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IndieWeb

Building and living on the independent web. Personal sites, protocols, principles, and digital ownership.

35 posts
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

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.
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

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

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.

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

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

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?

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.
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

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.
A historical star chart depicting the constellation Gemini, rendered as an engraving in the style of Johannes Hevelius or a similar 17th–18th century celestial atlas. The twins Castor and Pollux are illustrated as two nude male figures facing one another, adorned with floral wreaths and flowing drapery. Surrounding constellations are labeled in Latin, including Auriga, Lynx, Cancer, Orion, Monoceros, Canis Minor, and Hydra. Stars are marked with small ringed symbols along the ecliptic line. A watermark in the lower right reads 'Best viewed on the Gemini protocol' alongside the Gemini browser logo.

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

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 a meme styled as an MSN Messenger chat window. The conversation is addressed to bkennethbrown@live.com. The webcam panel shows a childhood photo of a young boy with dark hair, wearing a black shirt with flame graphics, standing in front of a white crib in a blue-painted bedroom. Overlaid on the photo is an MSN Messenger tooltip that reads 'Last Appearing Online: 620 Weeks Ago.' The messenger interface includes the standard toolbar with Invite, Send Files, Voice, Activities, and Games buttons, a text input area with Send and Search buttons, and a display picture of the classic MSN Messenger butterfly logo. At the bottom, a status bar reads 'AIM is now open and ICQ access is only $2!' The Windows XP-era green hills desktop is visible behind the window.

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

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.
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

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

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

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

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.
Oil painting depicting the interior of a giant cylindrical O'Neill 'Model 3' space colony habitat, viewed from within. The curved interior wraps around the viewer in a panoramic arc, with rust-orange and amber cumulus clouds massing near the central rotation axis overhead. A dark, star-scattered corridor runs through the middle of the composition, framing a brilliant solar eclipse where the colony has entered Earth's shadow at the L5 Lagrangian point. The entire scene is drenched in deep ruddy amber and burnt sienna tones, evoking the simultaneous light of every sunrise and sunset on Earth.

The Internet's Landlord Problem

A quarter of the entire Internet uses Cloudflare. This is an existential threat to the Internet's ideals. I realized I need DDoS protection, but I could not use Cloudflare in good conscience. And so, I'm beyond excited to announce that I'm now using Deflect.ca for my website.
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

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

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

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.
A red-tinted photograph of a graffiti-covered urban street corner, featuring a fallen bicycle leaning against a building. Bold white text overlaid on the image reads: 'Build Awesome's Kickstarter is Cancelled.' with the URL 'https://brennan.day' below.

Build Awesome's Kickstarter is Cancelled

After only a couple days, Build Awesome's Kickstarter has been cancelled and rescheduled due to email delivery issues that ruined the project's momentum despite reaching their funding goal in a single day.
A green-tinted photograph of an abandoned industrial warehouse with overgrown vegetation, crumbling brick walls, and a glass skylight roof. Bold white text reads 'The End of Eleventy.' with the byline 'Brennan Kenneth Brown' beneath it.

The End of Eleventy

Build Awesome is a rebrand of 11ty/Eleventy, backed by a successful $40k Kickstarter. But this attempt to monetize static site generators repeats the same mistakes that killed Gatsby and Stackbit—and misunderstands who actually builds static sites.
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?

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?
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

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

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.
Ten matches arranged vertically, showing progressive stages of burning from top to bottom. The first match is nearly pristine with only a slightly charred tip, and each subsequent match shows increasing burn damage, until the last two, where one is burned to a fragile black sliver and the final match has completely disintegrated into ash.

The 1% Rule: An Open Letter to Everyone Who Doesn't Post Anything Online

A call to action for the 99% of internet users who consume but never create. If that's you (and it most likely is), then please read and consider what I'm asking."
Ink drawing of a classical Triton statue from the Vatican, depicted as a muscular figure with curly hair and draped fabric. A black rectangular bar labeled 'MALWARE' has been placed across the statue's eyes in a humorous censorship style. Cyrillic text below reads 'Triton (from the Vatican).

The Curious Case of the Triton Malware Fork

Today, a weird malware distribution campaign targeting users of omg.lol and Triton, an open-source macOS client of omg.lol, was found. The attack leverages the trust of GitHub, creating a malicious fork where the download link has been replaced with malware hidden in presented .zip file.
Promotional graphic for Meddler, a Medium export tool. The image features a large blue circular logo with white 'M' in the center, surrounded by various icons including a zip folder labeled 'Medium Export .zip', HTML code symbols, the Medium logo, markdown file icons, and badges for Jekyll, Hugo, Eleventy, and 'IndieWeb Ready'.

Introducing Ⓜ️ Meddler!

I created a Medium export converter for the IndieWeb that converts your Medium archive into clean Markdown for Jekyll, Hugo, Eleventy, or Astro.js. Available as both a command line tool, and a web interface.
Rainbow-coloured copyleft symbol in a spiral design above the word 'copyleft' spelled in multi-colored letters, set against a background of diagonal rainbow crayon strokes in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple

Why I'm Changing the License in Over 80 of My Code Repos After Talking to the Co-Creator of Fediverse

Why I'm Switching from MIT to AGPL and from CC BY-NC to CC BY-SA after a conversation with Dr. Matt Lee about copyleft licensing and protecting free software from corporate exploitation.
Three different blog themes side-by-side. Left: 'Indiepaper' a minimalist dark theme with white text featuring an article about the IndieWeb for writers. Center: 'Daily Chronicle' a traditional newspaper-style layout with serif typography and colourful illustrations. Right: 'brennan.jp.net' a Japanese language site with bright blue and red accents, featuring a blog post about Hugo static site development with preview images and Japanese text

Announcing Three New Free JAMstack Blogging Themes

I've spent the last few weeks working on three new free themes for IndieWeb blogging: Indiepaper, Newsprint, and brennan.jp.net, all of which centre around giving people a place to call their own on the internet.
Weathered computer with visible dirt and moss growth abandoned on the ground among scattered brown autumn leaves, green grass patches, and foliage.

Computing for the Apocalypse

Building digital resilience through self-hosted infrastructure and permacomputing principles in an uncertain world. Using Docker, Caddy, and open-source tools for digital resilience and independence.
A watercolour painting of a rural mountain village scene. In the foreground, simple buildings with corrugated metal roofs line a dirt road where small figures walk. A flag flies from a pole near the center of the settlement. Behind the buildings, dense green trees dot the landscape, and in the background, dramatic mountains rise with slopes showing varied colors of pink, orange, green, and brown.

What I Have Learned Being on the IndieWeb for a Month

A month of building, connecting, and discovering the independent web. Small technical joys that turned solitude into dialogue. Treat the Internet like a personal playground and lab!
Hand-drawn infographic titled 'INDIE WEB' explaining why to build your own website. Left side shows reasons: be visible to humans first, own your data, build tools yourself first, prioritize usability before protocols, and use platform-agnostic platforms to play well with others. Center emphasizes 'THIS IS NOT A SOFTWARE PROJECT' and advocates building for the long web and having fun.

Resources for the Personal Web: A Follow-Up Guide

A guide to tools and resources for joining the independent web movement. Discover blogging platforms like Pika, search engines that prioritize small sites, directories for finding like-minded creators, and more.
Black coffee mug on a desk displaying white text that reads 'COMMENTS HAVE BEEN DISABLED' in a playful handwritten font. The mug sits in front of a laptop keyboard with a monitor visible in the background, creating a typical home office workspace setting.

Building an IndieAuth Comment System for Your Static Site

A journey through authentication, CORS issues, and the joy of owning your comments! Learn how to build a comment system for your static site using IndieAuth and Netlify Functions, storing the comments in your git repository.
A screenshot of the Gruvbox color palette

Building brennan.day Part One: Design, Rainbows, and Accessibility

A dive into how this site is built, why it exists, and the philosophy behind owning your corner of the web.

Bring Back the 90's Guestbook with JAMstack: How I Added Dynamic Comments to My Static 11ty Site

Reviving the classic guestbook for a static site using Netlify Forms and serverless functions, with lessons on distributed systems and race conditions.
Source | (Edited by the Author)

Move to a Better Internet in 2026.

Why You (yes, you) Should Join Medium, Tumblr, and NeoCities.
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