welcome to nyanzone
a place for meandering thoughts, unanswered questions, and fleeting aspirations
i made a mind map of my thoughts about small web and i wanted to post it on my website (1), but couldn't figure out how to faithfully represent the digressions and logical jumps without building something nontrivial. thankfully i remembered seeing a cool website (2) on gossip's web (3), which led me to this tool (4)
motivations
my online expression (through my writing) shouldn't be limited by the technicalities of html. of course i could build something to solve that but realistically my time and energy is expensive af. also i'm unlearning from school that i have to do everything from scratch (reinvent the wheel) when i can build off of other's ingenuity
sure there's the metaverse bs lately, but i'm always thinking how the web can feel less robot (linear, discrete) and more human (non-linear, messy)
mind map.. but actually like a map? is that the point? links to remote regions like taking a plane, mapping location/relations but in an intuitive sense
young jess who loved the maps at the beginning or end of a fantasy novel would love this idea
video games

rpgs i'm playing

- dragon quest ix
- persona 5
- guildlings
- final fantasy x
- final fantasy xiii (paused because it's kinda bad)
- final fantasy xv
- the world ends with you
- okami
- maplestory

wishlist

- eastward
- bleak sword
- fantasian
- witcher 3 (purchased, not enough hard drive space...)
- sleeping dogs
- madworld

casual games

- acnh (sick of it)
- mini motorways (same)
- shanghai mahjong
- taiko no tatsujin
- puzzle bobble (fire ost)
- a short hike (LOVE IT, exactly what i needed)
- cozy grove
i gravitate towards the casual games over rpgs because one sitting is usually shorter, maybe 20min vs at least an hour for rgps - gotta watch some cutscenes and read some dialog and suffer through a boss fight and run back to the town to buy potions and save, ad infinitum. i usually only play games once i'm in bed ready to sleep and by that time it's already way past a human bedtime, so usually mahjong it is. irony - "i don't want to spend too much time" says someone who spends too much time on twitter
i like rpgs because i feel a sense of agency, they're like movies but i'm able to make choices and pace myself. i kinda like fighting games but i unfortunatley suck
what if i use this as my website sitemap? not like the usual format showing the folder structure, but a map based on meaning and intuition
thinking about "kids these days don't understand folder structure" and "we should not be tied to folders metaphor"
i'm re-learning to be messy. it's so hard because i had it trained out of me since forever
this is cool i feel like i'm seeing what my thoughts are shaped like
- brain/mind/think/dream
- space/scape/zone/world


pardon the mess right now, we're renovating!
current mood
inseong -> catboy -> nyanseong :)
so flawless amazing perfect impeccable godsent
hi congrats you found the brain worms corner!
spaces
i think i've always been interested in spaces. maybe something about growing up in a crowded metro city where space is really precious. this manifests in the types of video games i like, the things i like to draw, and my nostalgia for places i've been to. the feeling of a space is so 深刻 - profound? memorable?
i took a landscape architecture class in my final year of college and loved it. i regret i found it so late, and i wonder what if i studied it instead, but when i went into college i had no idea what i was doing
today i went for a walk in my suburban neighborhood and it kinda sucked. the developer-designed home exteriors look so cute and color-coordinated but it's funny to think that each house's inhabitants are in reality so isolated
maybe nextdoor is supposed to solve that but nextdoor sucks. it's reddit for boomers (in age or in spirit) which means they are unhinged AND unfunny
are websites kind of like that? spatially adjacent but isolated? what is the equivalent of a communal space?
no wait or is social media more like the suburbs? in the presence of the whole world but still lonely?
on my walk i remembered when i was young i lived in an apartment and envied the kids who lived in the suburban community, not because they had big houses but because they played in the nearby park so they all knew each other. so this whole time i was craving community...
i want to read white noise, i think it has some insight on suburbia. i last read it in high school, meaning i sped through it right before my paper was due lol
i want to take some classes on architecture! i'm curious how principles of designing (public?) spaces can inform my web design
the internet is not directly comparable to the physical ("real") world, nor is it not real since its populated by and impacts real people. "space" doesn't mean the same exact rules of the physical world always apply, but is a mental model for understanding how people interact with it and each other through it. i think this is assumed when i write about web stuff so i thought i'd state this directly
it's my risk-averse hoarder-engineer brain: this is my space and i don't need to explain myself but i feel a need to retrace my entire thought process in writing
notes on shortly, briefly
- ideation + design
- "home" + belonging
- social media, alternative online spaces
- utopic vision of the internet
in preparation for a chat during the Alternative Worlds launch event on 11/7/2021
my visit was during the early 2019 protests. posting travel pics on social media didn't feel right, but it also didn't feel right for me to express a political stance
my photos and videos were stashed away on my hard drive, where i'd probably lose track of them if i didn't post them somewhere
i felt like i had no one to talk to who could fully understand my ambivalent yearning? ambivalent, because do i even have the right to yearn?
two birds with one stone: 1) cute game to archive my travel videos + 2) try to snapshot those ambiguous feelings before i forget
origin story
as for design choices..
i made this during a 2-day game jam so i had to prioritize feasibility :P
but also i'm interested in the low-tech or old web aesthetic (even when it isn't low-tech) - there's a sense of intimacy/trust? like.. i'm just a homemade website, i'm not trying to sell you anything. sleek interfaces and smooth animations seem to suggest otherwise. not inherently, but because we're used to "good ux" on corporate web apps
"whats the least amount of css needed to look good" means it uses some web defaults, therefore reminiscent of old web
i think the way i design web layouts is also informed by my graphic design background, or lack thereof. i just collage shit in photoshop idk
oooh here comes the fun stuff - how do i (+ my art) navigate "home" and belonging as a 1.5th gen immigrant
on the meaning of "home" - at face value the webzine leaves this unanswered: am i home shortly or briefly? the answer is left ambiguous, just like it is for me. but i think my takeaway is that "home" is a vibe
this piece by Karen Cheung really resonated. my tl;dr - places come and go, but we find groundedness in archival, weaving nostalgia into the future. how fitting~
belonging... there is no definitive trait to qualify for (/belong to) an identity. belonging is in being seen and understood, even if it's in fragments
social media in relation to neocities, guiding principles on creating alternative online spaces
neocities is a plot of land where i can build a house, social media is renting a bed in a hostel?
on instagram i post for an audience of 100 (+ the algorithm). on neocities i create for an audience of 1.
social media isn't inherently evil, just "what kind of behavior and content are incentivized" - are.na feels healthier, perhaps even productive
what does a utopic internet look like?
there are much more experienced technologists that can speak to this and have better ideas. i simply have hopes and dreams:
the internet is just beeps and boops pulsing across some wires. at its core it's as simple as walking the earth and has nothing to do with capitalism. look at old web not to return but to remember it's possible to do things differently, and nurture our imagination
seek to understand how the web works. server, browser, modem, etc. i don't believe in design that assumes users are stupid or lazy, that seems like an excuse to withhold information and control.
also - refusal to force the indescribable into english. similarly, refusal to make things poetic other than to communicate to myself
also - something about our airbnb felt so comforting. i didn't have any good photos/videos but i wanted to create an homage to that space and how i felt
my airbnb during my short stay has mentally become a proxy for my idea of "home" in my homeland. it might have seemed homely, cramped, and nearly minimalist to my friends, but i felt so overwhelmingly comforted. my heart felt so full, when i awoke before dawn to the lone sound of the constant a/c hum.
my choice of images inadvertently avoids (i think?) cliched imagery of hong kong. i think i'll run with this and make it deliberate — this is less of a travel diary than me trying to express my overwhelming feelings about revisiting the homeland
my previous pieces were made in college - looking back its interesting how they show a clear progression: recognizing and coming to terms with growing up feeling out of place, to defining my identity without limiting myself to labels at all
books?

reads i enjoyed

- glitch feminism — a tough read but the idea of shaping one's identity online really stuck w me
- building better realities — loved the piece about being an artist with a day job
after middle school i've been really bad about reading books for fun, but i'm rediscovering it through are.na (not sponsored), as i realized that i'm so interested in the internet through a social lens.

in progress

- entangled life
- critical makers reader ⏸
- a different mirror ⏸
- from counterculture to cyberculture
making this because i keep forgetting which pdfs and ebooks i've opened, a trouble with digital reads i guess. also to add context to my are.na
fair warning that these lists are gonna be full of dry nonfiction, because similar to my thing with games and movies it makes me nervous to sit down for an hour at the mercy of a writer's imagination, whereas following a logical argument feels like a fun adventure
most things referenced can be found in this are.na channel :)

wishlist

- critical meme reader
- calm technology

not on are.na
- impossible city
- paradise rot
- race after technology
- white noise
- skateboarding, space and the city
- rise of the machines: the lost history of cybernetics
note to self: take care not to conflate feeling like i'm appropriating my own culture with actually finding joy in rediscovering my culture
i forgot again - want to look up the difference / relation between breakbeat and dnb
i enjoy listening to a solid amount of osu-adjacent and other "weeb" music - want to research what are the underlying genres and influences
music
i think video games had a stronger impact on my music tastes than i realized - also curious to learn more about that history
the idea that memory (how we store info) is spatial? thus our digital storage should be spatial, for best retention? is that true
i'm obsessed with browsing the experimental "brutalist" websites in this are.na channel, mind is repeatedly blown
though i'm still not convinced these are truly "brutalist" in the original sense, rather they're just unboring and often times not accessible lol
no wait this article does a good job of capturing the nuances into 2 types (l'internet brut vs fou) and 3 groups (purists, ux minimalists, anti-ists)
start designing in code, on paper, or in figma? — i'm most comfortable with the former, but i'm concerned that limits creativity to the technically feasible
maximalist brutalism vs accessibility? — lots of these websites use flashing images, glaring colors, moving ctas, and mouse interaction
would studying graphic design help improve my web design? or are my uninitiated sensibilities actually an asset?
experimentation is fine but i think a good compromise is having an alterate text-only page (good for tts or slow load times). inspired by tabf 2020
i wish i had creative friends to bounce ideas off of. i think my frustration with feeling limited doesn't stem only from my workflow, rather i need more input
ughhh what do i do with the random books i bought but no longer want to read. do i just sell them or try to get myself to read them but have them collect dust
tbvh i get nervous when a game gets difficult but at the same time i have the masculine urge to take pride in playing at normal difficulty level...
gender stuff
my love-hate relationship with gender is constantly shifting. i think that warrants a new section, to help me make sense of it all
the "you're probably queer if you think about this stuff all the time, because cis people literally don't" — i feel like i'm forced to think about it so much only because this society violently (?) enforces cishet norms, and then i am constantly reminded that i'm transgressing. like...in a perfect world i wouldn't be "queer" because who cares
we want labels to describe a internal/innate/metaphysical sense of truth/identity, but this is unrealistic because labels are language, and through language we encode and decode information, making the communicated "truth" subjective to the speaker/receiver. i think identity labels more accurately describe shared feelings and experiences (often of oppression) rather than an arbitrary scorecard of "yes you fit this identity" — i don't intrinsically feel "queer" in the depths of my soul but it's helpful to understand why i feel shit. its very relativistic
okay but what about nature? how to think about the outdoors as spaces? what does "spaces" actually mean and would that even include the outdoors
for context, i just came back from a roadtrip with some friends. we went hiking, which i'm not very good at so i was really nervous. also i'm kind of jealous of people who have a close connection with nature, because my family is from the city, so close connections are with people and concrete, no time for leisure and nature. still, after months of purely being a work-from-home hermit, the crisp outdoor air was really nice.
the phrase "concrete jungle" still has a nature metaphor... does it hold
a city is an ecosystem? like nature? how different are they anyways

but also "a city is a city"
(my idea of) spaces are generally discrete and man-made, designed and built from scratch with an end result in mind. unlike nature
in nature, "spaces" develop organically and overlap with each other... like a collaborative whiteboard? but not neocities where each site is discrete
that's probably the false allure of tech as an objective blank slate to solve (or just abstract away) complicated human problems
nature is not discrete and designed BUT trails and vista points are. they're just well-integrated into an existing environment. buildings too. harder to reason about websites in an existing ecosystem, feels like a blank slate.
maybe bigweb platforms hope to be the blank slate, the environment itself, whereas smaller spaces acknowledge and integrate with existing ecosystems, e.g. if you make a website for furries you acknowledge an existing community instead of reinventing it
so i think its important to remember that websites are always gonna be viewed by humans and exist in the context of society, not in a utopic vacuum
kinda related: this blog explains "spatial software" but doesn't explain why it works. what makes spatial (social) software successful?
intuitively it makes sense? spatial software feels more freeform and unrestricted, allows for experimentation and improv like w/ physical objects in the afk
thinking about that roadtrip. on the way back we passed some pretty meadows where cows were grazing. my enfp friend suggested we frolic in the fields (me, an infp, very down) but we noticed that it was all fenced off with barbed wire, delineating land ownership and probs to prevent the cows (more so than people) from wandering off.
this reminded me that borders suck. coralling land seems like such a colonial "manifest destiny" concept and reminded me of web data being siloed into corporate datacenters. similar to the idea of "discrete spaces"
if neocities is like the suburbs, comprised of lonely discrete plots of land, what would a collaborative, organic web space look like?
but also: spatial for retention, vs spatial for social connection? or is the distinction trivial?
the conclusion isn't that "neocities bad" — the suburb metaphor isn't perfect, maybe a bedroom metaphor is better? instead, the point is: neocities isn't meant to be a social space. what would a social space look like?
that blog article about "spatial software" lists figma as an example. (slightly different reason but) i like how different users' inputs are able to overlap and collide and overwrite without discrete borders — taking notes from mother nature
adding on: discrete digital spaces aren't necessarily bad because digital space != physical space like land. but i'm trying to imagine different ways to think about the digital to come up with new ways to socialize online. there has to be something better...
- mahjong, leaves
- dolls, picrew
- webring, listing
- sticky notes, garden
- clippy
- whiteboard
- ghosts
- hot pot
- skeuomorphism
- leaderboard
- bulletin board, cafe
- parallel play
- parking lot
- highlight, margins
- doodles, grafitti, stickers
- wear, foot traffic
- skate
- jukebox
- minecraft (thanks newt!)
- knit club
???
(a digital sense of community or human presence)
i have a weird relationship with femininity. at a young age wanted to rebel against feminine stereotypes but simultaneously irrationally feared that i'd be accused of not being a girl. but also never considered being a boy because i'm useless at anything athletic...
free from societal pressures how would you dress — uhh like a magical girl probably. only thing stopping me is i hate how my mortal body looks in feminine clothing. but i look pretty good dressed as a dude or as a 90 y/o grandma soooo
is art without an audience somehow more genuine? what's a type of artwork that requires an audience, or that the audience unavoidably is part of? barring performance art, that seems like the most obvious answer and tbh not my domain ^^;
i pay companies whatever they ask for goods/services because it is the right thing. they need me to make a profit
i only pay for services that i think are worth my money, i.e. the cost is proportional to the labor needed to provide the service
paying for any product/service is bad. p*rate or open-source everything
i pay whoever i vibe with lol (at least while we still live in a capitalist society)
also i need to get better at graphic design too lol i need it for my side projects and i'm even worse at it than i already was 2 years ago, from not practicing
also i kind of love brutalist architecture but not sure why! i don't know too much about the history but i do love a good brutalist housing complex
Habitat 67's interlocking forms, connected walkways and landscaped terraces were key in achieving Safdie's goal of a private and natural environment within the limits of a dense urban space. (wikipedia)
newt brought up a really good point in this thread! ecosystems often thrive when they are stewarded as opposed to solely 'wild' ones. the forests of what we now call the americas were often mistaken by colonizers to be a purely wild, virgin landscape, when that is ofc untrue
the fantasy of the "wild virgin outdoors" reminds me of the technocrat's fantasy of building a digital city from scratch, or the libertarian fantasy of living ungoverned but still having access to roads and other infrastructure we take for granted
relating this to the web, i can see how some (many?) spaces benefit from having mods or admins to host activities, resolve conflict, etc. communities need nurturing. makes sense: the more successful discord servers i'm in are bc mods set the tone / norms
in love with a short hike even in just two-ish hours. reminded me how i enjoy games for vibes rather than objectives and stats — i mean, i knew that already but a short hike was just so perfect to me, a reminder that i want to make narratives like that
vibes but not without direction — the vibes tell a story — end goal is mostly trivial except as a driving force for the vibes
tv/anime

watching

- teen titans
- ojamajo doremi
- my hero academia

to watch

- neon genesis evangelion
- cowboy bebop
- jojo's bizarre adventure
i'm terrible at watching shows unless i bingewatch them quickly on a whim. cough cough cql
website stuff
gender panic has been kicking my ass these few days (happens whenever i change hairstyles). from my notes app:

my relationship with my own gender is so ambiguous that it clouds any possibility of reasoning about my sexuality. any hint of attraction is interrupted by a thousand insecurities about how i look and whether i can be liked. im starting to think all my "crushes" have been just me projecting my fears, clinging onto a faint hope of a person that might like me as i am and therefore affirm my gender, whatever it is (haven't figured that out). of course, that should come from within but i feel so tired — i fantasize that someone else can take that on for me, entering my life and magically dispelling my dysphoria
revisiting the question of "in a vacuum, free from societal pressures, how would you present" — lately my answer is i don't know?? what i see in the mirror doesn't really match my self-perception, at least that's been the case lately. if i don't even feel like myself, then trying to think about how other people perceive me is plain harrowing. lowkey hope that getting a tattoo or a piercing (also moving out) will help but right now i just feel like a little brain-worm awkwardly controlling a clumsy human-shaped flesh mecha
i should see a therapist again which thankfully i have the resources to, but gender panic isn't the most disruptive thing in my life right now so its not at the top of my list 🙃

new page ideas

- cooking diary (maybe later, i don't cook much)
- moving journal (for accountability?)
- diary page (better nav, song of the day, links, etc)

theme ideas

- 80's dinner party
- chaotic picnic
- doctor's office waiting room / ikea play area / mcdonalds playplace (nvm these give me bad vibes lol)
- child daycare (same here)
- grocery store (idk feels a little depressing)
- weekly ads newspaper
- sears / scholastic catalog
- computer windows
oh my it looks messed up on my phone (safari), try viewing on chrome or firefox
where would you like to go?

east 👉 self-referential web thoughts
south 👇 thoughts on spaces/places
west 👈 thoughts on identity
north 👆 watchlists and media

east | south | west | north

east
north
west
south
not sure yet where to put this but i really want to learn to skateboard, which is fitting: what is skateboarding's relationship to architecture? is it critique, appreciation, or collaboration? and is there a web analogy for skateboarding?
not sure yet how this relates either but i snowboarded for the first time recently and loved it, then watched this doc about its relatively recent history. love how it has counterculture roots like skateboarding. what's its relationship to nature? and how to define "nature" if its the groomed outdoors?
what would a VR neocities look like?
demarking zones in a virtual space — recreate rules and norms, e.g. library is a quiet space, playground is a kids space, etc
thoughts on VR
i haven't tried vr, but was chatting w/ some folks who have. these questions came up that are interesting to me and relate to the idea of "spaces"
building open-source digital communities as alternatives to corporate social media platforms... would success rely on buy-in from the general public, who might not want to pay the price of convenience? i.e. as much as no one truly enjoys instagram i think a lot of my friends will keep using it as intended and are very unlikely to switch to something like mastodon. i wish this wasn't the case but we need to meet them where they are. or there's the possibility of the internet splitting into the big platforms and the fringe open-source crowd? kind of the case today but the latter group is comparatively tiny
???
i'd like to read more about buddhism and daoism — this vaguely counts as "identity" as in personal philosophy, culture as well
i'm not usually one to set goals but i'm terrible at finishing books otherwise... goal to read/study dao de jing a little bit each day — "study" bc i know it will be heavy, and i want to read the translation alongside the original
lots more books i want to read in these gdrive lists and libraries
💾
📂