“You're a web contortionist? What?”

That's probably the number one question I get asked when people write to me: What's a web contortionist?

Well, back in the ‘90s and early 2000s (eons ago in web-years), people started calling themselves things like “code ninjas,” “design rock stars,” and other, eh, clever titles.

So, I decided to riff on that and call myself a “web contortionist.” Think about it: Back then, people designed and developed sites quite differently, and we did strange (ugly, non-semantic) things to make sites appear the same across browsers—I'm sure you've heard all the stories. Using those methods, I could contort HTML to make pages appear how I wanted.

Of course, now I support semantic code as the way to go.

That's the big web contortionist story. It’s a joke. I have a dry sense of humor. :-)