Hello, my name is Aiden Grimes! I am a college student currently pursuing a Master’s in History, and plan to pursue a Juris Doctor afterwards. I currently hold an Associate’s Degree from Southwestern Illinois College, which I obtained in 2024. Outside of my studies, I like to listen to and critique music. I am a huge fan of many genres, with some of my favorite artists including System of a Down, Korn, TOOL, Federal Duck, and Röyksopp. When I am not listening to music, I am usually playing video games. Some of my favorite games include Far Cry 2, Pokémon BW2/XY, Counter-Strike 2, and Geometry Dash. I also enjoy achievement hunting in games to showcase on Steam. Apart from music and games, I enjoy reading historical literature, hitting the gym, taking photos while outdoors, and sleeping. You may be wondering why I took the time to make a website. I’m not exactly an interesting person and I do not have much to offer at the moment in terms of content. I want to list down my reasons as for why I took the time and money to start expanding gryhmz.space.
I Decided to Make a Website for Three Main Reasons:
I Am Tired of Relying on Other Websites to Act as My Aggregate Source.
For the longest time, I would rely on sites like Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Facebook, Spacehey, Bluesky, and Tumblr to attempt to blog my own opinions and works, but I always ran into issues with each one. Most social media pages rely on popularity to get your voice out anywhere, and the algorithms for these social networking sites are optimized to only post content from major camps of thought. By starting a website, I no longer have to cooperate with a social media algorithms to get my content anywhere. I have had varied success with different social media sites, with Instagram and Tumblr being my more notable, but most of the other social sites left me high and dry.
Even on the sites that I did like posting on, such as Spacehey and Twitter, I feel as if the autonomy aspect of it is completely false. At the end of the day, going through another site means that I am still dependent on their web services, algorithms, and limitations. Of course, I still am limited to Netlify, Namecheap, and Google Web Services, but those are much easier to work with than social media sites that choose to increase content restrictions and moderation at their own will. In other words, I may not be able to be completely independent on this site, but I certainly can choose who to negotiate with regarding monetization and web hosting.
I Want to Get Better at Markdown Languages.
This one is a bit self-explanatory. I have been aware of markdown languages since I was in middle school. After I decided I was done with chorus, I wanted to try out the basics of information technology, and I found out about HTML through one of my classes. My teacher used to assign us website projects where we would test out running sites through a local directory, which motivated me to want to know the basics of HTML and other markdown languages. Through this website, I consistently work with .md and .toml files, both markdown languages designed to help people easily read code for projects such as websites.
I Want a Repository for My Academic and Personal Content.
This point sort of connects to the first point, but it is still something worth noting. Not only are most sites not designed for independent blogging, making my own site solves this issue. This is especially true as most of my old emails from high school and college have been wiped since I left. Running my own website ensures that my works are stored in one place without running into the issue of them being deleted, unless they are on my own accord. Running a Hugo site ensures that these decisions are made on my own and not limited by the parameters set by other sites and companies. Want a different theme color? I can change it? Want to make a new category for the site? Just edit the categories list. Want to change the directories of a page? Just change the page properties. These are all things that I can do on my own accord, and I do not need to rely on another site to let me do that.
If you took the time to read this, thank you. I believe that if I list the reasons why I decided to take a jab a website creation, then maybe people will want to stay updated with the site and its development. This is also more of a project for myself to see if I can run a website over the course of a year, and what I am capable of completing when I am not in class, working, or wasting away. It’s a goal for myself and a product for you, and I see that as a win-win scenario.