HTML Energy's lime green glowing star

HTML is writing

For the last three years we've been running HTML Day, a day when people all around the world meet up, often in parks, to write together. We say "write together" because HTML and websites in general are just another way of writing, and like most things, it can feel better when you do it with others.

The way we approach HTML in our own work and when we teach it is very open ended and not focused on memorizing elements. Sometimes people come to HTML Day worried they need to know HTML beforehand. It's really up to you and how far you want to go down the rabbit hole. It's completely fine to just write for an hour without touching any tags.

One lovely thing about HTML is that you can simply write in any language, add .html to your document, open it in your browser, and you suddenly have a website. People often forget this. Maybe it's because we mostly see highly polished, visual websites and we assume that this is how a website should function or look. When we see a text document we don't usually immediately think, website!

I got into coding websites because I wanted to make a fan site for this manga series I was really into. None of it ever went live, but I learned how to write everything in a text file and just save it with the .html extension and open it in my local browser. So I would mock up websites that way. I would read source code from other people's sites to learn how to do things. … For me, just building little websites in my little folders felt like the same thing as making a website online. I didn't really care about anyone seeing it. It was all for me.

— Larissa Pham

When we think about HTML, we think about how adaptable and forgiving it is. It runs on old and new devices, and it doesn't break. If you leave a tag unclosed, it bends around the rest of the page instead of showing an error message. HTML is backward compatible, accessible, and fundamentally human.

One special idea that has came out of HTML Days is writing HTML on paper. It really shows how HTML is just writing. When technology becomes less mystical and more understandable, when you can see how something is built, it becomes more approachable.

Omar writing HTML on paper

In many ways we see HTML Energy and HTML Day as less about technology or HTML or even the internet. Our events feel more like a kind of kindergarten for adults, a reminder that we can gather, play, and write in parks around the world. The freewrite, the screen, or the paper with handwritten HTML is really just an excuse to be together.

HTML freewrite in a park in New York City.






A guide to running your own HTML freewrite

This was adapted from a guide that we sent our organizers (in 50 cities) for HTML Day 2025.

Synchronization

We started a little Signal Group Chat for HTML Day 2025 organizers.

Text your friends that you'd like to organize an HTML freewrite together.

Co-Organizing

We think co-organizing (rather than organizing alone) is a great idea.

We recommend co-organizing with someone you haven't worked with before.

Co-organizing with someone who has a slightly different audience than you is a great way to not only spread HTML Energy but also cultivate a unique group to help understand HTML in a new way!

Event structure

Generally, HTML freewrites consist of:

Typically, HTML freewrites last 2-3 hours total, although some people have been known to write HTML for longer or shorter periods of time.


effects of HTML: mood lift, euphoria, increased giggling and laughing, creative, philosophical or deep thinking: ideas flow more easily, boring tasks or entertainment can become more interesting or funny, sensation of insight, intense feelings of wonder, sensation of insight, intense feelings of wonder

HTML Prompts

The main prompt is to freewrite an .html page. It could be about anything, possibly. You can also give your attendees some light prompts, if you like. It's really up to you! Below are some nice prompts from the Toronto meetup.

  1. Make a site that makes you feel calm.
  2. Make a site the wildlife in this park would want to read. What's a good website for a worm? What's a fun webpage for a sparrow?
  3. Embody the spirit of a food product of your choosing.
  4. Make a site that's a letter to a friend. Is there an envelope? How do you sign off a website?
  5. What's your favourite place in [enter your location]? Make a website like a historical plaque, telling people about what you think is special about it.
  6. Find a lesser used HTML tag: what uncovered beauty hides within its brackets? (suggestions: <blink>, <map>, <bdi>, <ruby>)
  7. Make a website that breaks out of the square box of the browser window. Or perhaps, uses the window as a window?
  8. How can a website move like the wind?
  9. Design a site that feels like taking a long walk through a park.
  10. Think of a fun childhood memory. Make a website that's a shrine to that moment.

Picnic setup

<div> would definitely have to be my favorite element. I think it's so special. <div> is a little home for anyone and everything. And I love the CSS style of flexbox, and I love putting flex on divs. It's my fav.

— Ritu Ghiya

HTML Resources

There will likely be people with a wide range of skills coming to your HTML freewrite.

People who are complete beginners and also HTML pros…

Having resources for everyone is a good idea. But also, supportive energy and connecting people who can help each other is probably an even better idea.

Anyway, many of the individual HTML Day pages (which you can access on our main events.html page and HTML Day 2025 page) have specific HTML resources they've organized.

We've collected a handful of them here:

Making your invitation

If you haven't made your invitation website, one fun thing to do is:

  1. Visit the site (location) where you'll host your event with your co-organizers
  2. Hang out and make the HTML invitation page there

For example, the three co-organizers in NYC visited Valentino Jr. Park, had a picnic, and made their .html invite on a picnic blanket while eating local key lime pie. See pics below!

Co-organizers at the park
Making HTML together

The <a> element feels so fundamental to the way the web works. The world wide web is based off this element. When I introduce the anchor element in my classes, it helps you talk about links where the attribute is really important. A lot of elements stand alone and can be without attributes. The <a> feels really unique in that sense… to be able to understand the whole infrastructure of the web and how the parts connect with the <a> element.

— Marie Otsuka

Other things to consider



When I think of HTML Energy, I think about "view source." In the old days, and maybe even now, on your handcrafted website you can actually see the raw HTML and see that behind these web pages, or these works of design or art … there's not really any magic. It's all human readable. Everything is there for people to look at and to learn from. That's the spirit of the early web and now the "indie web." It's a very open energy.

— Philip Guo




back to the index.html


❇️ Written in pure, raw HTML. Can you feel the energy?