Cicada Girl

Fresh out of hibernation: Welcome!

Digital Wonderland & Blog

~ How this Blog Began ~

Recently I feel many people are realizing that the internet isn't really "fun" anymore. If you are visiting my site you are either one of my 5 close friends or also discontent with the mainstream digital platforms. I won't go into too much about myself here (you can find that on my about page, diary updates, etc.), but this project started as I grew discontent with the digital landscape I had been existing in. My screen time on my phone was consistently above 5 hours but I could not seem to retain anything that I did in that time, and I was left feeling hopeless, angry, and hating myself after my time online. It was an intense period of my life while I worked through my depression and found that social media had only been strengthening my mental health crisis. As a chronically online, video-game-loving fangirl, giving up these sites was hard. I began to explore coding and what the internet looked like outside of the surface web (they say we only reach like 10% of the internet?! I am well aware that I am still working/existing in the surface web realm though lol). As I continued in my degree, I was increasingly curious about the internet as art, real community, and how I can utilize the internet as I study creative writing and literature. This led me to starting this project as well as my Substack! Leaving social media was hard but led me to find fellow creatives online who were creating beautiful worlds. My purpose in creating Cicada Girl was both out of a personal spiritual realization that I wanted to express as well as finding a community online, merging literature & writing with the web. This has been in the making for a long time, but coding is hard and I sometimes lack motivation. Nevertheless, we have made it to a substantial point with the help of many YouTube tutorials and fellow netizens. Coding had always been something I wanted to try (specifically my own video game, but seeing how I struggled to pick up HTML and CSS that might take me 10 years, but I will keep you updated haha) and it was not until this past year that I seriously began working. That leads me to today (2/26/2026 as I write this). There is still a long way to go and I have so much to say, but for now I will just express my gratitude for you visiting and taking the time to read this!

come back and edit l8r