The web used to be early days Burning Man, now it's a mall.
Browsing the internet in the late 90s early 00s, I got the feeling of discovering underground communities with alternate lifestyles. A counterculture of weird, woke and anticonformists.
The wild west nature of that bygone era of the internet was its most interesting feature. Before the internet became a playground for startups, gigantic multinational corporations, targeted advertisements and privacy miners, it was a place where the rare tech avantgardists explored places made by other enthusiasts just for the sheer joy of it.
At the time, writing a blog was like throwing a message in a bottle. I remember coming across (sky)blogs with 0 visits that contained more interesting content than entire instagram feeds. I skimmed through countless pages of sartre fanatics, marxists pseudo revolutionaries and music critics... most of it boring, if not for the new nature of the entire web browsing activity, but occasionally, a gem.
The concept of “reach” and “influence” hasn't been invented yet, but I remain yet to be influenced by something as impactful in today's web 2.0
The unregulated platforms had their obvious shortcomings. Racists, sexists and other bigots were free to express their opinion just as freely. Censorship wasn't going to save the day. You just had to grow a moral compass and move on to more interesting places.
The internet today is a lot different. The apps are preloaded into smartphones, it's all so neat and organized in appearance. It's also very limited and constricted. Instagram is where you get the daily feed from pr managers of celebrities you think are relatable, twitter is where the smallest minorities are the loudest voices, youtube is your free netflix where youtuber pretend one person with a camera and millions behind their keyboards is a two way conversation, and facebook is the new phenomenon your senior family members just discovered recently. I don't even know what tiktok exactly is, so feel free not to tell me.
Yesterday I told my mom to visit a website on her smartphone, she had no idea what i was talking about.
The old web is still alive in some desert corners of the internet if you look hard enough. No it's not reddit.
I'm not giving out links, you're gonna ruin it again.
♪ Time To Breathe – Calibre