We were promised friends. We got a slot machine.
Somewhere around 2012 the pages stopped being ours. The profile became a feed. The feed became an algorithm. The algorithm became a stranger deciding, every few seconds, which of your friends you're allowed to see and which video of a man falling off a roof goes in their place.
You didn't sign up for this. You signed up in 2005 to put a song on your page and rank your friends in public. That was the deal. Then the deal changed, quietly, one settings screen at a time, until a "social" network became a place where you know less about your actual friends than you did when you had to call them.
Privacy isn't a setting they forgot to add. It's the product they sold.
What we're taking back
The page. One URL that is you. Not a handle that can be suspended by a form letter. A domain, in your name, that costs about the same as a sandwich per year.
The guest list. On a real page you don't "request to follow." You get a key from the person, because they know you. Your friends see the good stuff. Your mom sees the real stuff. Your coworkers see the résumé. Strangers see a locked door with your name on it. That's not antisocial. That's how every house works.
The chronological order. Things go on the page in the order you put them. Nobody re-sorts your life for retention.
The ugly. Glitter text, tiled backgrounds, a hit counter, a song that plays when you press play. Taste is optional. Ownership isn't.
Why now
Because for the first time since Geocities you don't have to know how to code. You have to know how to describe what you want to an AI agent that does. The thing that made personal pages die, the effort, is gone. The thing that made them great, that they were yours, never left. We just stopped asking for it.
So this site does one thing: it hands your agent a very good set of instructions, and it hands you a very short list of things to decide. An afternoon later you have a page, a domain, and three keys to give out.
What this is not
- Not a platform. We don't host your page. We don't see your page. There is no antisocial.media account. If this site vanished tomorrow your page wouldn't notice.
- Not a protocol. No federation, no feeds, no follows. If you want to see what your friend is up to, you open their page. Like a person.
- Not a paywall. Every tutorial here is free and will stay free. We make money doing the boring parts for people who'd rather pay than read.
- Not anti-people. Antisocial means anti social-media. Your page is the most social thing you'll build this year. It's just social with a guest list.
The commandments, longer
- Own the domain. If you can't take it with you, you don't own it.
- No algorithm. Ever. Not even a "smart" one. Not even for you.
- No ads, no trackers. Not because they're evil. Because they're boring, and your friends deserve better than being a conversion.
- Keys, not followers. Access is something you give and can take back.
- Guestbook over comments. Signing something is a small act of care. Commenting is a reflex.
- A profile song, behind a play button. Autoplay was the original sin and we've repented.
- A Top 8. Yes, it will cause problems. That's what makes it real.
- View source is a feature. Every page you love is a tutorial if you right-click it.
- A page has a bottom. Reach it. Close the tab. Text the person.