The Small Web Made Me
I've been on the web a long time and so I truly believe that small web communities made me who I am and I am so grateful for it. I'm excited to write a few words about this for this month's IndieWeb Carnival on Small Web Communities.
I think my earliest memories of a small web community was my early days of online gaming and hanging out on Minecraft servers. I ended up with a decent group of friends that would chat on Teamspeak (there's a flashback for ya...) and hang out all the time, eventually migrating to Skype and then dissolving over time. Looking back, I don't think I'd categorize this time as impactful, but it was certainly an introduction to what was to come over the years.
The really important small web communities came later on down the line - most importantly a group called Knight of Academia (KOA), a Habitica "guild" turned Discord server and self-improvement group. I had been looking through Habitica to try and improve my daily habits, something I still try to do albeit with little success, and stumbled upon KOA with their weekly array of challenges and interesting community members. I got hooked almost immediately and was an incredibly regular member prior to ever being on the staff!1
KOA gave me so many opportunities starting from being a part of the engineering team and honing the programming skills I have today, to my first professional programming opportunity through some friends there, to even just being there to chat all the time. Maybe it was the timing of being there as an impressionable teenager, but this experience really shaped the way I am today.
These days, I still hang out in small web communities - I still pop into KOA from time to time, but I mostly hang out with the crew of Polymaths.social, a spot that feels like my home on the web. I also frequent several spots on the web for small amateur radio communities - such as the club WY4RC or Young Amateurs Radio Club, a Discord only radio club focused on youth operator membership and activity around the world.
I'm sure the question on anyone's mind is why am I writing this when it simply reads like a journal entry? I want to encourage anyone reading to spend more time in their own small web communities through my own brief stories. Your time on the web is more impactful than you may think, so spend it in spaces that matter to you and, maybe most importantly, better you.
This has been my entry for the May 2025 IndieWeb Carnival on Small Web Communities. Thank you to Chris of Uncountable Thoughts for hosting, and I look forward to participating again next month!
It looks like from 2019 to now I've sent about 6,500 messages - that feels like a lot...↩