Now the whole world stands on the brink…and all of a sudden, nobody can think of anything to say.
- Rorschach, The Watchmen
This isn’t really an article or post tied to anything related to prior content on my Substack. Just wanted to throw out some thoughts that, I wonder, others are thinking.
About ten years ago I was active on a lot of different social media platforms, as well as blog comment sections. I’d spend hours discussing, debate, arguing, or even collaborating with others. I was checking some of these sites every chance I got.
Now? I’m mainly only on Twitter, and that’s slowly dying out. I’m at the point where I’m contemplating getting a flip phone and keeping my smartphone as a portable computer (fun fact: you can still use smartphone apps if you have wi-fi connection).
Pardon the generalization, but I’m not in the mood or disposition to write a whole bunch of exposition to make my point. Anyone of us who grew up before the Internet knows that, at first, it was a place to find information. Then, it was a place to interact with people you knew. Later, you interacted with people you didn’t know.
It seemed cool, exciting, and forward-thinking. I remember the “good old days” when I’d watch countless funny videos with buddies I knew - mind you, while I was sitting next to them at the same computer.
Then came social media and smartphones, and now you have people interacting more with those they don’t know and have never met than those they know in real life. Or you have people interacting with those they met first in real life only interacting online.
Whether this is good or bad (IMO, overall negative) is moot. It happened, and it isn’t going away.
The problem is that the internet is dying, and will soon be dead.
What do I mean by “dead”?
I mean the internet will cease to be a place that provides significant meaningful value for people who are looking for value in terms of genuine human interaction.
Yes, I know that SOME of you will find the situation otherwise, but I’m talking both in terms of macro or collective and in comparison to, say, 2014-2016.
To me, it’s getting to the point where I’d rather go back to a pre-smartphone lifestyle and ditch most of social media in exchange for direct communication.
There are a couple reasons for this – and no, I’m not the first one to notice this. I’m just one of those who notices.
The internet is centralized, stale, static, stagnant, and fake. We’ve gone from many chat forums and customized sites discussing niche topics to basically a handful of giant social media platforms where most interactions occur, and everyone says the same thing again and again and again, and again. The Internet used to be about finding information; now it’s about making money mainly through collecting data or selling ads.
We can blame technology or the government, or the decline societally or Bigfoot, but it’s hard to argue what’s happening.
The Internet is stale and static in the sense that conversations haven’t progressed in any meaningful way. One of the reasons I think blogging died, along with the comment sections, is because people have said everything there is to say.
The time for talk is over, and it’s time for action. But some don’t want to progress past discussion, because as Necktie Salvage pointed out in a recent podcast, “when we stop becoming we become, and we are dead.”
Many people have already become. Many of them are in denial about it.
Which brings me to my next point.
The reason people are still talking about the same stuff is because we’re in a collective situation within the culture and society known as a FUSED relationship. One of the telltale signs of a FUSED relationship is that strong emotions are allowed, but not strong actions.
Put in a different context, you can scream all you want about hating your job and nobody bats an eye, but if you leave the job all hell breaks look.
In the context of the internet, discussions that lean heavily on action draw intense attacks from those who have “become,” as action-oriented rhetoric is rooted in changing one’s circumstances because they are still “becoming.”
Now, some might call that crabs in a bucket mentality, but the bucket is the cultural and social stagnation that allows for plenty of emotional outbursts online, but anyone discussing action-based ideas or actually doing something will draw fury.
This explains the addiction to outrage porn that you seen permeating all of social media and why livestreams, i.e. passively watching someone else do all the talking, are so popular.
Since I’m basically only on Twitter now, I can’t say it applies elsewhere more or less but from what I’ve seen and heard, it’s not better elsewhere.
You can put in all the filters you want to block out that stuff, but you can’t run from it. Every day brings a new “OMG, can you believe they said that?” discussion thrown in your face.
Outrage, giving people an emotional high, sells. However, outrage doesn’t prompt action or change. All it does is give people the ability to act hysterical.
Of course, we can also add how algorithms have completely taken over and dictate what we see in terms of content. Nothing new is created or inspired, and if something original is out there, you don’t see it unless you look very hard for it.
As far as “solutions” are concerned, I don’t have any and don’t feel the need to offer any because one thing I’ve learned is people don’t listen, even when they pay you.
Basically what’s going on is the internet is reverting to the lowest common denominator. Since most conversations and interactions are on public platforms, that means the derp-derps of the world have immediate access to high quality individuals whose ankles they nip and bite at.
It is difficult to impose basic standards. You can silence, mute, block, and ban all you want, but it’s like bailing water out of a leaky boat. If you’re not continually doing it you’re going to sink.
Another thing I’ll add is the rise of AI, bots, and people’s growing detachment from reality makes it incredibly hard to tell what is authentic from what is fake. Deepfake and other similar technology will blur the line even further to where people will not be able to distinguish reality online.
The internet should have never been seen as a replacement for real life, but it’s become an inferior substitute people use the same way a wino consumes Mad Dog 20/20 rather than a 10 year old cabernet.
The digital is inferior to the physical.
The tangible is superior to the intangible.
A person you know in real life will always offer something in a form of human relation that an online pal can’t and won’t.
One business idea I’ve toyed around with is having a wi-fi/cell blocking device at a bar or pub or restaurant. Or, people have to check their phones into a locker and can’t use them while inside. It reminds me of a micro-pub I visited in Dover, England where cell phone use was prohibited and all the chairs were in a circle so you had to talk to the person next to you.
Who knows? For people like myself, the internet will eventually be a place to grab some info, if possible, and otherwise stay off.
Because the internet is no longer becoming. It has become, and therefore it is dead.
Yes