#rebeccapurple

If you’ve only ever worked as a maker of things for the web, you may not realize how amazingly wonderful and rare our profession is. For all of the snark, trolls, and “there is only one right way to do things and if you don’t agree with me you’re a moron” bullshit, the community of web professionals is the most kind, generous, and supportive group of people I’ve ever had the privilege of calling myself a part of.

On June 9, Eric Meyer’s daughter lost her year long battle with cancer. She was 6 years and 12 hours old.

For those of you unfamiliar with Eric, he’s a Godfather to the modern internet. He created what came to be known as Meyer’s CSS reset, a foundation for countless stylesheets. He’s a champion of web standards. He’s the co-founder of An Event Apart, one of the most influential conferences in our industry. And his articles and blog posts have provided a free education to web workers for years.

Eric had been writing about his daughter’s battle with cancer since the beginning, and as a tribute to her, many web professionals tweeted the hashtag #beccapurple or #663399, as purple was her favorite color.

About a week later, it was proposed that the #663399 color value be officially assigned to beccapurple by the Web Consortium. Eric’s only request was that it be named rebeccapurple. Within days, all major browser vendors had agreed, and the WC Colors group officially recognized it as well.

I’m deeply moved by our community, which rallied so strongly around Eric and his family, and worked so quickly to create this moving tribute to someone who’s spent his life making the web a better place.

Eric, my thoughts continue to be with your family.