I don’t know about you, but I’m fucking sick of the current landscape of the general internet. I dislike it a lot, because everyone feels trapped on the same 4 or 5 websites run by jackass billionaires. Of course there’s been a couple of copycat sites popping up like Bluesky, which I don’t dislike, I am more interested in niche websites becoming A Thing again! Evocative of what the internet used to be like. A buddy would tell you about a new funny site to go to or maybe they made their own, you’d type the URL and check it out for yourself.
Well that’s what fuckin happened to me this week- a friend in my local diy punk music scene posted about a new forum site called freakscene.us, and I was intrigued. Then at a house show I heard strangers raving about it. I checked it out, and it’s been a genuinely great way to meet and get in touch with other people nearby that share my interests! And it has helped me feel less isolated, and less like I have to cater myself to as broad of an audience as possible. I make and sell merch for bands, as well as stuff of my own design, so being able to directly put my work somewhere where a nearby band I would want to work with can see it is what I’ve been trying to do with instagram, and I wanna get rid of that thing!!
It started out with just a few cities a couple of days ago, mostly about promoting bands and general information about diy, but has expanded more than the devs were expecting with discussions about the local history of our scene and showing off handmade merch and visual art! They were hoping to get maybe up to 500 people by the end of February, but instead have gotten over 5,000 people sign up in less than 6 days. It’s clear a lot of us are eager to try something new.
And now there are over 11 cities across the US with FreakScene pages, with the ability to open new scenes if your’s isn’t included yet.
If that’s not something you’re interested in, good! It shouldn’t have to be! I think that should be the point, being able to curate your online experience and not being forced to share the same box as nazis. Breaking away from being as marketable and broad as possible across the websites owned by billionaires who aren’t even bothered to do their own moderation will be a good thing. Finding and making new websites and communities for ourselves is the clearest path forward. Small web takeover starts now
