Was trying getting started with javascript(actually web dev) by creating a simple app.
All i saw in tutorials were dozens of *JS and *CSS frameworks. What are the web guys upto?

Unfortunately a lot of tutorials don't focus on one thing, and it can really dissuade new people. After reading lots of tutorials you end up with an extra skill of being able to ignore these extra frameworks and irrelevant code. It's worth it in the end though 😀

Just go W3Schools and get the basics.

read the "you don't know JS" series. they're free and one of the best JS books out there to start with basic understanding on how plain JavaScript works.

JavaScript the missing manual is also a fantastic place to start with as well, though you have to pay for it.

i agree with @kanduvisla. as for the frameworks go this world is pretty volatile in js. i would dare to say that it feels like almost every day one tech dies and another one rises.

with the coming of nodejs and it's package manager npm we didn't only get backend javascript but also front end dev moved into the modular design completly.

you have precompilers for coffee script, es6 the new version of js thatvis not yet supported in browsers.

there are task runers that that try to automate your workflow with compiling, linting, testing and minifiying your code like GruntJS, GulpJS promising improvements over grunt and lately webpack pushing the two to the curb.

last but not least there are framework wars between angular2, vuejs and react.

in the end no matter who tells you which one is better and what tech to learn, you have to know them all.

they're all great for the job they do. but to get there you need to have a firm grip on the basics which the mentioned book offers.

first learn plain js, then jquery and after that you will be able to decide what fits better for you. I am a backend who writes front end and I use a lot of frameworks depending on the project.

You might want to look at codeschool, pretty decent stuff. Also, if you want to just look around, there's a YouTube channel by this guy called fun fun functions, pretty great!