User:Brennan.day

From IndieWeb

Brennan Kenneth Brown

Queer Red River Métis independent author and web developer

https://brennan.day/

Elsewhere: GitHub, Mastodon, Bluesky

Black and white photograph of me, Brennan, with shoulder-length dark hair and a beard, smiling warmly at the camera on a snowy residential street. I'm wearing a white dress shirt with a dark herringbone tweed vest.
A photo of me, Brennan Kenneth Brown (https://brennan.day)

Brennan Kenneth Brown is a Queer Red River Métis independent author and web developer based in Mohkínstsis/Calgary, Alberta (Treaty 7 territory). He is the founder and lead developer at Berry House and has been an active IndieWeb community member since December 2025.

Currently

See https://brennan.day/now/ for current activities and focus.

My IndieWeb Journey

I discovered the IndieWeb in December 2025 after discovering omg.lol and writing about it. I decided to get serious about building my own corner of the independent web in January 2026, purchasing brennan.day and building it from scratch with Eleventy.

Since then, I've:

  • Built comprehensive IndieWeb implementations including IndieAuth comments and Micropub support
  • Written extensively about IndieWeb principles and practices for writers and non-technical audiences
  • Created 13+ open-source IndieWeb-themed projects and themes
  • Joined multiple webrings and built an extensive blogroll
  • Participated in communities like Tilde.town and omg.lol

My Website

My primary domain is brennan.day, built with Eleventy since December 2025.

IndieWeb Features

My site implements:

Tech Stack

  • Static Site Generator: Eleventy (11ty) v2.0+
  • Template Engine: Nunjucks
  • Content Format: Markdown with YAML front matter
  • Styling: Custom CSS with Gruvbox-inspired dark/light theme
  • Hosting: Netlify with GitLab CI/CD
  • Domain Registrar: Porkbun
  • DNS Security: Deflect.ca for DDoS protection
  • Authentication: IndieAuth with indieauth.com
  • Comment Storage: GitLab repository (version-controlled)

Content Types

My site includes several content collections:

Projects

Berry House

Berry House is a web development company I founded in August 2025 with a dual mission: profit enables community service. We focus on accessible, sustainable web development.

Write Club

Write Club is a community of 100+ writers I founded in September 2022 to help writers maintain discipline and support each other. I led the organization for three years as President before transitioning to a founder role.

IndieWeb Projects

I maintain 13+ open-source IndieWeb-themed projects and static site generator themes:

Eleventy Themes

  • 11ty IndieWeb Blog Starter - Modern blog template with IndieAuth, Webmentions, and complete IndieWeb integration
  • Newsprint - 11ty theme with newspaper aesthetic for newsletter-first publications
  • Retroweird - 11ty theme inspired by Web 1.0 (GeoCities, MySpace, AngelFire)
  • Hyperpop - Y2K-inspired 11ty blog theme
  • 11ty Gamification - Blog theme that turns writing into a game with badges and streaks

Hugo Themes

Jekyll Themes

Other Projects

  • Meddler - CLI tool to convert Medium exports to multiple static site formats (Hugo, Eleventy, Jekyll, Astro)
  • Foothills - Tumblr theme for poetry and writing portfolios

All projects are released under AGPL license. See my IndieWeb page for more details.

Other Open Source

I'm active on GitHub and contribute to IndieWeb projects. Currently transitioning to Source.tube and GitLab as well.

Values & Principles

My work is guided by principles documented at https://brennan.day/values/:

  • Own your content - Build for portability, not platform lock-in
  • Accessibility first - Everyone deserves access
  • Privacy by default - No tracking, no surveillance
  • Open source when possible - Share knowledge, improve together
  • Community over growth - Center marginalized voices and mutual aid

My IndieWeb Principles

I've articulated my own principles for the IndieWeb movement:

  • Good faith code. Good faith writing. - The IndieWeb should reject invasive trackers, annoying advertisements, bloated webpages, and a11y-hostile design. We should write from a place of good faith, believing the Internet can still be a tool for empowerment and creativity.
  • A Pro-social Attitude - The web is meant to be social. Sites should have some social element, even if as simple as basic contact information, enabling dialogue rather than one-way broadcasting.
  • Be Fun. Be Accessible. Be Small. - Sites can have personality and express creativity while remaining accessibility (WCAG compliant, screen reader friendly) and performant (compressed images, lazy loading, progressive enhancement, no-JavaScript fallback).

See What is the IndieWeb? for my full explanation.

IndieWeb Community

I've been an active IndieWeb community member since December 2025. My involvement includes:

Community Participation

  • Webrings - Member of XXIIVV Webring, Bucketfish Webring, Hotline Webring, Static.Quest Webring, Dinhe.net Webring, Fediring, and the IndieWeb Webring
  • Blogroll - Curated list of 70+ sites I regularly read, including friends, IndieWeb resources, digital gardens, accessibility resources, and radical tech collectives
  • Tilde.town - Member of the SSH-based community at https://tilde.town/~brennan
  • omg.lol - Active member with profile at https://brennan.omg.lol
  • Mentorship - I offer free one-on-one help for people getting started with domains, DNS, and IndieWeb setup, etc.

Writing About IndieWeb

I've written about the IndieWeb for both technical and non-technical audiences:

Advocacy

  • Mentorship without gatekeeping - actively supporting newcomers, offering free technical help
  • Pro bono work - providing web development for community organizations through Berry House
  • Mutual aid - participating in and promoting mutual aid networks
  • Harm reduction approach - Recognizing that gradual transitioning to the IndieWeb is the most sustainable solution for people dependent on corporate platforms

Itches

Things I'm working on or want to implement:

  • Media endpoint for Micropub to handle image uploads
  • Reply threading enhancements for comment system
  • Email/webmention notifications for comments
  • Creating more JAMstack themes for underserved use cases (poets, academic portfolios, nonprofits)
  • Finishing draft essay collection from 10+ years of journal material
  • Scaling Berry House's pro bono program for marginalized communities
  • IndieWeb JAMstack literary journal or publication for collaborative workshop spaces

Contact

Social

Code & Development

Writing & Content

Communities

Support

See Also

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