BURN CORPO SHIT:
1/14/2025 - DYING WEB
There's a bit of an interesting concept going around recently. You might have heard of it already: Dead Internet Theory. For the un-initiated, it's essentially a theory stating that the vast majority of internet traffic going on since about 2017 is completely fake, generated by AI, algorithms and bots. Proponents of the theory swear to God that the reason why this is happening is the fault of the Big Goberment, who are trying to manipulate and control the public's perception of various social, economic, and political standpoints for their own gain. Pretty wild stuff. Is it true though? Probably, to some extent, but that's not really relevant to my main point.
What I'm trying to say here is that the fact a considerable amount of people believe this theory even a little bit shows us how the internet as a whole is doing right now, and that it's currently slowly veering straight down into the shitter.
Movies, TV, and videos locked behind a wall of microtransactions and montly subscription fees, AI generated slop videos captivating the hearts and minds of kids under 10, Doomscrolling taking the world by storm, the length of the average American's attention span getting shorter every week, it's no wonder some people think most comments and likes on Instagram Reels aren't even real people. More users are connected to the modern Web than ever before in history, but I swear I've never felt more disconnected from them.
When I was a bit younger, even in like 2012, the internet still felt like a bit of a Mad Max clusterfuck, requiring at least some degree of technical literacy to access and really get the most out of it. I would be on for hours, finding obscure wacko shock sites, snatching mp3s off Youtube description download links, playing fuckin Happy Wheels with my buddy until my fingers bled, hunting down the latest and lamest Creepypastas I could find so I could recite them to my friend Jake and watch him shrivel up. It was fun. It was really fuckin fun. So, what happened?
New management, of course.
I feel the shift was most felt and most noticed around 2017. I remember that a lot of "great" videos on Youtube started getting sniped by the mods. Hair Cake, some old movie clips, nearly every Song+Lyrics video I knew, all started disappearing. All getting content-matched by a shiny new algorithm made by a well-known face. That's right, Google. Just as quick as you could say "Damn!", it felt like they owned the entire net. Most of it, at least. The next one to step up and sweep up the remaining scraps was Meta, and after them Amazon. Before we all knew it, the vast majority of popular sites and places to be were now owned by a small ring of ultra-wealthy corpo fucks who had one collective vision for "their" new Net: maximize profits.
Now, look at it. Every single high-traffic site is plastered with ads, paywalls, and secret doors to suck as much personal user data out of your devices as possible, to then be sold to the highest bidder at a flat price. Yeah, that's where all that fucking junkmail in your inbox comes from. Patreon, ad revenue, and digital members passes rule the digital landscape, save for a few old-age holdouts and new-age cyberpunks who still believe in the timeless tradition of free software, porn, and stuff to watch or listen to. So, maybe you're thinking: "Yeah, all that may be true, but what are you doing about it other than sitting here on your ass and complaining about it on your stupid fuckin blog?" Well, my answer is simple.
This IS what I'm doing about it.
I'm a pretty shit programmer, but I can figure out enough HTML to make this website happen. I'll keep writing. I'll write until my fuckin fingers fall off about whatever the fuck I want to because that's what the great big WWW is supposed to be for. I'll keep downloading sketchy torrents. I'll keep fucking around with a Flipper Zero. I'll keep recovering lost media that Youtube deemed too offensive to remain on their pristine little sterilized landscape, even if I dont even like what's in the video, because the asshole who made it still has a right to have their dumbass opinions heard. I'll do everything in my modicum of personal power to NEVER let the internet fall completely into the hands of the big bad corpo jagoffs up top who barely even know what they're doing. I'll never stop. I'll never stop until my goddamned heart gives out. I'll never stop because I remember what OUR internet used to be. So lemme ask you something:
What have YOU done to reclaim YOUR internet today?