What got you started making shrines?

[Saya]

Uh I never answered here, didn't notice this one.

Ok it actually happened back in 2008 I think, Masao already talked to me about it, and about amassment. But the final push was actually the fact that I got rejected for Yuuko at TAFL and I said: ok... still i can make a shrine and tell why I love her so much and I could, so I joined amassment and started working on my first shrine.

On the other side I think my first attempt at something was back in 2000 when on geocities I made a tribute to Please Save My Earth (oh my, yes I did). It was really bad, but I was really proud of it.

[Destinie]

Wow! Somehow I managed to miss this thread entirely. o_o

So, my first website was a Beanie Baby website. I remember going to my first webpage and going "I WANT TO LEARN HOW TO DO THIS" but not knowing what I would make a site about. So I had this Beanie Baby Magazine that highlighted fansites (wish they'd do this more nowadays! But this was back in the day.) and I remember going to a couple of them and being really inspired by them. If I think about them now, they were probably terrible. xD They had frames and midis playing in the background, comic sans everywhere, everything was centered text, but I remember the girls and ladies who ran them were very nice and answered a lot of my stupid questions. I remember emailing one of the webmistresses asking how to make a banner. LOL!

So that inspired me to make my first website called "Beanie Baby Kingdom". From there, I made Pokemon and Digimon general fansites. From my Digimon site, I made my first shrine which was a mini-shrine tacked onto the site for Joe and Gomamon. It had like 3 pages and very little content. Then I created my first actual shrine to Gomamon. After that, I had several others and even helped my younger sister and step-sister to make shrines. My younger sister had a Gabumon site called "Blue Moon" for quite a while! But yeah, my shrining all began with Beanie babies. The 90s were a magical time. =A=;

[Varen]

Back before Wikipedia and social networking was popular, fansites were pretty much my main way to read more about characters and collect goodies. My favorite part was reading the informative sections on fansites. Back then I was in a Guilty Gear mood, so the two that stood out were a couple fansite (which sadly closed after a while), and there was a fansite planned for Ky, but it was never made.

After a while I noticed that a lot of my favorite subjects did not have fansites. A few friends were also invested with fansites, so I thought to follow their example and make my own. So, here I am. :P

[Masao]

I used to think about making shrines all the time, but I had convinced myself that I sucked, so I never dared to seriously try. And then I got rejected for the fanlisting of a character I really liked, and with the encouragement of a few friends (lol namely Todd and Shiori), I finally attempted to make a shrine, and after that initial attempt, the rest came easier once I had more confidence.

My first shrine, Dissonance, still sucks lol, but it was my first. One of these days I need to revamp it.

[Aku]

When I was like, 12, I really wanted to make a Pokemon site. But my mom had all these misconceptions about me making a Pokemon site = me making myself available to child predators, so she was was like "NO WAY. THE INTERNET? YOU ARE NOT MAKING A WEBSITE!" and she put me on the Kids Only filter on AOL. So I made ~fake ones~ locally on our family computer and dreamed of the day they would see the light. #truestory

Anyway, all those Pokemon sites were horrible. Years later, on the ~teen section~ of AOL, I figured out I could open Internet Explorer while connected to dial up and signed up for some free site page and MADE A VEGETA SHRINE ~WHAT NOW MOM~. Little did she know that working on that shrine would spur a whole bunch of other Gundam pilot shrines, which would then evolve into a whole lotta dabbling in sites and HTML and Photoshop, and eventually bring about my career.

My journey into shrining is a story of rebellion and evolution really.

As for why I got back into it more recently, that is a mystery to even myself. I think I just missed it! XD

[Todd]

When I was like, 12, I really wanted to make a Pokemon site. But my mom had all these misconceptions about me making a Pokemon site = me making myself available to child predators, so she was was like "NO WAY. THE INTERNET? YOU ARE NOT MAKING A WEBSITE!" and she put me on the Kids Only filter on AOL. So I made ~fake ones~ locally on our family computer and dreamed of the day they would see the light. #truestory

Anyway, all those Pokemon sites were horrible. Years later, on the ~teen section~ of AOL, I figured out I could open Internet Explorer while connected to dial up and signed up for some free site page and MADE A VEGETA SHRINE ~WHAT NOW MOM~. Little did she know that working on that shrine would spur a whole bunch of other Gundam pilot shrines, which would then evolve into a whole lotta dabbling in sites and HTML and Photoshop, and eventually bring about my career.

My journey into shrining is a story of rebellion and evolution really.

As for why I got back into it more recently, that is a mystery to even myself. I think I just missed it! XD

Aw, I'm glad you got back into it, Aku!!

[Aku]

Aw, I'm glad you got back into it, Aku!!

Thanks Todd! I would say that it's largely in part to Amassment, as well! I can't remember if I got back into shrining before or after discovering Amassment, but either way I was really happy to see a community of people still interested in shrining.

[Destinie]

Aw, Aku! I'm glad you got into it, too! And I, too, remember the early days when only predators used the internet. XD; My parents used to get so upset at me for spending so much time online but I was like "I am making websites!" It didn't matter because they didn't see the future of the web. Now, same as you, it is my career. ♥

Also kind of giddy to hear you started out making Pokemon shrines. *o*

[Todd]

lol My parents were the same way. They just didn't understand...

I started on Expage and then moved to Angelfire and Geocities.

[Saya]

LOL My parents never complained, and I'm online like from '97 =))))) - ah good old days with a dial-up modem