Be careful of what the top members of the Yesterweb claim - I remember this drama from when it was happening, and the story I heard was that "attempts to draw the whole community into organizing efforts" actually meant trying to get everyone to get involved in communism, which the two leads, Sadness and Madness, were really into.
Stuff like banning commissions (wanting commissions was considered too bourgeoisie), even when they were small time artists or fanartists trying to get their name out there on the smallnet, or people just generally not aligning with their Marxist vision for the new old internet was a problem, and between that and spreading themselves crazy thin over about half a dozen poorly handled projects, Sadness and Madness eventually decided to tear down the very community they had built up.
Forums + Discord shuttered, sites deleted or revamped, webrings gone, and that was the end of the Yesterweb movement.
(Discord is also not smallweb/ "the internet outskirts"? It's a multi-billion dollar company powered by venture capital and filled with bots.)
Being communist isn't an issue in and of itself, but being communist and pushing out people who only wanted a better internet because they weren't communist was not healthy for the community they were trying to build, and I would be cautious of any article Sadness or Madness write. They very much want to blame everyone but themselves for what went down.
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carisma_sensei
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Date: 2026-01-10 09:23 am (UTC)Stuff like banning commissions (wanting commissions was considered too bourgeoisie), even when they were small time artists or fanartists trying to get their name out there on the smallnet, or people just generally not aligning with their Marxist vision for the new old internet was a problem, and between that and spreading themselves crazy thin over about half a dozen poorly handled projects, Sadness and Madness eventually decided to tear down the very community they had built up.
Forums + Discord shuttered, sites deleted or revamped, webrings gone, and that was the end of the Yesterweb movement.
(Discord is also not smallweb/ "the internet outskirts"? It's a multi-billion dollar company powered by venture capital and filled with bots.)
Being communist isn't an issue in and of itself, but being communist and pushing out people who only wanted a better internet because they weren't communist was not healthy for the community they were trying to build, and I would be cautious of any article Sadness or Madness write. They very much want to blame everyone but themselves for what went down.