The slow web
Indie web, small web, cosy web, slow web. For a while I was thinking about all these descriptions as being roughly synonymous.
Indie web is about doing these things with independent businesses and tools. The small web is about tiny footprints and how small you can make your site like the 512kb club and the 250kb club, which is fun. The retro web, artisanal web, and cosy web do feel like a different vibe. But I'm appreciating the specific differences of the slow web now.
Most of you are going to know all about this but, anyway. The general slow movement began with slow food, in direct opposition to fast food. There are slow cities, slow holidays, and the slow web.
This most recent provocation of the thought was happening this morning. I was thinking about not optimising everything. Suboptimal (complimentary).
Handmade sounds too technical, like I should be writing all the html myself. And sometimes I do think about just writing all the html myself! But it feels like a lot of people are using that more about self-hosting or static site generating and 'spinning up' or doing something with packages. Which I am not.
IndieWeb talks about the slow web as being better paced, 'instead of real-time, reactive, or frantic experiences' and 'Garden first, stream second' in a digital gardening way. Because it's not a synonym - there's nothing to say that indie websites can't bombard you with popups and newsletter signups and tracking. It's less likely but it could still be done in an indie way. That's not slow web.
The Slow Web by Rebecca Blood says:
The popular Web most closely resembles a hyper-paced newspaper, with Extra editions required for every new development, regardless of its importance.
In 2010!
The Slow Web by Jack Cheng in 2012:
Fast Web is about information. Slow Web is about knowledge. Information passes through you; knowledge dissolves into you.
From The Slow Internet portal:
Slow Internet is a vibe devoid of pop-ups, confusing interfaces and general treachery.
'General treachery' really is a vibe. More:
Slow Internet is value – shared and experienced – with thought-through intent. It’s a call for simplicity and calm that tangents the first slogan of the World Wide Web: “Let’s share what we know.”
Is it time for a 'slow food movement' for the internet? asks Wired in 2018, by which time I think there definitely was a slow web movement. There's also The soothing promise of our own artisanal internet.
I'm interested more generally in slow internet and slow tech. Stuff that takes more time. More friction. Forcing me to do it properly.
Example I've been thinking about: When I use my Notion 'save to' bookmarklet it saves a link to my bookmarks. Later I will have to tag that bookmark, which I batch do every so often. Possibly this is already too slow for a lot of people. But I want to go even slower. I want to train myself more to take the link, go to the right page in Notion, and paste it in there as a bookmark. It feels like a journey, a process, rather than just a click. Even though it is, in reality, several clicks.
(Not always, some stuff is better saved centrally and Notion clips the page also, great when I really need an archive copy.) But I want to do this more often than I do. This makes it more intentional. Rather than just spamming my bookmarks database indiscriminately. I have to think in that moment: why do I want to keep this? Where does it fit?
On my website I think going slower is less about blog posts and more about working on the pages in my notes. A blog post is short, fast, dated, (mostly) complete, and sent off to make its way in the world. Pages are longer-term, a work in progress, revisited, redone, curated, pondered.
So. Pages over blog posts. Blogs over status updates. Emails over comments. Reading over AI summaries. Slow, gentle, concentrated.