JSON Isn't a Person. It's Just a Really Good List.

No, it's not 'Jason.' JSON sounds technical, but it's actually a simple, human-readable text file. Let's break down why it's just a fancy, organized list.

11/7/2025

JSON Isn't a Person. It's Just a Really Good List.

First things first. It’s J-S-O-N. Not Jason. Or Jane.

It sounds like a complex tech term, but it's one of the friendliest and simplest things in the tech world. Really. At its core, a JSON file is just a plain text file. You can open it in Notepad.

The difference is that it's a smart text file.

The Shopping List Test

Think about a shopping list. You could just write down the words:

Apples, Milk, Bread

That's a list. But what if you organized it with labels?

{
  "Fruit": "Apples",
  "Dairy": "Milk",
  "Bakery": "Bread"
}

That's it. That's JSON.

It’s just a list inside curly braces {}. It uses a simple "key": "value" system. The key is the label (like "Fruit"), and the value is the item (like "Apples").

It's not scary. In fact, you (a human) can read that better than the first list. You instantly know "Apples" is in the "Fruit" category.

Why Bother With Labels?

Computers love labels.

A normal webpage is a beautiful, chaotic mess of text, ads, sidebars, buttons, and footers. When an AI or a computer program looks at it, it has no idea what's important. It's like being handed a 50-page magazine and being told to "find the ingredients."

It's just a big blob of text.

But when you use a tool like NeatJ to scrape that page, it doesn't give you a blob. It gives you a clean JSON file, all labeled.

{
  "article_title": "How to Scrape a Docusaurus Site",
  "main_content": "Docusaurus is a great tool...",
  "author": "Jane Doe",
  "footer_links": "[...]",
  "ad_banners": "[...]"
}

How AI "Sees" Data

The "Aha!" Moment

Suddenly, the AI doesn't have to guess. It can be told: "Only read the main_content," and "Completely ignore the ad_banners and footer_links."

This is what people mean when they say "structured data." It's not just a blob of text; it's text with a structure.

So, that's the big secret. JSON is just a text file that organizes information with simple labels. It’s not a person, and it’s not a scary programming language.

It’s just a better way to make a list—one that both you and your AI can read perfectly.

JSON Isn't a Person. It's Just a Really Good List.