What it is

Dajia.lol is my take on the whole profile card thing. Yeah, there are tons of these already, but I had a specific problem - I've been tracking everything I listen to with Last.fm since 2021, and there was literally nowhere to show that data in a way that actually looked good.

So I built a website where you can show off your music taste alongside all your other links and stuff. It's basically what would happen if a bio link site and your Spotify stats had a baby.

Showcase

Profile page

Settings with a lot of custumisation

Change your background image, avatar, colors, opacities, add custom audios, add effects like typewriter, particles following your cursor and much more.

30+ links supported

Theme selection page

Pick from a variety of user created themes, create and manage your own on this page as well.

Why I made this

The whole idea started because Last.fm tracks everything you listen to (Spotify, Apple Music, whatever) - think Spotify Wrapped but every day and way better. But then what? The LastFM website looks horrendous, straight like out of 2005 so the data just sits there without the visuals it deserves. I wanted somewhere to actually display my listening history, top tracks, top artists, all that good stuff, without it looking like a boring spreadsheet.

Plus, most link-in-bio sites are pretty bland. They all look the same and don't really show your personality. I wanted something that actually felt like me .

What it does

Music stuff (the main thing)

• Shows your Last.fm data in ways that actually look cool
• Real-time "currently listening to" widget
• Top tracks and artists for different time periods (last week, month, year, all time)
• Your full listening history with nice visuals
• Basically turns your music taste into something worth showing off

Other integrations

• Discord integration so people can see what you're up to
• Custom boxes that show more than just the link - they display cool stats like amount of repos, followers etc (GitHub repos, YouTube channels, SoundCloud, countdown timers)
• Up to 30 different platform links because who wants to send each of their 15 social media accounts with its own link?

The whole package

Instead of sending people a boring Linktree link, you get one place that actually shows your personality through your music, activity, and everything else.

Building it (aka my coding journey)

This turned into way more than I expected. What started as "I'll just make a quick site to show my Last.fm data" became months of work and hundreds of hours of coding, designing, scrapping everything, and starting over.

The technical mess I created

I ended up building four different things:

• Frontend - React.js (my first real React project, which explains why it took forever)
• Last.fm data handler - Built this in Rust because why not make it harder for myself
• Main backend - JavaScript handling the website stuff and database
• Discord bot - Also JavaScript, grabs your Discord status and throws it in the database

The React learning curve from hell

This was my first time really using React beyond the obligatory todo app tutorial. I probably rewrote the entire frontend architecture three times because I'd discover hooks, or context, or the fact that putting everything in useState was like storing your entire life in your wallet.

The first version was a disaster of prop drilling that went so deep I needed GPS to find where I was passing data. useEffect dependencies were causing infinite re-render loops that made my laptop sound like it was trying to achieve flight.

Then I discovered React optimization and went completely overboard. Suddenly everything was wrapped in React.memo, useMemo, and useCallback like I was optimizing for NASA's next Mars mission. I was memoizing components that rendered once a month and caching calculations that took 0.003 milliseconds.

The breaking point came when I tried to manage form state manually and ended up with a component that was 400 lines of useState declarations.

Database architecture (because I love overengineering)

Instead of being a normal person and cramming everything into one table, I decided to build a "properly normalized" database structure. This sounded professional until I realized I now needed JOIN queries just to figure out what color someone wanted their buttons to be.

The custom_boxes table is where things got really out of hand. Each box stores metadata about external links - GitHub repos, YouTube channels, Discord servers. The additional_data column is JSONB because every platform returns different information and I gave up trying to create columns for every possible field.

Looking back, this is probably over-engineered for what amounts to "show people's music taste and social links," but at least the queries are fast and it makes me feel like a Real Developer when I write JOIN statements to display someone's favorite color.

API integration nightmare

Every API has different limits and they all hate you in their own special way. It's like dealing with extremely specific bureaucrats who each have incomprehensible rules about how often you're allowed to ask them questions.

• Last.fm: 5 requests per second sounds generous until you realize loading a single user profile requires 47 different API calls
• Spotify: Rate limits that change based on popularity (success punishment!)
• Discord: Actually reasonable limits, which made me suspicious
• GitHub: 5,000 requests/hour, but checking if a repo exists costs the same as getting its entire commit history
• Steam: Documentation written by someone who actively hates developers

The caching system

Building a caching system sounds straightforward until you realize cache invalidation is one of the two hard problems in computer science. I ended up with more caching layers than a fancy pastry, each solving problems created by the previous layer.

Browser localStorage, database caching, smart invalidation - it's like conducting a symphony where every musician is playing at their own tempo. The system assumes Last.fm data older than 5 minutes is stale, Discord data older than 30 seconds is definitely stale, and GitHub data older than an hour might be stale unless it's a weekend.

The styling rabbit hole

What started as "background: blue" turned into building a comprehensive theming system. Users wanted colors, then fonts, then custom backgrounds, then rounded buttons. Suddenly I'm building UI customization that rivals Photoshop's layer styles.

CSS-in-JS seemed smart until I was writing JavaScript to generate CSS to style HTML generated by JavaScript. It's turtles all the way down. I eventually settled on CSS custom properties to maintain my sanity.

Custom cursors seemed fun until I discovered browser compatibility hell. Animations turned every transition into coordinating multiple elements like a very patient robot choreographer.

The features that almost killed me

Custom Boxes: sounded simple, fetch metadata from URLs and display nice cards. Every platform has its own special damn way of being difficult. GitHub wants auth sometimes, YouTube's API costs money if you breathe wrong, Steam's docs were written by committee via passive-aggressive post-it notes.

Audio System: Users wanted background music until I discovered browsers actively prevent auto-playing audio. It's like trying to surprise someone who has to explicitly consent to being surprised.

Template System: Let users save/share configurations. Required versioning, permissions, and basically building an app store for profile layouts.

The stuff that keeps breaking

• CORS Issues: APIs don't work from browsers because "security" > "my app working"
• Mobile Safari: Apple decided web standards are suggestions. Things work everywhere except Safari, which runs on vindictive physics
• API Changes: GitHub randomly deprecates endpoints, Spotify changes auth flows, Last.fm decides artist images need different formats because Thursday
• User Content: Users upload 50MB corrupted images and create usernames with emoji that break URL routing

What actually works

After months of building and rebuilding:

• Sub-second page loads (proper caching works)
• Real-time music data that updates when you change songs
• Mobile-first design that works everywhere
• Customization system for unique profiles

• Stable API integrations that handle failures gracefully

Architecture that survived:

• Frontend: React 18 + Vite
• Database: PostgreSQL (properly normalized)
• Auth: Discord OAuth
• Caching: Multi-layer (browser + database + smart invalidation)

The hosting situation (aka why I hate myself)

Here's where things get really stupid: this entire over-engineered monstrosity is hosted on a Raspberry Pi 3 that's probably older than some of my users. We're talking 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage - specifications that were modest when I was still in Kindergarden.

This little plastic computer, which costs less than a decent lunch, is somehow serving real-time music data, processing image uploads, managing database connections, and handling API requests for multiple users simultaneously. It's like asking a Honda Civic to tow a yacht - technically possible, but you're gonna hear some concerning noises.

The Pi sits in my basement so if it ever catches fire because some user decides to upload a 200MB pictures of his mother I'll know far too late that I have to call the fire department. (You can see the thermals of my "server" if you can even call it that, in the starting section of my website under "server temps")

The really absurd part is that it actually works. Users are getting sub-second page loads from a device that has less computing power than the smartphone that my grandma still uses. The secret is aggressive caching, smart resource management, and the fact that most of the heavy lifting happens in users' browsers thanks to React doing its thing client-side.

Sometimes I lie awake at night wondering what would happen if this thing actually got popular. The Pi would probably just catch fire and take my entire house with it. But until then, it's kind of amazing that you can build something legitimately useful on hardware that costs less than a train ticket from my house to my school.

The result

It's a website where you can actually show off who you are instead of just having a list of links. Your music taste, what you're doing on Discord, your projects, whatever you want - all in one place that doesn't look like every other generic profile page.

Plus I learned a ton building it, even if I wanted to throw my laptop out the window multiple times during the process.

Is it going to revolutionize the internet? Probably not. Is it a pretty cool way to show off your digital life? Yeah, I think so.

Development Timeline

START DEVELOPMENT

Commits in Feb, 2025

initial idea f3a7b89 < >

Commits on Feb - Mar, 2025

planning phase a2c9d1e < >

Commits on Mar 16, 2025

Initial page layout b8f4c2a < >

MVP READY

Commits on Mar 18, 2025

feat: LastFM integration d4e7f9b < >

Commits on Mar 20, 2025

feat: Discord bot → Discord presence c7a3e5d < >

Commits on Mar 25, 2025

feat: add Discord presence e9b2f8c < >

Commits on Mar 26, 2025

chore: optimise DB for less egress usage f1d6a4e < >

Commits on Mar 28, 2025

style: change general formatting a5c8b2f < >

Commits on Apr 3, 2025

feat: add links b9e3d7a < >

Commits on Apr 4, 2025

feat: add custom boxes c2f5e9b < >

Commits on Apr 6, 2025

feat: custom fonts d8a4c6e < >

Commits on Apr 7, 2025

feat: add Github Account custom box e1b7f3d < >

Commits on Apr 8, 2025

feat: reorder icons f4c9a2b < >

Commits on Apr 9, 2025

chore: clean up DB a7e5d8c < >

Commits on Apr 10, 2025

fix: background opacity slider b3f6e1a < >

feat: cursor effect c8d2f7e < >

Commits on Apr 11, 2025

feat: custom audio d5a9b4c < >

feat: add Github Repo custom box e7c3f8a < >

feat: add Spotify song custom box f2e6d1b < >

feat: typewriter effect (bio & username) g3h4i5j < >

feat: add Steam Account custom box h4i5j6k < >

Commits on Apr 12, 2025

feat: add badges c3d7a5e < >

feat: add UUI & join date d8f1b9c < >

Commits on Apr 13, 2025

style: reformat badges e4a6c2f < >

feat: add badges tooltip f7b3e8d < >

Commits on Apr 14, 2025

chore: rearrange settings a2c5f9b < >

Commits on Apr 20, 2025

style: redo entire settings page b8d4e1c < >

Commits on Apr 22, 2025

feat: add landing page c6f2a7e < >

Commits on Apr 25, 2025

feat: add subpages (pricing, TOS, Help) d9e3b8f < >

Commits on Apr 29, 2025

feat: improve responsiveness e1f7c4a < >

Commits on May 14, 2025

feat: add Countdown custom box f5a8d2b < >

INITIAL TESTING PHASE

Commits on May 15, 2025

feat: Login via Discord a4b9e6c < >

Commits on May 29, 2025

feat: add templates b7c3f1d < >

Commits on May 30, 2025

fix: Discord register/login not working c8d5a2e < >

fix: LastFM OAuth not working d2f6b9c < >

Commits on Jun 5, 2025

feat: make typewriter speed adjustable e9a4c7f < >

Commits on Jun 7, 2025

feat: more bio customisation f3b8e1d < >

Commits on Jun 9, 2025

style: redo templates page a6c2f5b < >

Commits on Jun 11, 2025

feat: ability to delete templates b9d7a4e < >

Commits on Jun 12, 2025

fix: particles → reduce lag c4e8b1f < >

Commits on Jun 20, 2025

chore: code clean up & refactor d7f3c6a < >

Commits on Jun 30, 2025

fix: many bugs reported by testers e2a5d9b < >