JUST FUCKING USE REACT
(OR ANY FRAMEWORK, YOU GODDAMN LUDDITE)

Look, I get it. You saw that other site. "HTML is king", "Keep it simple, stupid", "My GeoCities page from '98 still loads faster than your SPA.". Fucking adorable. Like a toddler proudly showing off a mud pie.

It's a nice sentiment, like wishing we could all go back to bartering with seashells instead of dealing with the goddamn stock market. But the web isn't just a collection of fucking pamphlets anymore, you fossil. It's where work gets done, where communities are built, where complex interactions happen. You know, shit that actually does something beyond displaying your "Fucking beautiful button."

SO, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS ABOUT?

This is about acknowledging that sometimes, complexity is not a choice, it's a fucking requirement. And when that complexity hits, trying to wrangle it with document.getElementById and a prayer is like trying to build a goddamn space shuttle with fucking popsicle sticks and glue. You might get something that looks vaguely shuttle-shaped, but it'll be a wobbly, unmaintainable, terrifying piece of shit that explodes on the launchpad.

This is a call to embrace the tools built by smart motherfuckers to solve the hard problems so you can focus on building your cool shit, not reinventing the goddamn wheel for the 87th time this sprint, you stubborn jackass.

WHY THE FUCK WOULD I DITCH MY "PURE HTML" NIRVANA FOR THIS JAVASCRIPT SORCERY?

Because you're not just displaying static text from a fucking stone tablet, are you? You want to build something interactive, something dynamic, something that doesn't make your users want to gouge their eyes out with a rusty spoon. You want to build an application, not a fucking flyer.

Here's why you should just fucking use React (or Vue, or Svelte, or Angular if you're a masochist - the point is a modern framework, you troglodyte):

HTML'S "INTERACTIVITY" IS FOR FUCKING GUESTBOOKS AND CIRCUS SIDESHOWS, NOT ACTUAL APPLICATIONS, YOU DELUSIONAL TWIT.

"But HTML has <details> and <dialog> and forms!" Yeah, and your toddler has crayons. Adorable, but not exactly the tools for designing a fucking skyscraper, are they?

You think you're gonna build a real-time collaborative editor, a dynamic trading dashboard, or an enterprise-grade project management tool with those HTML "interactive" elements and a sprinkle of onClick? You're dreaming, you magnificent simpleton. That shit is for when you need a button to say "boo!" not for orchestrating complex user workflows.

HTML gives you a fucking pebble; frameworks give you a goddamn quarry and the heavy machinery to build a fortress. What are you gonna build with your pebble, huh? A really impressive fucking paperweight?

STATE MANAGEMENT, YOU CLUELESS APE!

Oh, you think managing a "like" button's state by toggling a class is peak complexity? Cute. Try building a dashboard with a dozen filters, real-time updates from ten different sources, user preferences that change everything, and collaborative editing where five assholes are mashing keys at once. Your "simple" JavaScript will turn into a spaghetti monster that'll make Cthulhu look like a fucking Teletubby having a tea party. Frameworks give you sane ways to manage this chaos. Without them, you're just pissing in the wind, hoping a global variable doesn't fuck you sideways.

COMPONENTS, MOTHERFUCKER! DO YOU SPEAK IT?

Remember when you copied and pasted that same navigation bar HTML into 30 different pages, then had to update it in 30 different places because the client wanted a new fucking link? Yeah, fucking brilliant. You probably felt like a goddamn genius.

Frameworks like React force you to think in terms of reusable, encapsulated components. Build a button once, style it once, add its logic once, and then reuse that beautiful bastard everywhere. Change it in one place, and it updates everywhere. This isn't just convenience; it's fucking sanity at scale, you repetitive dolt.

SMARTER UI UPDATES, SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A FUCKING DOM-MANIPULATING PEASANT.

Remember trying to manually update a dozen different parts of your page whenever one piece of data changed? You'd be there, meticulously telling each <span> and <div> to refresh, praying you didn't miss one or cause the whole goddamn page to flicker like a haunted TV possessed by a meth addict.

Frameworks are built to be clever about this shit. You tell them what your UI should look like based on your data. When the data changes, the framework does the heavy lifting. It's like having a super-smart assistant who only redraws the bits that actually need redrawing, instead of repainting the whole damn house every time you move a fucking chair. Are you really going to sit there and imperatively poke at the DOM like some kind of digital caveman?

ACCESSIBILITY AT SCALE? GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR "SEMANTIC" DIV SOUP AND PRAYERS, ASSHOLE.

"Just use semantic HTML!" they shriek, like they've discovered the goddamn Rosetta Stone. Fucking groundbreaking. That's Web Dev 101, you patronizing prick.

But what happens when your "simple" HTML tags aren't enough for the complex, custom UI your application actually needs? Think custom data grids that sort and filter, accessible comboboxes that don't suck, or tree views that a screen reader can actually navigate. You think slapping role="button" on a <div> and calling it a day makes your app accessible? Get the fuck out.

Real accessibility for complex widgets means meticulous ARIA attributes, robust focus management, and proper keyboard navigation. With your "just HTML and vanilla JS" approach, you're hand-cranking that for every single instance, praying you don't fuck it up and make some poor bastard's life hell.

Frameworks let you build an accessible component once, nail all that shit, and then reuse it, ensuring consistency. Or are you gonna tell me you enjoy manually managing aria-expanded on 50 different accordions, you goddamn masochist? "Just HTML" for complex apps often becomes "just fucking inaccessible for anyone who isn't you."

THAT "SIMPLE" HTML FAÇADE HIDES A SWAMP OF MANUAL JS BULLSHIT YOU'RE TOO STUBBORN TO ADMIT EXISTS, YOU FUCKING OSTRICH.

"No hydration errors! No tree-shaking!" they boast, like these are plagues sent by Satan himself rather than sophisticated solutions to complex problems that you will face if you build anything more advanced than a fucking "Under Construction" GIF.

Avoiding framework solutions doesn't make the problems disappear, dipshit; it just means you are now manually wrestling with DOM diffing, state propagation, code splitting, and performance optimizations, probably with the grace of a drunken donkey.

You're not choosing "simplicity"; you're choosing to reinvent countless wheels, badly, and call it "artisanal purity." It's like bragging your car has no engine while you're pushing it uphill, in a fucking blizzard, with your bare feet, screaming "THIS IS FINE!"

RELYING ON HTML'S AUTO-GLOBAL JS VARS? THAT'S AMATEUR HOUR SHIT FROM THE JURASSIC PERIOD OF THE WEB, YOU FUCKING HACK.

So HTML magically creates a JavaScript variable for any element with an id? Wow, what a "feature" - from 1998, when your modem sounded like a dying robot. Relying on that is like building your house on a foundation of wet toilet paper and hoping for the best.

It pollutes the global namespace, creates impossible-to-debug naming collisions, and is a one-way ticket to a fragile, unmaintainable codebase that will make your future self (and anyone else who has to touch it) curse your very existence.

Frameworks drag you, kicking and screaming if necessary, towards sanity: scoped components, explicit props, and actual state management solutions that don't rely on praying window.myFuckingButton doesn't get clobbered by some other piece of shit code. That's not HTML "lending crutches"; it's HTML setting fucking landmines in your code, you clueless buffoon.

DEVELOPER EXPERIENCE ACTUALLY FUCKING MATTERS, UNLESS YOU ENJOY PAIN.

Hot Module Replacement? See your changes instantly without losing state. Typed JavaScript with TypeScript? Catch errors before they hit production and make you look like an idiot. A massive ecosystem of libraries for everything from internationalization to animation? Linters, formatters, debuggers that actually work instead of making you want to punch your monitor?

Frameworks, especially React, bring an entire ecosystem that makes your life as a developer less miserable. This means you can build better shit, faster.

Stop pretending that wrestling with browser quirks and document.write in vanilla JS is some noble, character-building pursuit. It's just fucking stupid.

PERFORMANCE ISN'T JUST ABOUT INITIAL LOAD LIKE SOME PRIMITIVE PAGE SPEED FETISHIST, IT'S ABOUT PERCEIVED PERFORMANCE AND INTERACTION, YOU SHORT-SIGHTED GOON.

"My HTML site loads in 50ms!" Cool. Now add user login, dynamic content, filtering, sorting, and real-time updates without the page shitting itself.

Frameworks, especially when paired with their extended ecosystems (think Next.js or Remix for React), give you tools like code-splitting (only load the JS you need for this page, not the whole goddamn phonebook), server-side rendering (SSR) or static site generation (SSG) for fast initial loads and dynamic capabilities, and client-side navigation that feels instantaneous. You can build a lightning-fast application, not just a fast document that does fuck-all.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE FUCKING BLOAT? THE JAVASCRIPT OVERLOAD? MY USERS ARE ON DIAL-UP IN ANTARCTICA!

Yes, a "Hello World" in a framework is bigger than a "Hello World" in HTML. No shit, Sherlock. Are you building a fucking "Hello World" app for production? If you're building a five-page static brochure site for your aunt's dog-walking business that hasn't had a customer since 2003, then yes, for the love of God, just fucking use HTML and some CSS. That other site is right about that. You don't need a fucking bazooka to swat a fly.

But if you're building:

...then the "bloat" of a framework is the cost of doing complex business, you cheap bastard. And modern tools (tree-shaking, code-splitting, lazy loading) help you mitigate that cost significantly. It's about choosing the right fucking tool for the right fucking job, not stubbornly using a screwdriver when you need a goddamn sledgehammer.

SO, WHEN SHOULD I JUST FUCKING USE REACT (OR A SIMILAR FRAMEWORK), YOU SLOW LEARNER?

THE REAL FUCKING PROBLEM ISN'T REACT. IT'S YOU, YOU MISGUIDED FOOL.

It's developers using a goddamn nuclear bomb to crack a nut. It's cargo-culting the latest tech without understanding why. It's trying to build a simple fucking contact form with microservices, Kubernetes, and a team of twenty, when a mailto link would have done the job. It's like using a fucking military-grade flamethrower to light your grandma's birthday candles - utter goddamn overkill, you clueless fuck.

But don't throw the fucking baby out with the bathwater just because some idiots don't know how to use a power tool without cutting their own dicks off. React and its ilk are powerful tools that solve real, complex problems. The problem isn't the tool; it's the idiot wielding it inappropriately.

So, for your next complex, interactive, data-driven web application... for the love of all that is holy, JUST FUCKING USE REACT. Stop pretending like you're too pure for it, or that your "artisanal" vanilla JS is anything other than a cry for help. Your users (and your future self trying to maintain your "hand-crafted" nightmare) will thank you.

Now get back to work, and build something fucking amazing, not just another HTML monument to your own stubbornness.

Created by:
Omercan (GitHub /Twitter /Bluesky)
Burak (GitHub /Twitter /Bluesky)

Inspired by justfuckingusehtml.com

View the source code on GitHub