) - “Hackers isn't a very good movie, but it's a darn sight more fun than The Net.” - Steven Rea
• From My to Me essay by Olia Lialina
• Bringing GeoCities Back with Kyle Drake (Podcast about Neocities)
• Gizmodo's The Great Web 1.0 Revival
• The Web Revival and the Folk Life of Virtual Worlds - talk by Daniel Murray