Why I Keep a Personal Website

I didn’t set out to build a personal website. It happened the way most good things happen — gradually, then all at once.

The Problem with Platforms

Social media platforms are not your home. They are rented rooms where you can hang pictures on the wall, but the landlord can change the locks at any time. Algorithms shift. Accounts get suspended. Platforms die.¹

Your own website is the one thing on the internet that is truly yours. The idea of SOUPS is what keeps me writing here instead of on someone else’s feed.

What I’ve Learned

Keeping a personal website has taught me more about the web than any course or tutorial. Not because the technology is hard, but because it forces you to think about things that platforms abstract away:

• How do I want my words to look?
• How should a reader navigate my thoughts?
• What do I want to be remembered for?

These are design questions, but they’re also philosophical ones. Understanding HTML and CSS at a basic level goes a long way when you own the stack.

The Joy of Small Things

My website will never have millions of visitors. It will never trend on any platform. And that is precisely the point.

It exists for the same reason I keep a journal, or take photographs of old buildings, or write code that no one will ever see. Not for the audience. For the practice.

A Digital Garden

I like the metaphor of a digital garden. Not a blog, not a portfolio — a garden. Some things are fully grown. Others are just seeds. A few are dead and waiting to be composted.

The garden doesn’t judge. It just grows.

Start Small

If you don’t have a personal website, start with one page. Write about something you care about. Link to things you find interesting. Let it grow slowly.

The internet needs more small, careful websites. Yours could be one of them.

If you want a concrete example of the kind of artifact I publish here, my CV is embedded below. You can read it inline or open the full PDF in a new tab.

I also keep an eye on how the wider web thinks about owning your space — see this piece on digital sovereignty for a related angle.

Footnotes

1. Algorithms shift, accounts get suspended, and entire platforms have been shut down overnight. A personal website sidesteps that single point of failure. ↩