Posts tagged 'indieweb'

Line-drawn engraving in navy on a dusty rose background, depicting a man in Victorian-era dress sitting at a writing desk. He's slumped forward with his head down on the desk, seemingly overcome by fatigue or frustration, papers scattered near him. A framed picture hangs on the wall above, and an empty chair sits beside the desk.

The Itch

August 3, 2026 · #personal essay #writing #creativity #IndieWeb #philosophy #self-reflection

Trying to figure out what 'the itch' is—my drive to create and contribute to the digital commons. A review of past projects, current interests in Indigenous data sovereignty and self-hosting, and the search for what comes next.

Four smartphones/PDAs from the mid-to-late 2000s arranged on a wooden desk. Two silver BlackBerry-style devices with physical QWERTY keyboards are open at top right and bottom left. A dark purple flip phone in the center has a sticker in the Shepard Fairey 'HOPE' poster style with the word 'HISTORY' beneath the portrait. A fourth device with a black keyboard is visible at bottom right. A blurred index card and papers sit in the background.

Phoneblogging

August 1, 2026 · 1 comment · #IndieWeb #accessibility #mobile #web development #Social Commentary #UX design

Around 2 billion people access the internet exclusively via smartphones, yet the IndieWeb community largely neglects mobile-first design and phoneblogging UX. A casual survey of writers reveals three approaches to mobile publishing: no phoneblogging, partial (drafts on phone, finish on desktop), and full phoneblogging. The IndieWeb must prioritize accessible, simple ways to blog from phones while maintaining independence from corporate platforms.

Illustration with the title 'IT’S A WHOLE GREAT BIG FUN THING' in large green letters above a whimsical scene. A cheerful green frog wearing a jacket, vest, and purple bow tie rows a small boat across calm water while reading an enormous open book that nearly fills the boat. In the foreground, a fish pokes its head above the water beside a much smaller open book, appearing to read as well. Reeds grow at the water’s edge, gentle ripples spread from the oar, and a bright blue sky creates a peaceful backdrop.

You Don't Have to Blog

July 31, 2026 · 1 comment · #personal essay #IndieWeb #blogging #community #Social Commentary #web culture

Responding to Dan Q's post on blogging expectations, I argue that you don't need to blog at all to participate in the IndieWeb. Your website can be shrines, art, or anything else. A retrospective on the poisonous gamification and commodification of blogging from the early 2000s, and the IndieWeb as a return to original weblogging where the Internet belongs to humans.

A bright computer lab with rows of desktop computers arranged on long tables. Each workstation features a bulky CRT monitor, tower computer, keyboard, mouse on a red mouse pad, and a headset hanging from the monitor. A whiteboard is mounted on the back wall, framed posters decorate the room, and fluorescent ceiling lights illuminate the clean, empty classroom.

Wow, I Love the 'Puter!

July 29, 2026 · #personal essay #Technology #Social Commentary #open source #IndieWeb #computing

The desktop computer is a miracle of human ingenuity, from the microscopic precision of Intel's Core Duo processor to the vast possibilities of offline and online computing. On the tragic decline of desktop towers, the IndieWeb and open-source software as alternatives to corporate platforms, and why we should take the time to become system admins and webmasters.

Oil painting of a dark-haired woman in a purple cardigan over a white blouse, seated and knitting with black yarn, eyes downcast in concentration. She's set against a patterned white cloth backdrop with a mustard-and-blue geometric background behind her. A dark green stocking hangs at left, and a ball of black yarn with knitted items rests at her side. Signed 'G.C. Smith' in red at the lower left corner.

Knitting the Web: We Need Interlinkers!

July 27, 2026 · 2 comments · #personal essay #IndieWeb #web development #community #blogging #link culture

Responding to Coyote's critique of Bubbles.town and feed aggregators, I argue that the IndieWeb needs more interlinkers—bloggers who meaningfully synthesize and weave together the writing of others. On the garden/stream/campfire metaphors for the web, the difference between linkdumps and synthesis, Justin Hall's early web work, and how every link out is a stitch that strengthens the fabric of the blogosphere.

Un panneau d'arrêt rouge couvert de collants est planté au premier plan d'une rue pavée sur la place Jacques-Cartier, dans le Vieux-Montréal. Des deux bords, y'a des vieux bâtiments en pierre avec des toits mansardés pis des lucarnes, pis on aperçoit un clocher d'église au dôme vert en arrière-plan. La rue est pleine de chars stationnés pis d'autres en circulation, pis y'a quelques piétons qui marchent sur les trottoirs, près de boutiques comme la pizzeria « Bella Vita » pis le magasin « Jacques Cartier Souvenirs ». Le ciel est tout blanc et couvert, pis y'a un petit sapin en pot près de la devanture de gauche.

L'IndieWeb en français québécois?

July 25, 2026 · 2 comments · #personal essay #Language Learning #Linguistics #IndieWeb #Technology #Social Commentary

Cet article de blogue est écrit en français. This blog post is written in French. Sur la traduction des termes de l'IndieWeb en français québécois, l'état actuel des ressources francophones (wiki IndieWeb, Vincent Breton, Radio-Canada), la tradition néologique du Québec via l'OQLF (courriel, pourriel, clavardage, etc.), les termes déjà existants (blogue, fédivers, auto-hébergement), et des propositions pour de nouveaux termes comme PSSA pour POSSE, rétrolien pour webmention, et jardin clos pour walled garden. Un appel à la discussion sur la traduction des termes techniques dans les langues non-anglophones.

Screenshot of the brennan.click homepage, a dark-themed digital garden site with navigation links (Home, About, Legend, Main Site, Source). The page introduces the site as 'A wiki-linked digital commonplace book, a sister site to brennan.day,' followed by a blockquote from Maggie Appleton defining a digital garden as an evolving, non-chronological collection of linked, unpolished notes. Below are content sections with entries dated 2026-07-24: a Quote section ('On Writing Daily'), a Bookmarks section (URLminder, Foam, Eleventy Interlinker, Beeminder), and the start of a Notes section (Zettelkasten, Values).

Creating a Digital Garden in 11ty: Tracking My Daily Word Count with URLminder

July 24, 2026 · 2 comments · #eleventy #javascript #technical #tutorial #IndieWeb #beeminder #digital garden

I decided to build brennan.click, a wiki-linked digital commonplace book in Eleventy, with auto-generated stubs created with eleventy-plugin-interlinker, pure-CSS hover transclusion and footnotes with no JavaScript, and a plain-text /urlminder.txt feed that drives a Beeminder goal.

Hand-painted watercolor illustration titled 'Matrimony as it should be — Solemnization.' Two wooden ladders lean together to form an A-frame or peak shape, planted in a grassy hillside split by an orange dirt path. The ladders are entwined with vines bearing yellow round flowers, green berries, a pink wild rose with red rosebuds, and small blue star-shaped flowers. Flowing cursive text fills the space on either side of the ladders. On the left: 'Love increasing, Cure unceasing, To be pleasing, Will secure, Earth's greatest blessing, Domestic Happiness.' On the right: 'Acceptation, Approbation, Soft persuasion, Hesitation, Declaration, Admiration.' A small museum accession number, '1961-105-71,' appears in the bottom right corner.

Softcore First, Hardcore Eventually: A Ladder for the IndieWeb

July 19, 2026 · 2 comments · #IndieWeb #technical #web development #accessibility #progressive disclosure #tutorial

Responding to Adam Newbold's 'Hardcore IndieWeb' guide, I argue for a ladder approach to joining the IndieWeb. Rather than choosing between easy platforms and full technical independence, people should climb rungs progressively. Start with BearBlog or Pika, learning hand-coded HTML, then move to static site generators when ready. This applies progressive disclosure to onboarding, avoiding the curse of knowledge that makes experts skip beginner-friendly steps.

Screenshot of the People and Blogs interview page featuring Brennan Kenneth Brown on zacharykai.net. The page shows the People and Blogs series, interview details, and the start of a conversation about blogging, IndieWeb, and creative workflows.

People and Blogs Interview: Brennan Kenneth Brown

July 18, 2026 · #interview #IndieWeb #writing #blogging

I was interviewed in Zachary Kai's People and Blogs series, founded by Manuel Moreale. I share about my background, the evolution of my blog, creative and technical workflows, philosophy on monetization, and advocacy for the IndieWeb.

Aerial photo of a triangular street mural spelling FREEDOM in navy blue letters, painted on a road or court marked with white lines and scattered with fallen autumn leaves. The letters hang like marionettes from strings held by pale puppeteer hands at the top, while a dark-skinned hand holds scissors poised to cut the strings. Faded background text reads words like HATE, FEAR, LIES, DOUBT, MURDER, DECEPTION, and PRIDE. Rows of raised human hands in varied skin tones reach up from the bottom of the triangle toward the letters. The mural is signed 'G. Johnson' in the bottom right corner.

A Full Guide to Properly Delete Corporate Social Media Accounts

July 12, 2026 · #technical #IndieWeb #privacy #social media #tutorial

Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads, X, Reddit, Discord. Eight platforms, eight different deletion policies. A full technical walkthrough of what 'delete' actually means on each one, the prep work nobody tells you to do first, and the human-side work the documentation doesn't mention.

A forearm and clenched fist emerge from the left against a near-black background, squeezing a lemon half. Warm, single-source light catches the skin and the lemon's flesh; two thin streams of juice drip downward into darkness.

Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze?

July 9, 2026 · #personal essay #philosophy #values #IndieWeb #mortality #purpose

A laminated poster with an unsourced quote changed the trajectory of my entire life when I was a teenager. On the immutable transaction of trading days for how we spend them, the urgency of risk-taking in a world that needs it, and what it means to give everything you have before your inevitable departure.

Vintage-style illustration of a hen walking left with five small yellow chicks following in a line behind her, set against a solid dark teal-green background. The hen has cream and tan feathering, a red comb and wattle, and a black-tipped tail; the chicks are pale yellow with orange beaks and legs.

To My Readers: What Do You Want To See More Of?

July 8, 2026 · #IndieWeb #personal essay #writing #community #blogging

I finally curated my blog posts into collections, revealing what I write about most: the IndieWeb, the craft of writing, community, technical tutorials, politics, culture, and more. A call to my readers to tell me what they want to see more of, and a reflection on how organizing my work helps me understand my own writing patterns and what I want to write more of.

View of Earth's curved horizon from space, showing the atmosphere's blue gradient fading into black space. A rocket or space shuttle is climbing away from Earth's surface, leaving a bright white exhaust trail, with clouds scattered across the blue ocean below.

Publishing My Eleventy Blog to the ATmosphere with Standard.site

July 6, 2026 · 1 comment · #eleventy #javascript #technical #tutorial #IndieWeb #atproto

A walkthrough of how I wired up Standard.site AT Protocol lexicons into this 11ty blog: from writing a custom publish script to migrating to Sequoia, with code for the link tags, and handle verification.

A grid chart of 74 stylized sigils for the 72 demons of the Ars Goetia (Lesser Key of Solomon), each rendered in a thin geometric line-art style with crosses, circles, and swirling flourishes. The sigils are arranged in rows of ten, colored in a gradient from coral/red at top-left through pink, purple, and blue in the upper rows, transitioning to green, yellow, and orange tones in the lower rows. Each symbol is labeled with its number and demon name(s), including alternate name spellings, running in traditional order from 1. Bael through 72. Andromalius.

Blogging with Magic Unicode: Simple Doesn't Have to Mean Boring!

July 3, 2026 · #technical #tutorial #web-design #CSS #IndieWeb #accessibility #symbols

You don't need bloat. You can use CSS variables and Unicode symbols to add visual personality to your personal website while keeping it minimal, accessible, and fast-loading. Includes a reference of symbol sets (celestial, elemental, occult, card suits, chess, zodiac, and more) with colour examples using the Gruvbox palette.

A Japanese woodblock print of a nighttime fireworks festival by a riverbank. Golden fireworks cascade down the dark teal sky in the upper right, trailing sparks. A row of red-and-white paper lanterns strung on a wire crosses the scene, reflecting in the water below along with distant lights and hills. In the foreground, a large silhouetted crowd watches, including children climbing a wooden ladder or scaffold for a better view.

Shake Off the Dust!

July 1, 2026 · #personal essay #writing #creativity #blogging #IndieWeb #poetry

Completing #100DaysToOffload twice in under two years, and somewhere along the way the wet clay hardened at the edges. Invisible ruts form inside the habits you love, and there's a difference between a window and a mirror in writing. The hermit crab outgrows shells, including the ones that still fit fine.

Screenshot of the Wonders of Web Weaving podcast page for episode #8, titled 'Brennan (brennan.day),' dated June 30, 2026. The left sidebar shows the podcast cover art, a cartoon planet on a purple-and-blue starry background, alongside the podcast title and tagline 'with the web, wonder.' The main content area shows an episode description about writing routines, indie web community, and start here pages, plus an audio player showing a 48-minute runtime.

Wonders of Webweaving Podcast Ep. #8: Brennan

June 30, 2026 · #interview #IndieWeb #podcast #writing

I was a guest on Episode 8 of Wonders of Web Weaving with James G. We talk about writing routines, building community in the indie web, 'start here' pages, Maple Syrup Heists, and more!

Close-up of an old handwritten ledger book open to a page of cursive names and columns of numbers in blue ink, on ruled accounting paper with red and blue grid lines, photographed at an angle with shallow depth of field.

Every Commit A Sentence: Git Commit Messages for Bloggers

June 25, 2026 · 2 comments · #git #technical #writing #IndieWeb #personal site #web development

I had 448 `feat:` commits and 417 `fix:` commits. Nearly the same count, for wildly different kinds of work. Here's why conventional commits were never designed for a writer's blog, and the eleven-type system I built to replace them.

Hand-colored 19th-century political cartoon (labeled 'N° 1') satirizing the Catholic Emancipation debate in Ireland/Britain. A crowded room of men in formal coats and a few barristers in robes sit and stand around tables, gesturing animatedly. Eleven numbered speech balloons rise above the group, debating a 'cat let out of the bag' metaphor for a doctor's (likely a Catholic Board spokesman's) admission about an oath against subverting the Protestant Church, with characters worrying that 'Orangemen' will seize on the remark and invoking memories of 1798. In the upper right corner stands a harp topped with a cross beside a 'Senatorial Catholic Board' placard. At far right, a well-dressed man sits in a red armchair holding a scroll labeled with a list of penal laws against Protestants. At far left, on an elevated wooden platform, two onlookers labeled 'Orange Boven' watch the scene and comment from above.

How Webmentions Work on brennan.day

June 20, 2026 · #IndieWeb #technical #Eleventy #webmentions #microformats

A tutorial and walkthrough of how I implemented webmentions on my site, from setup to display, including webmention.io integration, Eleventy filters, CSS styling, and Bridgy for sending.

A dramatic mountain landscape painted in glowing, atmospheric colors. A dark, steep peak rises in the center-right, its slopes washed with deep blues, purples, and warm reddish-orange light. Thick clouds swirl overhead, illuminated by a brilliant golden-yellow glow near the horizon, creating the impression of a storm breaking at sunrise or sunset. In the foreground, jagged rocks and patches of colorful vegetation surround a small pool of water, while mist and shadow soften the distant mountains. The scene is impressionistic, with an almost dreamlike quality, emphasizing light, weather, and mood over fine detail.

Choosing Friction and Clear Skies: I’m No Longer Using Cloudflare

June 18, 2026 · 3 comments · #IndieWeb #self-hosting #infrastructure #ethics #privacy #technical #homelab #Docker

I'm pausing my folk.zone project to completely replace Cloudflare in my stack with more ethical choices after a conversation with Adam Newbold of omg.lol, the site that inspired the project in the first place. For in practice, there is no such thing as neutrality, and convenience is not a virtue.

An impressionist oil painting depicting a lively outdoor folk dance. Dozens of figures in vibrant traditional costumes. Reds, pinks, greens, yellows, and oranges. All gathered in a swirling mass, suggesting energetic movement. The crowd fills most of the canvas; individual faces are not distinguishable, but the sense of collective festivity is strong. Dark tree trunks and a pale, loosely painted sky frame the scene from above. The paint is applied in short, expressive strokes with visible texture. The artist's signature, reading 'Mousson,' appears in the lower left corner.

Announcing folk.zone: An attempt to build the IndieWeb commons myself.

June 15, 2026 · #IndieWeb #self-hosting #community #infrastructure #fediverse #open source #homelab

Announcing folk.zone, a collection of free, community-run internet services I'm building as an IndieWeb commons. Including Mastodon, WriteFreely, Forgejo, Pixelfed, Lemmy, and more. All self-hosted on hardware in my living space. This is infrastructure for the common folk, not for enterprise or scale, inspired by omg.lol and rooted in the IndieWeb and Fediverse principles.

Historical engraving depicting a print shop in the 18th century. Two workers in period clothing operate a wooden printing press: one figure in a red coat pulls the press lever while bent over the press bed, and another in a blue coat inks type at a compositing table near a multi-paned window. Freshly printed sheets, each bearing a small portrait, hang in two rows on drying lines strung across the room. Ink balls, tools, and other workshop materials are scattered on the floor.

A New IndieWeb Publication? or: I Want to Start Something and Be Bad at It

June 13, 2026 · 3 comments · #IndieWeb #publishing #writing #community #collaboration #creative nonfiction #lyric essays

Inspired by Good Internet Magazine, I'm starting a new volunteer-run IndieWeb publication tentatively called Long Horizon. Exploring my readiness to launch a digital and physical magazine focused on creative non-fiction and lyric essays, and seeking collaborators who want to build something meaningful on the Internet together.

A vintage sepia photograph, likely late 19th century, showing two striped tabby cats posed on a wooden table as if sitting down to tea. In front of them are two porcelain teacups on saucers and what appears to be a teapot to the left. Both cats face the camera directly. The left cat leans slightly forward with one paw near a cup; the right sits upright with a composed, slightly imperious expression. The image has the soft grain and tonal warmth of albumen, silver print photography. Cursive handwriting at the bottom identifies them as 'Darby & Joan,' a traditional English idiom for a devoted older couple, suggesting these were beloved companion animals photographed as a pair.

Yes, Buy Them a Coffee: Support and Mutual Aid on the IndieWeb

June 11, 2026 · 2 comments · #IndieWeb #community #economics #mutual aid #support #capitalism #writing

Responding to criticism of 'buy me a coffee' links on blogs, I argue that asking for support isn't commodification—it's mutual aid! Exploring the economic pressures on creators, the history of mutual aid, and why the IndieWeb needs community support mechanisms to sustain independent art.

A stylized illustration of a wheelchair racer in motion, rendered in neon white line art against a bold graphic background of sweeping bands in black, purple, violet, and blue. The athlete leans forward aggressively over a racing wheelchair, with speed lines in pink, yellow, cyan, and white suggesting rapid forward movement. A small speaker with signal waves extends from the chair. The aesthetic evokes 1980s sports graphic design.

Why Make Your Website Accessible, Anyways?

June 10, 2026 · #IndieWeb #accessibility #web development #inclusive #web design #technical

Web accessibility isn't compliance theatre or checking off a list. It's about designing for everyone. Exploring the curb cut effect, why disability is more common than we think, and practical steps to make your website usable by as many people as possible.

Close-up photograph of numerous padlocks attached to a chain-link fence, with a red lock in sharp focus bearing the handwritten message 'FUCK LOVE!' in white paint. The surrounding locks are blurred by a shallow depth of field, while warm orange and yellow tones in the background create a soft, out-of-focus glow. The featured lock shows signs of rust and wear, contrasting with the romantic 'love lock' tradition typically associated with such fences.

A Ship in Harbour is Safe

June 5, 2026 · #IndieWeb #philosophy #writing #creativity #risk #identity #accountability

Nassim Nicholas Taleb's concept of 'skin in the game' is the idea that true learning only happens when you have something to lose. And I look at IndieWeb principles of using what you make to publishing under your real name. Having risk and real stakes is essential for creative work. A ship in harbour is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.

I Need To Stop Making Promises I Can't Keep

June 4, 2026 · 1 comment · #IndieWeb #fanfiction #community #technical #web development #law #moderation #tagging

Building fanfiction.lol taught me that some promises are impossible to keep. I wanted canonical tags for everything and 'write whatever you want' as a tagline, but Canadian obscenity laws and the philosophical complexity of tag wrangling forced me to adjust. Here's what I learned about running a community archive, the legal constraints I face, and the promises I can still keep.

Vintage-style illustration titled 'Honey Bears.' Two plush teddy bears sit facing each other in a moonlit forest clearing, holding paws and touching noses affectionately. The brown bear embraces a white bear wearing a red heart-shaped pendant that reads 'My Sweetheart.' A jar of honey labeled 'Pure Honey' and a spoon rest in the grass in front of them. Above, a smiling yellow moon shines over dark evergreen trees, creating a whimsical, romantic atmosphere. The words 'Honey Bears' appear in ornate lettering at the bottom.

Be a Lover: Make Sure the Quiet Wheel Gets the Grease

June 3, 2026 · 1 comment · #IndieWeb #community #psychology #writing #digital culture

The world isn't full of critics, it's full of quiet kind people who don't get nearly enough time or attention from us because we're born with a negativity bias. We need to proactively choose to be lovers and proactively grease the quiet wheels.

A vintage chromolithograph illustration of a tabby kitten with wide, yellow-green eyes staring upward at a large bumblebee hovering just above its head. The kitten has white and grey-brown markings, a pink nose, prominent whiskers, and an alert, curious expression. Its striped tail is visible curling up in the lower right corner. The background is a warm, muted grey-brown gradient typical of 19th-century print illustration.

The Internet Needs More Cross-Pollinators

June 2, 2026 · 3 comments · #IndieWeb #community #Digital Culture #philosophy

So, my silly little fanfic project blew up like crazy and received some really negative feedback. And I think I understand why. Exploring the concept of boundary spanning and cross-pollination in online communities. Drawing on organizational theory and the work of Michael Tushman. We need people who move between different online subcultures to seed ideas and build bridges.

Announcing Fanfiction.lol: A Manifesto on Human Creativity and AO3

May 30, 2026 · 1 comment · #IndieWeb #technical #self-hosting #fandom #community #open source

I deployed my own AO3 fork called fanfiction.lol, an independent fanfiction archive with no invite queue, fandom-agnostic moderation, and expanded content warnings. A manifesto on why fan communities deserve free infrastructure, the history of transformative works from Virgil to AO3, and the challenges of running a volunteer-powered archive at scale.

A server room with multiple open rack cabinets filled with densely packed hardware, illuminated by dramatic coloured lighting: yellow on the left, pink and green in the centre, and blue on the right. Status indicator LEDs in amber, green, and red dot the equipment.

Homelab For the Beginner: You Can Self-host Your Own Server on $50 Hardware

May 28, 2026 · 1 comment · #Self-hosting #technical #homelab #IndieWeb #Linux #Docker

A beginner-friendly guide to building your own homelab on inexpensive hardware. Covers finding old computers, setting up Linux, SSH, Docker, and self-hosting services like password managers, RSS readers, and your own Fediverse instance. Digital sovereignty doesn't require expensive equipment.

Gemini, Gophers, and Fingers. Oh My! Alternative Internets Beyond HTTPS

May 26, 2026 · 3 comments · #Indieweb #Small Web #technical #Digital Culture #history #decentralization

Finger from 1971, Gopher from 1991, and Gemini from 2019. These protocols offer decentralized, terminal-based alternatives to the modern web. The small web's is in a renaissance. On the solarpunk philosophy of intentional technology, and how these protocols meet you where you are, whether you're on a machine from 2005 or just tired of Chrome's monoculture.

Screenshot of the writer-cli homepage. The page header reads 'WRITER-CLI' followed by the headline 'Write from your terminal. Publish with one command.' A subheading describes it as a command-line tool for bloggers with a static site who want to open a terminal, write something, and have it live on the Internet. Below is a dark install command: curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/brennanbrown/writer-cli/main/INSTALL.sh | bash, with a 'copy' button. A note below states it installs to ~/.local/bin/ and links to the installer source. Navigation links at the top read: home, guide, reference, source, GitHub.

Introducing writer-cli: a bash tool I built from scratch to blog in the terminal!

May 24, 2026 · #bash #technical #tools #blogging #indieweb

After finding the tildeverse and the Tilde.town feels engine, I decided to build my own simple command-line tool for blogging that handles the full lifecycle of a blog post (creation, editing, building, and git push). A walkthrough of the design decisions, the modular architecture, and the tradeoffs of writing 700 lines of plain bash.

A trompe-l'œil painting depicting a scattered collection of aged historical documents, letters, and newspapers overlapping one another. The papers are rendered in warm sepia and cream tones, suggesting significant age. Documents include handwritten letters in German cursive script (Kurrent), printed newspapers with Gothic blackletter typefaces bearing dates from 1817, official-looking certificates with wax seals and decorative borders, folded correspondence with red wax seal remnants, and what appears to be sheet music. Several documents feature ornate engravings of coats of arms or figures on horseback. A few pieces of red sealing wax are scattered among the papers. The arrangement creates a sense of historical layering, as though the viewer is looking down at a desk or archive drawer full of early 19th-century European correspondence and ephemera.

A Love Letter to Everything

May 17, 2026 · 1 comment · #personal essay #IndieWeb #community #writing #blogging #internet #open source

My first IndieWeb Carnival entry—the theme is love letters, and I couldn't pick just one thing. A letter to the infrastructure that holds my corner of the internet together, to the strangers who maintain the open-source tools I depend on every day, and to the IndieWeb friends I've met over the past few months. And finally, to curiosity: the embarrassing willingness to fall in love with a static-site generator or a transit system or a protocol nobody's heard of, which I've come to believe is what kept me alive.

Three jockeys race side by side on horseback in a flat racing scene rendered in a bold graphic illustration style. The horses—one dark, one white, one dark bay—surge forward at full gallop against a vivid coral-red background. The jockeys lean low over their mounts' necks, dressed in racing silks and caps. The palette is limited to deep teal-black, white, gold, and red, the image has the feel of a vintage screen-print/linocut poster.

I Made My Eleventy Build 5× Faster with Five Changes

May 11, 2026 · 1 comment · #eleventy #javascript #technical #tutorial #IndieWeb #personal site

A walkthrough of how I audited my 11ty build benchmarks and cut cold-start time from 14 seconds down to 2.6 seconds by caching two custom filters and swapping out a bare network fetch.

Last Online 620 Weeks Ago: Why I'm Loyal to the IndieWeb

May 10, 2026 · #personal essay #indieweb #internet #community

You visit your parent's house and find your white Xbox 360 in your childhood bedroom. A friends list full of gamertags that haven't booted up their own console in hundreds of weeks. On the heartbreak of digital disappearance, and why I'm committed to staying findable.

A graphic illustration featuring a vintage blue television set centered on the image, its antenna tilting to the right. The TV screen contains a vibrant stained-glass-style composition of diverse human faces and silhouettes rendered in bold colours. Orange, red, green, teal, turquoise, yellow, and lavender. A crowd and community of voices. The background is a repeating diagonal pattern of the words 'public access television' in translucent blue text, layered over a blurred cityscape, a busy commercial street.

Announcing My New Radio Show (a Love Letter to Public Access Television)

May 3, 2026 · #personal essay #community #Radio #Technology #IndieWeb #Creative Process #technical

From Shaw Community Television on Channel 10 to Paper Tiger Television and the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, public access was original community media. Anybody, any channel, no notes from the network. In that spirit, I'm starting a self-hosted radio station built on AzuraCast, automated with a Python cron job pulling public domain recordings from the Internet Archive, and I'm going to try to show up and broadcast.

Printed pages burning on rocky ground outdoors, with tall orange flames rising from the center. The pages are from a book, and visible names include Steve Wozniak, Stanley Kubrick, and Leslie Stern, M.D., with a section header reading '[End Of Tra...' and a headline at the top beginning 'Why Did Navidson Go Back To The Hou...' The surrounding area shows ash, gravel, and dry vegetation. The image has a subtle chromatic aberration effect, giving the edges a yellow-green fringe.

Writers Who Burned All Their Words feat. Bix Frankonis

May 2, 2026 · #personal essay #writing #Literature #Digital Culture #blogging #IndieWeb

I am a compulsive archivist, terrified of losing my words, but many of history's greatest writers asked for theirs to be burned. Kafka, Dickinson, Plath, Virgil all had their reasons. A meditation on self-erasure, ego, and the difference between the writing and the written thing, with an interview with Bix Frankonis, a contemporary writer who one day decided he needed to be smaller online, not bigger.

Scan of an open Japanese book showing two pages. The left page is a deep red cover featuring a white circle containing stylized red seaweed fronds with curling spiral tops and a red seahorse; small red leaf motifs and dark coral branches appear at the bottom. Text at the bottom reads '東京隆文館藏版'' (Tokyo Ryūbunkan zōhan — a Tokyo publisher). The right page is white and shows a single stylized flower or plant — resembling a bird-of-paradise bloom on a slender stem — rising from a flat red concentric spiral that suggests ripples on water. Japanese characters in the upper right read '小説渦巻' (Shōsetsu Uzumakim, meaning 'Novel: Spiral' or 'Whirlpool').

Dreamwidth and Yearning for Humanity on the Web

May 1, 2026 · 5 comments · #personal essay #IndieWeb #Social Commentary #community #internet

The sonder and vertigo I feel about people's interior lives. Corporate social media fails to offer genuine witnessing. So, I look to Dreamwidth, a fork of LiveJournal, and fifteen years of unbroken communities. On digital gentrification and the difference between syndication and participation.

Dozens of soap bubbles float upward against a backdrop of terracotta roof tiles shot from below. The bubbles range in size from small to large and display iridescent colours: electric blue, magenta, gold, and green. All shimmering across their thin, transparent surfaces. Some bubbles reflect distorted glimpses of sky and surroundings. The roof tiles are rendered soft and out of focus in warm red-brown tones, creating contrast with the bright, jewel-like spheres in the foreground.

Floating Up: An Interview with the creator of Bubbles.town, Benjamin Behnke

April 27, 2026 · #IndieWeb #Interview #Cultural Criticism #Social Commentary #personal essay

An interview with Benjamin Behnke, the creator of Bubbles.town, a community-driven aggregator for independent personal blogs. After controversy on Mastodon and 32-bit Café over his use of Anthropic's Claude to categorize blogs and bypass robots.txt signals, Ben responds about the mistake, the removal of the AI classification pipeline, a locally-trained Naive Bayes replacement, and stricter robots.txt enforcement. A reflection on software harm reduction, forgiveness, my Grandma Bubbles, and the fragile labours of love making the IndieWeb.

A trompe-l'œil painting depicting a scattered arrangement of printed papers, pamphlets, and book pages pinned to a light wood-grain surface by a vertical red stick or stylus. At the centre is a crumpled blue card bearing a detailed botanical illustration of a pink cabbage rose with green leaves on a dark background. The surrounding papers include fragments of English, German, and Latin text — visible phrases include 'LONDON,' 'WORK,' 'EVERY M[ONTH],' 'Printed for W. Griffin,' 'ELLARMINUS GENERTVS,' and a German title in red Gothic script reading 'Helmstädt, 1689.' The papers vary in style from English pamphlet typography to German blackletter, suggesting a multilingual 18th-century scholarly or publishing context. The overall composition mimics the look of real layered documents with careful attention to shadow and paper curl.

The IndieWeb is Wonderfully Dionysian

April 25, 2026 · 1 comment · #IndieWeb #Cultural Criticism #Social Commentary #personal essay #philosophy

A personal plea from me to you to write your own comments. On the genAI plague of LinkedIn, Meta ads, and Medium, and the human warmth of the IndieWeb. From deviantART's old comment culture to Seneca's letters and the Vindolanda tablets, through Nietzsche's Apollonian/Dionysian divide, the Renaissance of Real in A/W 2026/27 fashion, and Charli XCX's Brat. A call to write the messy, human, from-the-heart comment only you can write.

A densely populated Flemish town square overflows with more than two hundred figures—mostly children, some adults—engaged in over eighty distinct games and pastimes. The scene is painted from a high, tilted perspective that flattens the space and allows the eye to travel across clusters of activity: children spinning tops, rolling hoops, playing leapfrog, wrestling, walking on stilts, riding piggyback, blowing up bladders, and marching in procession. In the left foreground, small groups sit at a table and on the ground. A red wooden fence bisects the mid-ground. At centre-left, a large stone building with Gothic arched doorways anchors the composition. The background opens onto a river, green fields, and a receding street. No single focal point—every corner holds another small drama of play.

Good, Standard Work: Creating the Commons

April 16, 2026 · 1 comment · #personal essay #commons #IndieWeb #open source #Indigenous

A defence of digital stewardship, IndieWeb principles, Blackfoot models of collective flourishing, and what it means to plant seeds in a garden you'll never see. From Garrett Hardin's infamous 1968 essay to Elinor Ostrom's Nobel Prize-winning refutation, the tragedy of the commons was never inevitable. It was always a choice.

The Fool tarot card from the Rider-Waite deck, numbered 0. A young figure in an ornate, flower-patterned tunic stands at the edge of a rocky cliff, face tilted upward toward a bright sun in the upper right corner. They carry a white rose in one outstretched hand and a wooden staff over their shoulder with a small sack tied to the end. A white dog leaps up at their heels. The background is a flat yellow sky above snow-capped mountains. The card is set against a blurred, blue-green forest background. The title 'THE FOOL.' appears in a banner at the bottom.

The Fool's Autopsy

April 2, 2026 · #Technical #IndieWeb #Satire #Writing #Humor

A review of the prank I pulled yesterday, in addition to serious discourse about being silly, including thoughts on the role and importance of satire and literacy. I also share a detailed technical breakdown of the scripts that I added to the prank as well.

Great News: brennan.day is being acquired!

April 1, 2026 · 2 comments · #Announcements #Blogging #IndieWeb #Ad

After MONTHS of hard, gruelling work being completely independent on my personal site, I've been lucky enough to find healthy, sustainable partnerships with several incredible companies. Today, I'm sharing some significant changes to how brennan.day operates—and what that means for you, my readers.

Oil painting (1904) of a man seated at a cluttered desk, writing with a pen while pressing one hand to his forehead in concentration. He wears a dark jacket and glasses, surrounded by open books, stacked papers, and an inkwell. The background is a muted blue-grey. Signed in Cyrillic in the upper right corner.

Being Taken Seriously as a Writer

March 26, 2026 · 1 comment · #personal essay #IndieWeb #Digital Culture #Social Commentary #writing

There's tension between creative authenticity and professional presentation in the IndieWeb space. What does it mean to be taken seriously as a writer while maintaining personal joy and rejecting the aesthetic standards of capital?

Over/Under #58 with Brennan Kenneth

March 24, 2026 · #interview #IndieWeb #chess #journaling

I was interviewed by Hyde on lazybea.rs for their Over/Under series. Covering Discord, journaling, chess, Letterboxd, strawberries, and more.

Painting depicting a sun-drenched coastal scene in a classical mythological style. In the foreground, purple wildflowers carpet rocky terrain where a reclining nude male figure reclines while a draped woman in white and blue leans toward him. Behind them, two robed women tend to goats near the water's edge. In the background, several nude figures wade and play among pink-orange boulders along a vivid turquoise sea. A rainbow arcs across a pale blue sky in the upper left. The palette is warm and saturated. Coral rock, lavender bloom, aqua water.

Building the Good Web

March 22, 2026 · 1 comment · #personal essay #IndieWeb #Digital Culture #Social Commentary #community #philosophy

What does it actually mean to build a better web, and what do we owe each other in doing so? A response to the 32-bit Café thread about trust, onboarding, and the distance between knowing something is wrong and doing something about it.

A black ink illustration on a rainbow gradient background that shifts from yellow-green at the left through orange, pink, and purple to blue at the right. The illustration depicts a large spider web rendered as concentric semicircular arcs radiating outward from a central point at the bottom, with radial lines crossing them in a dotted, hand-drawn style. At the center bottom sits a stylized spider figure surrounded by a geometric mandala of triangles and star-like forms, set against a bright magenta-pink circle. The entire composition is framed by a rectangular border decorated with repeating geometric diamond and triangle motifs along the edges. Small flies are scattered throughout the web

Trust and Faith in Our Web

March 20, 2026 · 1 comment · #personal essay #Digital Culture #IndieWeb #Social Commentary #philosophy

What is trust in an AI-saturated internet? And a related question, how do we reckon with the barriers to onboarding people to the IndieWeb? We must cultivate faith in our digital interactions and make independent web spaces more accessible.

Screenshot of the JavaScript file (main.js) open in a code editor, showing a function called initCopyButtons that adds 'Copy' buttons to code blocks on a webpage. The file is part of the brennan.day 11ty project, visible in the left-hand file tree. The code targets pre and code elements, creates button elements with clipboard functionality, and includes a fallback for older browsers using execCommand. The status bar shows the file was last committed by Brennan Kenneth Brown.

Building brennan.day Part Two: IndieWeb, New Features, and Three Months of Iterations

March 13, 2026 · 3 comments · #eleventy #IndieWeb #personal site #technical

What have I added to my site since I started in December? Quality-of-life improvements, new pages, interesting features, and of course, easter eggs! When you add a little each day, it really adds up.

Screenshot showing a Reddit post titled 'Why is my local city and public library looking to pay $50/hr to an AI Artist Residency?' posted to r/Calgary by u/WanderBetter, featuring a photo of the Calgary Central Library building. The post has been removed by moderators and the account permanently banned from r/Calgary, with a mod mail message stating the post violated community rules.

r/Calgary Deleted the Top Post of the Day Because I Wrote It Myself

March 8, 2026 · 1 comment · #Digital Culture #Media Criticism #journalism #IndieWeb

I was permanently banned from r/Calgary for posting my own writing about local public library funding. What does this say about the state of local journalism?

A weathered concrete time capsule monument sitting on a sidewalk surrounded by fallen leaves. A metal plaque on the front reads: 'Bogalusa Diamond Jubilee Time Capsule, July 3, 1989, To Be Opened July 3, 2014.' The top of the monument has cracked open, with small weeds growing through the gap.

How are we preparing for the Long Web?

March 1, 2026 · 2 comments · #IndieWeb #Digital Preservation #Web Development #Technology #Digital Culture

What will the Internet look like in 2036? 2046? How do we reckon with the challenges of digital preservation, link rot, and building for the Long Web in an age of ephemeral content?

A hand-colored photograph of a male stage actor in 17th-century French theatrical costume, reclining languidly in an ornate gilded armchair. He wears a deep burgundy velvet coat with elaborate lace cravat and cuffs, white stockings with gold embroidered detail, and black heeled shoes.

'The Friend of Mankind Is No Friend of Mine': What's the Misanthrope's Place in Community?

February 27, 2026 · #IndieWeb #Philosophy #Community #Digital Culture #Personal Essay

My second principle for the IndieWeb requires good faith writing excludes the misanthrope. I want to reconsider that, carefully. Because the question of who gets to be here, and why, is more interesting and more complicated than I first let on.

Wooden bookshelves overflowing with loose papers, documents, folders, and cardboard boxes including a Gabor shoe box. Additional stacks of papers and boxes are piled on a small side table and the red-carpeted floor; a knowledgeable home office or archive space.

The Work Isn't Finished, It's Abandoned: Thoughts on WIP Pages

February 26, 2026 · 1 comment · #Digital Gardens #IndieWeb #Digital Culture #Personal Essay

On executive dysfunction, the tyranny of perpetual drafts, and choosing messy immediacy over cultivated perfection.

Graphic introducing Toonie Club featuring a Canadian two-dollar coin with colorful Indigenous art in the center, showing red and orange floral patterns and a traditional inukshuk figure on a green background. The coin is shown against a blurred forest background with white text reading 'Introducing... Toonie Club!' on the right side.

Introducing the Toonie Club!

February 24, 2026 · #IndieWeb #capitalism #Community #Personal Essay #Sustainability

A new approach to creative support: one simple tier, full access for everyone. Inspired by Manuel Moreale's 'One a Month' Club, the Toonie Club offers sustainable patronage without complex tiers or exclusive content.

A red miniature trolley with 'NEIGHBORHOOD TROLLEY' written on a yellow sign on top, sitting on silver tracks. The trolley features yellow and black trim, visible passenger silhouettes in the windows, and is photographed against a blurred background of a miniature neighborhood set with colorful buildings.Shot taken during the 'Neighborhood of Make-Believe Tour' at WQED studios in Pittsburgh.

Won't you be my neighbour?

February 22, 2026 · 2 comments · #IndieWeb #Community #Personal Essay #Digital Culture #Digital Sociology

We need to be good neighours to each other. But what does that mean on the IndieWeb? A look at mycorrhizal networks, Indra's Net, and the importance of building intentional connections between independent websites.

Two men carrying a dark green couch across a street in a tropical urban setting with palm trees. The couch has 'THIS IS STOLEN' written on it in large white hand-painted letters. Background shows commercial buildings, power lines, and vehicles on what appears to be a sunny day.

My Malware Story Gets Stolen; Yet Another Argument for the IndieWeb

February 21, 2026 · #Digital Security #IndieWeb #Journalism #Open Source #Digital Culture #Social Commentary

A few days after writing about a weird malware campaign, I discovered that half a dozen cybersecurity news outlets had picked up the story. They now outrank me on Google. A metacommentary on the state of internet journalism, attribution, and what it says that a netsec industry has to rely on amateurs to break stories.

Posts tagged "indieweb"