Weird internet art is still alive, and Neocities is proof

I triple-check the Neocities website for an idea I’m about to pitch to my editor, and notice that the most used tag is ‘art’, but not that kind that critics and commentators talk about. It’s much more fantastical, weird and homespun.

Neocities has the look and feel of the experimental early internet, where slow and steady effort is rewarded. Its free-to-use services, web 1.0 aesthetic and ad-free landscape provide shelter from AI brainrot and slop trends. But how can such a site exist in an era of incessant data mining and unskippable sponsored content? And importantly, why do artists seem so enamoured with it? To find out, we must go back to a time before AI, when Elon Musk, to most of the world, sounded like a sickly perfume you’d panic buy at Heathrow.

It’s 1999; the Backstreet Boys are in, and the web host service GeoCities is thriving. The site allowed regular people to freely build their own webpage within digital ‘neighbourhoods’ of related clusters of interest: Hollywood for entertainment, Area 51 for sci-fi and conspiracy theories, and Bourbon Street for Cajun food and jazz. Hosting allows you to show off your interests within your neighbourhood, and being part of a neighbourhood means you are part of a unique internet community. At this point, Geocities holds the title for the third-most-visited website on the World Wide Web behind AOL and Yahoo! Then the bubble breaks when Yahoo! buys Geocities in an attempt to gamify it, eventually leading to its closure in 2009. Despite this, GeoCities remains a core part of internet legacy, and the idea of democratic web hosting resurfaced in 2013, when Kyle Drake began constructing Neocities with the objective of “giving you back control of how you express yourself online”.

Fast forward to 2026, and Neocities remains amongst a handful of websites (NekoWeb, MelonLand, Spacehey) that promote indie web doctrines. Outside of these websites, artists are exposed to censorship, shadow banning and are forced to compete with Chat GPT, Grok and other AI generative tools whose rapid and high-volume production style pushes human-made aside whilst raking in hundreds of millions per year. To clarify, I don’t believe all AI art is shit. I love Shrimp Jesus and videos of Queen Elizabeth II hitting big boy blunts, clashing Meghan Markle at cookouts. Slop can be empty and entertaining at the same time, but there is definitely a problem with the extent to which it is sabotaging the efforts of real human artists.

Internaut and researcher, Günseli Yalcinkaya, nuances the artistic role of AI whose otherwise mainstream use thrives in its empty, airbrushed and pornographic finish. “We must distinguish between artists using AI as a tool (one of many used in the artistic process) and AI for AI’s sake. The catch is that to make an artwork using these tools isn’t a matter of simply pressing ‘prompt’ but is an ongoing dialogue with the machine. It takes a lot of back and forth to get the desired result. This has given ‘AI art’ a bad rep, which to me, returns to the question of what is art versus content.”

Outside of slop, Kyle Drake has been challenging the lack of web autonomy we’ve had since the early 2010s, which has since become more scrutinised. In an introductory blog post for Neocities he wrote, “The web we have today is a sad, pathetic, consumption-oriented digital iron curtain, and we need to change that… If we are to break free… we need more creative spaces”. Escaping AI dominance feels impossible online. Its production style promotes short shelf life but just enough social window for videos to become locally viral. Headlines like “More than 20% of videos shown to new YouTube users are ‘AI slop” and “More than half of web traffic comes from automated programs” also reveal how generative content is being prioritised in a self-perpetuating loop. AI algorithms promote AI content to AI bots, who then drive engagement and boost the AI content laid out by the very same AI algorithms. Have I said AI enough yet? My point is, all of this moves human-made art out of the picture.

That’s where Neocities comes in. The website home page feels like a roided-up version of Myspace crossed with Pandora’s box, where every single aesthetic and internet movement that has ever existed feels readily available. Building a site involves coding, but also creative strategy for page layout, image use, focal points, colour motifs and other decisions not too far off from curating a show, or designing a visual arts magazine, the difference being that no one decides how things look except for you. Sub-sites constructed by users and hosted by Neocities servers are multi-layered exhibitions; dedicated to subjects like the cast of Buffy, Riot Grrrl, frogs, furries, Y2K, horror games, punk, kink, sex, cheese, and more. Some sites claim to bring you fortune, others guarantee you a spot in hell.

Regardless of genre, the average page is an unabashed and intimate presentation of personal interests. Take this gorey, punk page by Deaddybbuk. Clicking through, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by kitsch pop-ups and its intense colour-clashing interface, but its unmistakable human touch is an antidote to the brain rot induced by the internet outside these walls (or the very specific brainrot found on certain art gallery press releases). Like many Neocities pages, Deaddybbuk combines surreal and edgy images, pop culture, handmade art and music to accompany your time on the site. Here, intimacy backed by creative intent reciprocates a genuine curiosity for what another person considers important and feels strongly about making.

Amongst these personalised sites, many users have used Neocities to house different parts of the art industry digitally, often promoting their zines, curating art in cyber galleries and sharing their portfolios. RHFZ, an artist and site owner (someone who has a site hosted on Neocities), explains that “For those like me who don’t like the spotlight, but who still want a parasocial relationship with others on the internet, Neocities is perfect. I don’t want to be famous. I don’t want a Wikipedia page. Some of that is a lack of confidence in my work, but I also have never wanted the hassle of being recognised”.

This desire for organic interaction, interaction not boosted by algorithms or personal branding, seems shared amongst site owners, and some users have even gone so far as to opt out of search engine indexing. “We’re skirting the deep web. It’s the opposite of SEO”, RHFZ notes.

Though there’s definitely an IYKYK vibe associated with Neocities, the elitism layered within the institutional art world is dismantled. Much like GeoCities, users are brought together through community ‘webrings’, small hyperlinked widgets attached to their pages. You can have as many as you like, and clicking on one will take you to another site within the community. Think of them like page teleport buttons for digital neighbours. Izzy, who runs the Garfriend site on Neocities, details the social aspect of these webrings. “All Neocities users are so involved in each other’s work that it’s impossible to be reclusive. It’s an astonishingly supportive community… I befriended someone [IRL] who has a Neocities page and lives just two neighbourhoods over from where I live.” The DIY webcrafting of Neocities, combined with its sense of community, feels like the digital equivalent of physical art practices such as zine making and collage, something which will be explored next month in the exhibition ‘Connection Established: Digital Folklore and Web Craft’ at The Photographer’s Gallery, London.

Some of these communities are trivial, and joining them can be based on simply being British or a furry. Others focus on activism and social change, such as ‘No AI’, which a large chunk of artists link to. The webring has two rules: “No AI content on any of your pages. No intolerance, fascism or other barbarity.” RMF, who runs the webring, likens the use of webrings to attending a protest. “You get to see how many people share a certain set of convictions, and by marching along, you get to signal those convictions to the world, together”.

Neocities seems incredibly important in a moment where human art is being overshadowed. Users like RHFZ recognise the importance of its permissive censorship policy and lack of invasive “algorithming”, which they point out leads to fewer trolls. “You can’t gamify the platform by provoking others. ‘Rage-baiting’ doesn’t lead to a big public payoff.” RHFZ did float their concerns over public vilification of uncensored web hosting and its capacity to accommodate radical/extremist material in the wrong hands, though moving through Neocities today, that scenario feels pretty far off.

Browsing Neocities feels as close to the wholesome notion of ‘surfing the web’. Exploration is addictive and the idea that artists can freely host their own galleries and visually curate their personalities seems far more utopian than the offline art world. Part of the formula is that no one is there to tell you that you’re breaking the rules. You have full control over how you marry your version of visual creativity with intimate storytelling. Because of this, pages that associate themselves with harmless offline fringe movements are prolific and entering some pages on Neocities can feel like stepping into a personal universe, an artist’s studio. These sites give way to an incredibly pure, child-like experience where the objective is not to monetise, go viral or be collected. Yes, it’s online, but it’s as human an experience as any – getting lost in the crevices of art and creation, exchanging knowledge and art. I hope it continues to grow.