"Wow what a nice site, it's so secluded! I bet the communities are close-knit and active!"
"Darn, there really aren't a lot of people here... the communities are close-knit but they really aren't that active"
Shit!
Well, the only way for that to be negated is if the people who are here start posting more. I like this website. It's got a lot of potential and charm. I wasn't able to experience the old internet, but this feels like what it may have been like. It's odd to say the least. algorithms spew content in our faces everywhere else. Here, you have to turn the stones yourself it seems. This is better for me.
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This site used to get at least a couple of dozen of posts each day around two years ago. The creator of this site also paid for ads on 4chan from where most of this site's community came from. People eventually got bored, though and started leaving the site.
>I wasn't able to experience the old internet, but this feels like what it may have been like.
Maybe, or maybe it will be like an old dying cancer patient doing some meth to feel like they're a kid again.
Probably somewhat like that. We don't realize it but our brains have been rewired and it's for the most part impossible to regain that genuine early internet feel. Who really posts for themselves anymore? I feel this way at least. I subconsciously try to be as appealing as possible to everyone, is it too late for us?
Two questions.
1. What exactly do you mean by "posting for yourself"?
Well, there's plainly a difference between what someone like Mr.Beast uploads and any run of the mill youtube video someone recorded on their blackberry in the late 2000s. I suppose it's sort of an attitude like "i'm uploading to engage with the internet" rather than "i'm uploading so the internet engages with me", like always being pursuant of likes, shares, fame, etc. I noticed this with myself a while ago after having had some success with virality. Now I feel myself writing like i'm some sort of salesman. It might be a bit narcissistic of me but I'd imagine that a lot of us do this subconsciously nowadays with how gamified the internet is.
2. What makes you think that people used to do that before but not now?
They still do that now, but I'd reckon not as much in the grand scheme. There was a 2023 survey on Parents.com which stated that 57% of Gen Z were interested in becoming influencers - given that 'influencers' barely existed in a sense compared to what they are now 15 years ago, I'd say that things have changed. Granted, there will always be people genuinely posting themselves. But it shouldn't be too far-fetched to say that we tend to ham things up for the camera to a ridiculous extent now.
But, I never got to experience the early years of the social media scene, so I might be talking out my ass here. I just really don't like what the internet has done to us.
I think this is all due to the fact that there were much less people on the internet before then there are now and also because nobody really knew how to commercialize their posting back when the internet was fresh.
>like always being pursuant of likes, shares, fame, etc
Typical human behaviour. Who doesn't want a little bit of fame? Well, maybe perhaps that one sigma male but he's just the 1%.
>But it shouldn't be too far-fetched to say that we tend to ham things up for the camera to a ridiculous extent now.
Like how someone would spread made up stories or over exaggerate minor events for attention? Yeah that always was a thing. Probably started back when Tharg told the whole tribe that he saw ten mammoths in the valley (there were only three).
It's not that I condone all the slop-posters and attention whores, I just think that they are a natural phenomenon. What the internet did was give everyone a global voice, so people naturally started exploiting that. There probably was a period when the internet was very new and strange so people weren't quite sure how to use it, but now that it has become a core element of our lives and every joe and his grandmother has access, we get to see more people trying to get a profit from posting rather than just doing it for fun.
So yeah, I kinda agree with you in a sense, but I also think that the current state of the internet is just a consequence of basic human behaviour.
I'm not a fan of a lot of the modern trends going around due to the internet. A part of me feels that it's weird how people would do crap like record tiktoks in public, but a part of me also realizes that perhaps it's not too bad. We've evolved to this stage and there is no going back, so we just gotta wait and see what this all turns into.
>But, I never got to experience the early years of the social media scene, so I might be talking out my ass here.
Lol same.