You don’t need permission to build your own internet.
That’s the first thing I want you to remember. Not from me. Not from a framework. Not from a tutorial series with 87 steps and a Udemy certificate. You are more powerful than that. You already have the tools.
You don’t need React.
React Is Not Evil—But It’s Not Your Ally
Let’s get something straight: React isn’t the devil. It has its place. If you’re building a massive, multi-user, high-frequency dashboard with real-time data flying everywhere—sure, bring out the big guns. But if you’re building a personal site, a journal, a project page, a digital zine, or even a micro-app—you don’t need a component library heavier than your vision.
What started as a tool became a treadmill.
You start with one create-react-app, and suddenly you’re pulling in Tailwind, Zustand, TypeScript, and 30 other dependencies just to display a photo and a paragraph. You’re debugging build errors instead of telling your story. You’re in meetings with your own code. You forgot why you wanted a website in the first place.
It’s okay. They trained you for this.
But you can unlearn it.
HTML Is Not Outdated—It’s Freeing
I’ve built dashboards. I’ve worked with full-stack frameworks. I’ve done the React grind. But when I wanted to build something personal, something weird, something that felt like me—I went back to pure HTML.
And I remembered: this is fun.
HTML is lightweight. It’s fast. It’s tactile. You can open a text editor, write a few lines, and watch your world unfold in a browser. No build step. No node_modules. No abstraction. Just creation.
And when paired with CSS and a bit of vanilla JS? It becomes a form of digital sculpture.
You Don’t Need To Be a Designer To Make Something Beautiful
The indie web isn’t about polish. It’s about presence. I’ve seen websites made by teenagers on Neocities that blow away \$10,000 marketing pages. Why? Because they feel real.
They’re cluttered, asymmetrical, sometimes outright broken—but they breathe. You can tell a human touched every <div>, even if it’s misaligned. You can feel the energy behind the scrollbox. You can see someone experimenting, tinkering, learning in public.
And that’s beautiful.
You don’t need to be a pro to make a site worth visiting. You just need vision, and the willingness to get your hands dirty.
Start Simple, Then Get Weird
Here’s a challenge: build your next personal project with just HTML, CSS, and optional vanilla JS. No frameworks. No build process. Just your fingers, your text editor, and your thoughts.
Create a homepage. Add a sidebar. Make your own buttons. Style it like a broken terminal. Or a forgotten OS. Or your bedroom in 2007. Layer GIFs. Use the <marquee> tag if you feel like it. Write lore. Create a fake chatbox. Turn your bio into a poem. Make it weird. Make it real.
You’ll find out quickly: you don’t need 80% of what you were told you needed.
And better yet—you’ll own all of it.
The Web Is Your Instrument, Not a SaaS
Too many devs today treat websites like they’re building apps for the App Store. They want them perfect, scalable, monetizable from day one. But sometimes you’re not trying to sell something. Sometimes you’re just trying to speak.
React turns your creativity into code patterns. HTML turns your creativity into shape.
You want a site that looks like a shrine?
You want a page that feels like a hidden diary?
You want a homepage that breathes like a half-dead OS with a glowing memory bar?
React can’t give you that.
HTML can.
No Gatekeeping, Just Invitation
This isn’t about shaming devs who use React. It’s about opening a door.
If you’ve never made a site with your bare hands, try it. If you’ve been building with frameworks so long you forgot how <table> works, try it. If you feel like the web is getting sterile, try it.
There’s a whole movement out there—makers, artists, glitch evangelists, oldweb revivalists, chaos coders. People turning their blogs into labyrinths. People building aesthetic toolkits. People hiding relics inside divs.
It’s not about nostalgia. It’s about agency.
Practical Advantages of Going Raw
Let’s be clear—there are tactical benefits to ditching React for small projects:
- ⚡ Speed – No JS overhead, no render cycles, just fast DOM.
- 🪶 Size – Sites under 100KB are possible and beautiful.
- 🔐 Security – No supply chain, no dependency exploits.
- 📦 Portability – Drop your
.htmlon a USB stick and run it anywhere. - 🛠️ Debuggability – If it breaks, you can actually understand why.
This isn’t a regression. It’s an evolution.
Final Words: Build Like It’s Yours
The modern dev pipeline wants you to feel like you're not enough. Like you need this package, that dependency, this course, that cert. But the truth is—if you can write <h1>Hello World</h1>, you can build your own digital realm.
The web is a canvas. Not a product.
Your site is your voice. Not your portfolio.
React will still be there when you need it. But for the things that matter most—the personal, the strange, the unforgettable—HTML is more than enough.
Write raw code. Break stuff. Learn.
Make websites that feel like static from a dream.
Because you don’t need permission.
You need a blank page, and your hands.
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