Moyra.com. Moyra eventually disappeared. She continued to own that domain, which just had a stylized photo, for a decade or two after closing her linkware site. Her work, being full of metaphor, and based on borderless-tables, is a mess by modern standards of course, but her aesthetics, unwillingness to compromise on them, and sense of principles inspired me for years to come.
I launched a small, goofy blog a couple years later, when I finished middle school. This was, ironically, hosted on Geocities, but using Blogger, back in the brief moment when that was a possibility. Stray cats do love free web space. It's always nice to have a small space to curl up in. We all need a place to just kinda be there, even online, right?
I followed a “how to make a blog” guide written by one of the Digital Divas, a women’s technology group. Like Moyra, they were mostly creators of linkware graphics and other online resources for websites.
It was hard not to look up to the Digital Divas at the time. Their sites were beautiful works of complicated and colorful art. These sites were ridiculous by modern standards, but so, so beautiful at the time. Plus, they once fought Microsoft over their domain name (and won!), something we can all be proud of on any day.
On my sixteenth birthday I got my first domain. I also got hosting space.Finally, I had my own little online territory to prowl. I shifted to CMS tools like Greymatter, MovableType, and WordPress.
Then Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr appeared. They sure seemed lovely to me initially, but cats like me aren’t always smart. Social media sites soon became more a cat carrier that takes you nowhere. And the algorithms stalk you like predators. They’re always lurking. A lot of people are trying to abandon these sites. It’s difficult. I’m deeply drawn to the culture of the “indie” web. Or, as I optimistically call it, with a tail flourish, the “new web” or “small web.”
I don’t expect today’s “small web” to be much like the internet I experienced as a kitten. I don’t expect to “get good” at coding either. I’m just a silly stray cat, padding through the Web. I also enjoy sniffing and pawing through the Internet Archive. I know it’s a complicated, yet subtle thing to allow yourself nostalgia. I try to avoid what I call “Golden Age” thinking, though. I readily slip into cynicism, too, so that's also something...
I know that not everyone is an “internet” person. Not everyone swims this deeply in the World Wide Web. But even the most offline of people must’ve noticed how the internet has changed our entire civilization, and not always for the better. But the future is still up for grabs, or at least, I certainly hope it is! This site, launched April 20th, 2024, is my way forward. Still a stray cat wandering the World Wide Web, happily so.
Say meow (or hiss at me) if you like! Fellow cats (…or humans?) can leave pawprints in the askbox, find me on Discord (@ClarityAnne), or use the contact form. My email is clarity (at fabled.day, of course).
Please fill out all fields.
Please enter a valid email address.
Thanks!! I will reply if necessary and possible!
I’m obviously Not a Cat IRL. I don’t identify as one, as a couple people on Discord went and quickly asked. I don’t believe I’m some kind of feline entity in human or anything like that. Not catkin here. Shoutout to actual catkin, I guess? I’m also Not a Furry. In short, I’m not a cat, I just play one online LMAO.
I’m definitely not named Clarity nor Claire. I chose that name during my time with an online sapphic Conservative VR cult in Second Life for a while. Oh, and in fact, a lot of how I act on here is, yeah, kinda like being a character of sorts. Stray Cat Claire is definitely me. But Claire is me thru a certain lens. What else can I say? I'm not really a gray cat!
The concept of being one, though? It’s fun! And it's making this site more interesting to write and update! That’s what I’m trying for. Cats are, after all, very online, yet still really sensible critters. I’m also Not A Furry. Not that there's anything wrong with furries...