State of the Internet by a Digital Old Timer
Me LLC
I've been on the Internet since the dawn of time. Internet time that is. I was in high school when it first took off in a direction that I'm sure many did not expect to happen. I've worked for several major Internet companies along the way and watched it blossom from nothing into this life controlling beast it today. I’ve had my own highs and lows through this time from speaking on stage to large famous audiences to losing my job and trying to find my way back into those coveted inner circles.
Over time, I have been becoming more and more reflective of this thing I have helped build. I especially like to look back at some of the early interviews that claimed the Internet would be just a fad and eventually die off.
Me LLC
Writing this article almost makes me feel old, like maybe this is my "get off my lawn" statement about how things once seemed exciting and explorative but now only looks controlled and exploitative. Some may call me a “Boomer” without even bothering to realize that I'm Gen X. That's okay. These individuals are ultimately just backing up the exact point of this article. We've become an online society that is less of a community, with few fact checkers, less internal filters, and ever more about our own individual brand, Me LLC. We need it now and we're not ashamed of who we have to hurt to get it.
“What are we doing to each other?” Seems like suicides are being reported more now than ever before. Alcoholism is also growing at a massive rate. There are more and more active shooters on school campuses than ever before. Plenty of these are broadcasted live as they transpired. Social media has let people frame their lives so well in a way that makes others jealous, even if just outside of that frame has collapsing buildings, massive credit card debt, and their own mental issues. App filters for photos and videos have become so advanced that many people aren't able to realize how altered everyone else looks. It's become so bad, that people may not even recognize each other in person due to just how altered their online media looks compared to the real thing.
If you thought airbrushing in magazines was causing a false sense of insecurities back in the print days, social media has made those numbers look like peanuts. We're creating a downward spiral of issues that spread from one to another, leaving no one immune. Maybe you yourself can see through it all, but I bet not everyone you care about can. It could be your best friend, significant other, children, or close relative. Someone you know is currently deeply affected by what they are viewing online and can't see through the fact that something is fake.
How did we get here? Where did it all go wrong? Or was this always just going to happen and we've merely uncovered our society's true nature? Let's look back to the beginning of the digital revolution.
Before what is now seen as the modern Internet, people would dial into BBSs (bulletin board systems) to play games, chat with others, and read localized e-mails. These were basically separated early Internet islands, and were probably most people's first ability to interact digitally with one another in an online environment. Slowly users would move on to a truly globally connected "Internet" and would chat using versions of Internet Relay Chats (IRC), Usenet newsgroups (an early bulletin board style service) among the earliest simple websites.
AOL marketed itself to less tech savvy people, and created it's own community sandbox that its users could use. This was a similar idea to BBSs, but within a corporation mindset. One had to make an extra click on an Internet icon to access the true outside World Wide Web. This lead to many of the average AOL users never leaving the corporate created sandbox, and were therefore stuck within their own niche userbase. Thus ideas and activities couldn't really go viral as everything was often times "walled in".
World Wide Web
As the Internet itself took greater form in the 1990s, instant messengers like ICQ, AIM, and Yahoo Messenger took hold as software based means of communication. But in my opinion, it was website based chatrooms and bulletin boards that truly became the primary means of communication between people worldwide. The former mostly required you to already know the handles (usernames) of your friends, the latter only required you to know the link to a website to interact globally.
While less tech savvy users were somewhat involved, the 1990s is when the true Internet was mostly made up of just technically inclined people. Many of them shared similar interests, vibes, and were often times introverted which meant the early Internet community was often niche focused.
Because of this, early internet marketing and promotion was somewhat easier to manage as plans could be focused on a simpler demographic and less on the general public.
Manifest Destiny
There was a general projected feeling of discovery, exploration, and friendliness to this early Internet. Was it for real? Or was it just a projected feel good vibe that the "honeymoon phase" of the Internet was marketing to everyone? Think of some of the early search engine names (like Magellan) or logos (like Excite), browser names (like Internet Explorer), they projected adventure and excitement which is inline with what the early Internet was marketed as... "the Information Super Highway".
Most of the early film references also fit this same aura. Often times "the 'Net" (as viral marketing and buzzwords called it) was shown in media as animated images rapidly flashing across computer screens with fast paced Electronica music blaring in the background and computer hacking often only took minutes to break into high security systems. Who can forget the over-the-top movie "Hackers" (or its awesome soundtrack)? I know I can't. It played a huge role in nurturing my early passion during my teenage years for the Internet and getting online. It's very possible that I logged into my first Linux server just days after seeing Hackers in a theater with a bunch of my high school friends.
The "1990s World Wide Web" wasn't all just sunshine and roses though as scams had also been rapidly making their way in. Chain e-mail scams and virus attachments quickly became a nuisance and have not left us still to this day. These mostly preyed on those early less tech savvy individuals brave enough to try the Internet.
There was a "Wild West" element to this new frontier which nowadays a large portion of has probably moved into the "Dark Web". I even remember websites existing where you could supposedly fill out a form to have someone murdered. You could pay extra for exactly HOW they would be murdered and even more if you wanted it to look like a suicide. Part of me wants to believe these sites were a joke, but who really knows? Maybe they were as fake as the "Bonsai Kittens"? A strange early trope that showed kittens stuffed into jars and being sold online. Some people fell for it, but probably not as many as today.
Double Standards
In general, the old Internet was more wide open and had less regulation with very little control or gatekeeping. chat and bulletin board users could more or less post or say what they wanted without much repercussions. "flame wars", what massive escalating online arguments were called, could break out and very little would be done to stop them until those involved just grew tired enough to end them. These could last for days and would in extreme cases end up splitting groups into new userbases that move on to other chat rooms or bulletin boards. These are probably why most bulletin boards and chat services eventually added admins and moderators thus beginning to give small power to certain Internet users and creating the first digital cliques and VIP elite groups. Say the wrong word, or just happen to be hated by an admin, and suddenly you were blacklisted. Watch as someone else says the same thing and nothing happens to them due to their connections to the moderators.
While there were clear signs of manipulation and strategy to hype certain trends, there simply wasn't enough userbases for something to grow organically from the Internet into "real life" the way it can today. Considering a huge chunk of these early users were unpopular and/or introverted geeks (myself included), we just didn't have a whole lot of people in real life to spread these online stories to as often times things that happened online were blown off or ridiculed as not being real. "Why waste your time on something that doesn't exist?", I was once told. That person now has a Tik Tok account and posts nonstop. Gossip and trends just couldn't get the traction like today. Early movies loved to make fun of nerds for having online girlfriends that they had never met. Yet nowadays "influencers" and content subscription service members sometimes have millions of fans that they've never met and are seen as important figures. What was once seen as pathetic, is now set on a pedestal by some. One was just an introvert reaching out for emotional needs, while the other was about capitalistic dominancy. Guess which society sees as more important?
Clichéd Teen High School Movies
To better explain all of this, let's make an example and put some Internet news into a small vacuumed comparison I think most of us can relate to, high school as seen through a cliched 1980s or 1990s teen movie. High schools in those movies typically have the "popular kids" as the top tier (Tier A) which are often made up of the jocks and cheerleaders. Sometimes the "rich kids" are peppered into this group as well or in some movies are seen as a super top tier (Tier AA) above everyone else. Just below these is usually the "party kids" (Tier B) who are extremely outgoing, throw the best house parties, and often act as the gel between the multiple tiered cliques. Tiers (Tier C-Z) for cliques below these (like scholastic or music related) tend to get moved around depending on the movie. While, yes, movies aren't real life, but they are often times seen as broad generalizations of what the real world is presenting to us.
So within our high school movie vacuum above, let's look at how gossip would typically spread. A cheerleader (Tier A) is overheard complaining about her boyfriend's choice of music by a football player (also Tier A) at the class clown's (Tier B) house party. The football player mentions what he heard to a few other Tier A individuals, yet if none of them speak another word to anyone else, the news would probably not get spread any further. However one of them happens to share the news with the class clown who then in turn passes the news along to other people at the party. By the time the news has spread throughout the party to the other cliques, it has probably changed into something else along the lines of that the cheerleader is breaking up with her boyfriend due to something bad he did. Just like that game of telephone, but only if the elites are the ones talking.
As another example, in the days of the kings the royals would pass down news to their staff whose duty it was to spread it across the land. A village farmer wouldn't possibly be able to personally spread news around the same way. His cousin may have stolen a cow, and he can complain to his friends, but the chances of it reaching very far are very slim.
News typically flowed from the top tiers on down and needed to get into the hands of the spreaders before it reached the masses fully. Rarely had news spread out across all of the bottom tiers before it would flow upwards to the top. An event may have occurred within the lower tiers but it wasn't until the upper tiers spread the news does it fully spread out.
Resources, being socially connected, and a built-in reputation of importance are the key factors that separate the top two tiers from the rest. Some within the others may have parts of these, but ultimately it becomes debatable if they have now crossed over into the top tiers. In a way, these top tiers are celebrities. Maybe just big fish in small ponds, but they are celebrities nonetheless.
These figurative top tiers weren't established yet in this early Internet as it was mostly made up of interchangeable Tiers C-Z cliques that were for niche audiences. While some tiers could cross over, news spreading from one to the other wouldn't hit "viral status" very easily. It needed a voice coming from a Tier A or B before that would happen. The problem is that while each niche could have its own anointed top tier celebrities, they would often hold very little power over another niche group. It really wasn't until the idea of social networks organically taking hold, that the Internet began its transformation into a cliche 1980s/90s teen high school movie.
And sadly, with each new evolution of Internet technologies cliques and clubs become more and more arrogant and split off from being welcoming and inviting to people outside of their respective circles. You are either lucky enough to be within the boundaries of one before it takes off or you will rarely be able to become a part of it afterward. Unless of course, you are a Tier A celebrity who is let in with open arms. I've been lucky on occasion and knew the right people at the right time to be a part of something great. But then I've also experienced the difficulty of ever breaking into exclusive clubs. A couple of times I've been a "celebrity" in my own way, and was allowed entry into situations that others were struggling to gain access to. These modern "teen high school movies" are becoming increasingly smug and are lifting the veil off society's true attitude as a whole.
Online Businesses
Businesses of the early Internet had a two-fold challenge as well. Firstly, they needed their customer base to actually be using the Internet. So very little money was being spent on websites for businesses that couldn't get their customers online. Think of the Internet like a town when it was first settled. A small community with not much competition, but also a limited number of customers. It was certainly easier to establish yourself as an Internet celebrity in those days, even if it was just in a niche. As the town becomes a small city and then a large metropolis, suddenly the massive number of people and competition makes it difficult to stand out when a bigger chunk of them are all competing against each other.
Many introverted people used the Internet to find a way to break out of their shell, while the rest of the world still interacted more in person. Many introverts sought refuge in chat rooms to clear their mind and discuss their mental and personal life issues with strangers that didn't know them. With the dawn of the modern Internet and the level of tracking that companies now do, they know what your problems are and what you are searching online for. They in turn, promote products to you including ones inadvertently that may make you feel worse about yourself. It's clear that issues are exploited as just topics for marketing to flow across the trend waves from site to site. And after a few weeks of trending, it fades into the irrelevant bin. The bigger media companies can just pick topics up, move them around and around, churning the stories, and often times not even bothering to check their authenticity. It's way more important to receive hits than to consider what it is that is being blasted across people's minds. Capitalism, again, is way more important than actually solving problems.
Viral Load of Horse Dung
This has created online storms of movements with ideals that are going faster than a hurricane and typically cannot be counteracted. They spread and morph so fast that the psyche cannot filter truth from fiction, thus spreading even further to more people and never stopping until it passes like a virus. In the early Internet, chain emails would get forwarded for days and days, but eventually fizzle out because email reach was more limited. While your grandmother may fall victim to them, she only has a handful of people to forward them on to. And with only a fraction of those gullible enough to fall it for, the spread grows thinner and thinner.
Social media does not have this problem. Don't fully agree with what the trending topic is? Doesn't matter if you are right or wrong, the trend is more important than reality. While the early Internet felt more wide open and free to spread fact or fiction through open non corporate and smaller corporate channels of communication, today's version has become so monopolized by a select few mega corporations that it leaves people with little voice to fight back. These mega corporations have taken hold with massive amounts of gatekeeping that makes one feel like you are constantly walking on egg shells. Many corporations cut corners by utilizing AI software to monitor their websites, which have become notorious for banning people for bizarre reasons. I've seen instances of people getting banned for posting pictures of their car or even their dog. Somewhere along the way, most of these companies, decided to all but do away with customer support as well. Either for cost cutting reasons, or simply because they don't care, just try to communicate with someone about your issues. You won't be able to get to a real human. At best you will get a canned response months later just telling you to read their Terms & Conditions, and that you violated something on it. It'll be up to you to figure out what you possibly did wrong.
Often times a person gets banned on one social media website, then must go to a different rival social media, find the original company's profile on there, and attempt to direct message them about a banned account. Strange and ridiculous. Like most companies nowadays, even ones you do pay for services, they are increasing making it harder and harder to get support. I guess they think you'll give up eventually and go away.
I get it, many social media sites are "free". We are the product as they sell our profile and activities for profit. The saying does go "you pay for what you get". So either charge money for customer support or should we all just erratically mess up our social data to the point that it is worthless?
Conversation Evolution
When the Internet was new, online conversations seemed to be more about people waiting to interact with someone else. Pop on to a new chat room and immediately be showered in “Hellos” and “Welcomes”. Most of the time, everyone was very inviting. Conversations on the modern Internet now seem to be more so just people wanting to post their own thoughts and then wait for others to respond to them. They don’t feel the need to reciprocate as much. In the end, it is just about boosting their egos and their social standings.
While as before, people wanted to have full conversations back-and-forth with you, it was about the interaction between both of you not just an ego boost. Me LLC is now much more important than having a simple conversation with strangers from around the world. They need you to respond to their posts in order to boost their position. By doing so, you have fulfilled your need. This need goes for both individuals and mega corporations alike. Your interaction will give them their needed clicks and views in order to rise their position.
We went from a community wanting to interact, discuss, and help each other to one that only wants to boost personal standings, and or make money in the process by being bigger and better than everyone else. We’re all now smarter than each other and always correct.
Very few social media sites still even let you post anonymous. Most of them want your real name, birth date, phone number, city, blood type, firstborn's name, etc. Arguing now online often gets stopped after it's barely started. This probably only causes the situation to build up further to the point that the issue becomes a powder keg. Then it boils over in a way that can't be stopped.
A few of the newer social media platforms are gearing back towards user control and anonymity. The latest buzzword for next generation social media platforms is "decentralized" which is where no one person or company has full control over things. Federated Mastodon is nice in that it is a bit more free of the corporate control and you can register without giving up your first born. Basically it's an unlimited number of separate social media sites that all sync together to create one giant platform. Each server can somewhat pick and choose what other content can be cross shown, but overall it's pretty open. It is user friendly and does feel a bit like early 2000s Internet on the cusp of corporate manipulation when it was growing up but still young enough to feel free.
True decentralized platforms like Nostr do offer anonymity and currently feels somewhat peaceful like the very early days of the Internet with only extremely technical users, but is already in danger of having smug clique undertones. There’s already cliques forming that talk exclusively within themselves and rarely responds to comments other than within their group.
Nostr uses relays which can be setup by anyone to broadcast activity between users. Users must subscribe to several relays in order to compile posts from a large number of users. Free relays are widespread, but are already being riddled with spam. Paid relays is somewhat of a good idea when trying to prevent seeing spam since most spammers won’t bother paying to be part of a relay and then get blocked by everyone after they spam too many times. Relays, to me though, are a dangerous gateway into creating another example exclusive Tiered cliques. Nostr users and their friends could ultimately create VIP relays that are invite only and can eventually just become echo chambers if those are the only relays that they follow and post to. Eventually, Nostr would just become a series of Tiered cliques with desperate people begging to get into theses exclusive relays.
Despite all of this, I am currently hopeful that Nostr frees itself of the Tiered clique system and allows everyone to come together in a solid community who wishes to interact. I’ve seen this too many times across too many forms of digital platforms. A great idea eventually gets turned on its head for profit and fades out to irrelevance.
The truth is, we all need to vent sometimes without any fear and being anonymous allows people to be outside their comfort zone without the risk of damaging anything personal. It allows you to say what you want to say and get it out. Flame back and forth for hours. Hopefully to the point that you all get tired and move on. Wake up the next day and no one knew who you were or cares. As the past few years have shown, the modern Internet has become so publicly unfiltered with reckless regard for destroying one's personal brand, friend base, families, and more. Which is better? I don't know. We've changed as a society from holding back our thoughts in front of friends and family we didn't agree with, to now ghosting anyone that doesn't think exactly like us.
Thoughts and opinions can now escalate so fast around the world that there is little of chance of them slowing down. The Internet is clearly the reason this can happen. Is it a bad thing to now be able to flesh it all out in the open? Possibly, possibly not. I say Yes, it is. As much as I hate the direction the Internet has gone. I'm longing for the day of decentralized and unbiased media that is not driven by wealthier pockets. A free Internet, the way we all saw it back in the 1990s.
Agree or Disagree?
If you agree with me, spread this article around. If you don't, feel free to tell me why. Bottom line, lets start communicating with each other better and opening up about what bothers us. There's a group of people out there trying to divide and conquer us. Strength in numbers has always been the way.
I wish the best to all of you.
Now get off my lawn!