TEJI TUESDAYS 
Issue #013 · 23rd Jan, 2023

Hi All!

Here is your weekly dose of TEJI, a weekly round up of what I’m pondering and exploring. Feel free to forward along to a friend if you think they might enjoy.

Rediscovering The Small Web

Last week I uncovered a side of the internet I thought was lost. Growing up I remember having my own Tumblr and Bebo pages where I was able to customise my homepage by adding themes, changing layouts and adding music. The old internet felt more personal whereas today, every platform looks and feels the same. Every app nowadays has a section for shorts and all the interfaces look the same.

I found a great article that explained this phenomenon perfectly:

“Most websites today are built like commercial products by professionals and marketers, optimised to draw the largest audience, generate engagement and 'convert'. But there is also a smaller, less-visible web designed by regular people simply to share their interests and hobbies with the world. A web that is unpolished, often quirky but often also fun, creative and interesting.”

- Parimal Satyal, 25 May 2020

These websites on the small web are often unoptimised for traffic and focus on whatever obscure topics the author of the website is interested in. The only way to find these websites is through an arrangement of links people put on their sites that link to things they find interesting.

The first website I found led me to the next and so on. I now have a list of peoples personal websites I find interesting which I plan on revisiting to continue my exploration into this weird yet exciting place known as the small web.

Here’s a link to a directory of peoples personal websites that might get you started on your journey. I plan on continuing to build out my own personal site and I urge you to buy a domain name and start building out your own site and start sharing things you find interesting with the world.

I coded my website from scratch but if your not as technical you can use a tool like bear to start building out your personal site and start blogging about whatever you like.

Improve your writing with Text to Speech 

Lately I’ve been writing a lot and I’ve recently found a tool that helps improve the readability of your writing. All you have to do is paste your writing into any text to speech reader online and listen back to how your writing reads aloud.

I’ve personally been using natural reader but there’s hundreds of tools alike online. If anything you do involves some kind of writing I’d highly recommend throwing it into a TTS reader before hitting publish or send.

The Never Ending Now of Media

Last week I found an interesting take on the novelty of todays media versus the timelessness of evergreen works from the greatest writers and directors — that you may find interesting.

Real News

I haven’t watched the news in years. I gave up listening to what they were saying because most of the time it was complete bullshit I couldn’t care less about.

However, there is a modern day news channel that reports on genuine stories I find interesting in a way that doesn’t put you to sleep.

Meet Channel 5. One of my favourite YouTube channels that feels a lot like early Vice before they became pussies. If you have a spare 20 minutes I’d highly suggest checking out a video or two on their channel.

New TEJI T-SHIRT!

There is a new t-shirt design available on my store now! I hand typed the design as a way to pay homage to TEJI’s roots in internet culture. If you want one make sure to use the code in the bottom of the newsletter for an extra 10% off your order!

Feel free to give me feedback on Twitter. What did you like? What do you want more of? What do you want less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know. Just send a tweet to @TEJITOPIA and put #TEJITUESDAYS at the end so I can find it.
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Hope everyone enjoys their week!
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Love
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TEJI (@tejitopia)

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