why you should be on smol.pub - a hidden internet gem
there seems to be a universal sentiment about missing the old internet. geocities. personal sites. blogs that felt like diaries instead of content funnels.
if you really miss it, there are still places doing it. smol.pub is one of them.
smol.pub is a tiny publishing space built on the gemini protocol. emphasis on tiny. it is not a social network. it is not trying to be the next anything. it is a place to write small pages and let them exist without being chewed up by algorithms.
posts feel closer to notes pinned to a corkboard than posts competing for attention. you write. someone stumbles across it. maybe they reply. maybe they do not. there is no invisible pressure to perform. no follower count looming over your shoulder.
it is calm in a way the modern web forgot how to be.
ok but what the hell is gemini
gemini is a different protocol. not a website aesthetic. not a theme. an actual different layer of the internet.
no javascript. no ads. no trackers. no autoplay. no infinite scroll. pages load instantly because they are mostly text. links are intentional. navigation is manual. you choose where you go.
think early web values, but not frozen in amber. more like a conscious rejection of what the web turned into. gemini feels like reading again instead of being harvested.
writing on gemini feels different too. slower. more deliberate. like your words are going somewhere instead of being dumped into a feed blender.
who made it and why that matters
smol.pub is made by m15o, who also made status.cafe, nightfall.city, and ichi.city. if you have ever brushed up against the small web, you have already felt his fingerprints on it.
his projects all orbit the same idea. human scale tools. personal expression. systems that do not try to own you.
you can find his page here and honestly it is worth clicking around
https://nightfall.city/shore/m15o/
this is not some vc funded nostalgia skin. this is one person steadily building places for people who want something quieter and more sincere.
if you are tired of metrics.
if you are tired of optimizing your thoughts.
if you are tired of feeling like every post needs a punchline or a call to action.
if you want to write fragments, logs, half thoughts, strange little entries that do not need to justify themselves.
let your corner of the internet be small. let it be slow. let it be yours.
you can still exist online without screaming.
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