Terminally Online: You Can't Put the Genie Back in the Bottle

AnHero

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Do this once and never again.
Problem solved, genie trapped.
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No because you have nothing else to do, that is your real problem, you do nothing else.
Stroke the power button? what will that do? Give me good luck?

Actually, isn't rubbing stuff like that how genies get out of lamps anyway? I don't wanna summon Moloch or whatever...:sccourage:
 

KingOfTheCow

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just throwing in my own personal experience as a normie. i think that the main root of a lot of more broad social awkwardness/anxiety problems is for sure terminal online-ness during youth. i have some experience with that. i never got into chan type sites as a kid (thank god knowing myself i would've became even more fucked up), but i did get pretty addicted to youtube during late middle school. i would constantly jump from edgy video to edgy video during my free time, it was really bad. too much time was spent in front of my laptop looking at nothing particular at all. i remember being pretty socially awkward during that time, and struggling to create and maintain close friendships. i felt like a bumbling fool whenever i tried to approach or talk to anyone. i eventually just resorted to the strategy of saying edgy shit just to get an reaction out of people. of course this didn't really attract the greatest of friends. i had like one or two i would sometimes talk to during school hours, but never anything more than that. they were all loners like me. it wasn't like i was an introvert or anything, i just really didn't know how to properly interact with people on a deeper level. i think i sorta used youtube in order to hide from the anxiety of forming real connections as pathetic as that sounds. keep in mind this is without any form of online "social interaction" or online hivemind community, just through spending too much time on youtube and algorithm based sites like that. if hypothetically, youtube was replaced with 4chan or discord, i could see how a really strong dependency could be formed and mess up my adolescent mind even more.

im not sure how i eventually got out of that phase in my life. pretty sure it was mostly just luck. i sorta got a do-over during highschool. all my old friends left, i got into a bunch of new non-online hobbies, joined a bunch of bands, made a bunch of long-lasting fun healthy friendships. it all changed really fast. i was still a kid, so my brain was malleable enough to get rid of those unhealthy behaviour patterns and build anew. its been a while since that dark period in my life, im still pretty socially awkward and terminally online, but less so. its much less all consuming i guess, just another slightly unwanted part of my identity that im too lazy to fix.
i dont even really know tbh im not smart enough for this forum. :McBetch:
 

jpng

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I hit rock bottom with being a neet almost 8 years ago when I was consistently sending money to a guy I met on a discord server posted on a social board of a certain forum, amongst other stupid choices (the biggest being staying with other users from said server for an anime convention without considering my own safety). I'd never leave home unless i was getting groceries and had an overnight job. And even before all of this, I was an drawfag on another board of the same forum, from my sophmore year of high school til I was 21. Bla bla bla, to sum things up I saw a therapist for years and (besides the immense help with my personal trauma and horrible agoraphobia ) we barely cracked any surface of THE issue, because how do you explain to a therapist the hyperspecific trauma that comes from being chronically online? How do you explain to her what the fuck any of the lingo is and the gazillions of splintered communities are out there and how many of them have people that would prey on your circumstances and mindset?
I got to a good enough place to cope on my own and am committed to challenging myself every day, and as happy as I am now with my life that I once thought would be unattainable, I truly believe that the freaky shadow of neetness will never leave me for the rest of my life. The urge to hide and ruminate is always there.

I hope everybody here is having a good day
 

InternetGeist

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Being terminally online is the most affordable and safest escapism you can ever achieve to avoid a reality that is either not stimulating enough or way too stressful. It is a second home, a comforting safe place chosen by own volition, for those who yearn for genuine connections but are only able to obtain it through the screen. There is a lot of good discussion going on already and advice on how to log out, but I don't believe any terminally online users can truly purge themselves out of the wired zone without finding a stable replacement elsewhere, a tough task compared to the well established safe place you hide from for years. In the end we will just come back for the nostalgia and the relaxing realization of not having to carefully comply to the standard definition of being "normal".
 
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Midwest

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just throwing in my own personal experience as a normie. i think that the main root of a lot of more broad social awkwardness/anxiety problems is for sure terminal online-ness during youth. i have some experience with that. i never got into chan type sites as a kid (thank god knowing myself i would've became even more fucked up), but i did get pretty addicted to youtube during late middle school. i would constantly jump from edgy video to edgy video during my free time, it was really bad. too much time was spent in front of my laptop looking at nothing particular at all. i remember being pretty socially awkward during that time, and struggling to create and maintain close friendships. i felt like a bumbling fool whenever i tried to approach or talk to anyone. i eventually just resorted to the strategy of saying edgy shit just to get an reaction out of people. of course this didn't really attract the greatest of friends. i had like one or two i would sometimes talk to during school hours, but never anything more than that. they were all loners like me. it wasn't like i was an introvert or anything, i just really didn't know how to properly interact with people on a deeper level. i think i sorta used youtube in order to hide from the anxiety of forming real connections as pathetic as that sounds. keep in mind this is without any form of online "social interaction" or online hivemind community, just through spending too much time on youtube and algorithm based sites like that. if hypothetically, youtube was replaced with 4chan or discord, i could see how a really strong dependency could be formed and mess up my adolescent mind even more.

im not sure how i eventually got out of that phase in my life. pretty sure it was mostly just luck. i sorta got a do-over during highschool. all my old friends left, i got into a bunch of new non-online hobbies, joined a bunch of bands, made a bunch of long-lasting fun healthy friendships. it all changed really fast. i was still a kid, so my brain was malleable enough to get rid of those unhealthy behaviour patterns and build anew. its been a while since that dark period in my life, im still pretty socially awkward and terminally online, but less so. its much less all consuming i guess, just another slightly unwanted part of my identity that im too lazy to fix.
i dont even really know tbh im not smart enough for this forum. :McBetch:
I relate a lot with what you just wrote. I've always been of the opinion that it's the parents job to teach their children to socialize or to give their children opportunities to socialize. I think a lot of parents make the mistake of believing that things come "instinctually" to their child, because "my son doesn't have anything wrong with him. He's just a little different." To this day there's still so much about me I do not know that only now at 27 I'm beginning to question and figure out for myself. I have this hypothesis that being terminally online is similar to the patterns we've seen with the transgender crisis. That is, the vast majority of young girls who were lied to about their "transgender identity" were really girls who just had autism. And so there was a situation where someone else knew about their autism and took advantage of that child, or did not know and gave them the wrong diagnosis without ever considering the child's mental or psychological wellbeing. So it would not surprise me at all with all the research coming out about the male loneliness crisis, the friendship crisis, that a lot of young men might just be suffering from some sort of mental illness and not know it. I think being glued to a screen 24/7 is both a cause and symptom - we grow attached to our screens as adolescents and can't perceive of live without them. Then later that behavior just continues and gets worse and other negative behavior patterns persist, whereas people who did not spend their youth terminally online don't show these same negative characteristics. So I'm all for Internet Addiction to be thoroughly studied by psychologists, anthropologists, theologians, etc.
 

Midwest

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I hit rock bottom with being a neet almost 8 years ago when I was consistently sending money to a guy I met on a discord server posted on a social board of a certain forum, amongst other stupid choices (the biggest being staying with other users from said server for an anime convention without considering my own safety). I'd never leave home unless i was getting groceries and had an overnight job. And even before all of this, I was an drawfag on another board of the same forum, from my sophmore year of high school til I was 21. Bla bla bla, to sum things up I saw a therapist for years and (besides the immense help with my personal trauma and horrible agoraphobia ) we barely cracked any surface of THE issue, because how do you explain to a therapist the hyperspecific trauma that comes from being chronically online? How do you explain to her what the fuck any of the lingo is and the gazillions of splintered communities are out there and how many of them have people that would prey on your circumstances and mindset?
I'm glad that even though I'm terminally online, I've always held parasocial relationships as something to be very suspicious of. I remember being 12 meeting this girl online through deviantART. We'd chat every day and would exchange DMs, sharing art tips and complimenting each other's work, which eventually led to me calling her over Skype. And she was the real deal, a cute redhead who liked anime and who wore all black (emo was still big at the time). However I had to cut it off because something just didn't feel right in my gut about socializing so well with this girl online, while my real life self was so clumsy and awkward, barely able to ask girls out. I definitely understand how you feel when you say you never left home unless it was for work or for groceries, because that's where I'm basically at. I don't have the same friendships in high school, so no get-togethers. I was a drawfag on specific websites and boards to boost my ego for a while but found that bothersome after a while because I tailored my art and personality to fit their needs and desires instead of my own. It's why I'm constantly changing my name and leaving places behind to start anew.
 

InternetGeist

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It's why I'm constantly changing my name and leaving places behind to start anew.
This is too relatable. One of the many benefits of Internet is the ease of abandoning an identity that is too "contaminated" by the environment to the extent it is in direct conflict with a private self-image you withhold, and then adopting a new one whenever the old shell is too uncomfortable to dwell in. We have probably all ghosted people during our digital lives and it can be done at zero consequence. Internet facilitates the process of forming and leaving friendships for those who could be socially awkward irl, and that is why people keep coming back to this addiction as it is a quick fast-food fix for our cravings for connections with other human beings
 
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KingOfTheCow

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I think a lot of parents make the mistake of believing that things come "instinctually" to their child, because "my son doesn't have anything wrong with him. He's just a little different." To this day there's still so much about me I do not know that only now at 27 I'm beginning to question and figure out for myself.
totally agree with this! not sure if this specifically is common, but a lot people who noticed my lack of social skills back then just pinned it on me being academically smart. apparently you can't get high grades and have a normal social life at the same time :0

That is, the vast majority of young girls who were lied to about their "transgender identity" were really girls who just had autism. And so there was a situation where someone else knew about their autism and took advantage of that child, or did not know and gave them the wrong diagnosis without ever considering the child's mental or psychological wellbeing.
sure, theres more autistic people who are trans, but have you considered that people with autism just are just more likely to not conform to gender/societal norms? tbh there probably are some shitty psychologists/psychiatrists who push transitioning too hard, but those exist for practically every mental problem, so it's not really exclusive. :NekoNatsukiCute: or maybe its all just a plot by big pharma, idk :p

I think being glued to a screen 24/7 is both a cause and symptom - we grow attached to our screens as adolescents and can't perceive of live without them.
agree!! social media/technology addiction is so normalised among everyone i know now. i blame it on covid, really messed up everyones ability to live independently from screens. parents don't want to enforce healthy boundaries for their children because they themselves know they are addicted. i don't really see a bright future for the next generation, where being terminally online is the societal norm.
 

Ross_Я

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We have probably all ghosted people during our digital lives and it can be done at zero consequence.
I'm pretty much dead sure this is one thing I never done. I can set the message aside for a day or two, but I will always reply.
If I won't forget, of course. And in that case, I often tell people not to think twice and write again if I don't reply.
Because, really, one thing I personally hate in any kind of online conversation is an absence of any kind of answer - it is way more offending than a negative answer, IMO, and therefore I try to lead by example and always reply with something, anything,
 
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punisheddead

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I see the internet and being terminally online as a sort of predeterminate fate kind of deal. It would be like if you tripped on a rock fell and broke your leg. Do you blame the rock, or you for tripping, or maybe no one because it's mostly pointless and something that's already done? What you can choose is what you do after you've tripped.

I've been on the internet from a very young age, too young and I do regret being on there for that youngest period but much of the time I don't actually regret it. The net for me was a way out but always a supplemental thing to regular day to day life. I think that line of thinking saved me from a lot of hell that many young people experience on the internet. I never had direct message chat with weirdos or went too far into deep end of the web, the worst I got was 4chan and seeing boobs at a single digit age. I never got that attached to the culture, at least not in the way I'd emulate it in real life but I do remember a lot of it fondly. It was like that for a while but with the 2010s things changed and suddenly it was fine to do it. Sure it was niche but the trend was there.

Cue the current year. You say that you can't imagine talking to someone IRL about blackpills and incels but this is the only time I can imagine that being an actual conversation. It and much other internet lingo has entered the cultural zeitgeist, something that's an unescapable fact. You also underestimate just how much normies are connected with the net now. We've gotten it bad but they've gotten it worse because they weren't adjusted by it. In that way, everyone is "terminally online". Terminally online meaning in this case that they spend a lot of time online. Now Terminally online can also mean just being brainrotted from the internet and yeah sure normies aren't quite there yet but they're not far off.

You have the right idea to keep in mind that this isn't real life and to not go full on into the internet persona as that is really terminally online territory. That was always my line of thinking and normies have made it the easiest it has ever been (by being unbelievably fucking shallow and annoying).

You can choose to not be terminally online even if you spend a lot of time online, it's mostly a mindset thing. You can spend your time online however you want. It's like watching TV, it's up to you what you watch... if anything.

What about le society? That's their problem not yours, just like you they make their own choices. That one friend maybe didn't choose to be an otaku with a crusty body pillow, but he did choose to stay as one. You can just like a thing and be relatively normal.

Maybe it's all cope from a fellow terminally online fellow, but it does keep me sane somewhat.

I truly believe that the freaky shadow of neetness will never leave me for the rest of my life. The urge to hide and ruminate is always there.
Stuff like that stays with you, it's like a dark spot on the soul that will never go away.

but I don't believe any terminally online users can truly purge themselves out of the wired zone without finding a stable replacement elsewhere
I can attest to that. I've all but removed myself from the net, but I still hangout at places like this. I haven't yet found the stable replacement.

i blame it on covid, really messed up everyones ability to live independently from screens. parents don't want to enforce healthy boundaries for their children because they themselves know they are addicted. i don't really see a bright future for the next generation, where being terminally online is the societal norm.
Covid only sped up what was inevitable, but man has it gotten really bad. There's also the feeling of weirdness that I can never shake that all of this is normal now as opposed to being a weirdo like 15 years ago. It's like being a nerd all over again.
 
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クロス00

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TL;DR before I start: Some things will stay with you forever but overall you don't have to make that your whole personality (i.e. be the individual that you want to be. don't let your circumstances fully determine how you exist).
It is hard to be "normal" and much easier to be yourself around people that are cool with you despite what you say (which is harder and easier to find in our current climate, it's possible yet contradictory.)
------

i was never really "normal" but i really did cling on to "normality" for dear life (despite being introduced to man-made horrors and tiddie at a young age) it was of course seen as weird to be on MMOs, to have a laptop for things other than work. but with what i learned from those experiences i would use irl to build bonds. It was like an extra boost to be able to change my mindset and use the tools earned via the net to converse with people. so before it wasn't all bad unless you just kept yourself down and didn't try at least once.
In general, I'm not socially awkward. Never have been. Talk to people, random people, people you know, people you don't know, people with different kind of skin, people who do not know your language - whatever, been there, done that. It's not that hard, interesting even. It's just, talking with most people is absolute boredom, you cannot tell them about the recent movie from the 80's you dug out or even translated yourself, cannot talk to them about the old Star Wars or Rogue Trader-era Warhammer, cannot talk to them about history of ancient cultures, cannot talk to them even about music properly, and don't even ask me about trying to talk to people about technical things, like nuances of a car engine or python coding or the ways you can fix a piece of electronics or something. Why? Most of them simply don't care! Their hobbies are fucking primitive and boring - if they even have one in the first place.
Except in situations like this. Because yes it is easy to talk to people but to talk about what you want to talk about? No one cares unless it's people who are just interested in you and what makes you tick.

A lot changed when 2.0 and "3.0" hit the net and our lives. Like I have to remind myself that being "terminally online" isn't about the IRC/Mumble Moderator that's just online 24/7 anymore. It's about being glued to the scroll, about shit that doesn't even matter outside of netspace, about getting your numbers up and twisting your form to better fit whatever-niche-thing you think will give yourself meaning in that moment.
Even though it is easier to connect, it still feels isolating because people expect results, answers and solutions right then and there because that's how everything else works on the net. So being born into this world is understandably depressing. And being "terminally online" is the norm. There's like shit such as the manosphere or whatever the fuck new drama is happening on the clock app. So hearing about being "blackpilled" and being a doomer is pretty common in the day to day.

But, the keyword now is "common". The kids that you say "did sports and other hobbies" are probably in the same boat or a parallel boat to yours right now. Speaking from personal experience, despite what I saw at a young age and despite my tendencies, I went to parties, socialized, went to concerts, etc etc. I had a social life, phone numbers etched into my brain wrinkles, bruises that lasted months. And throughout all of that and due to societal changes pivoting towards more net time (especially due to COVID) I ended up becoming a NEET, gaining agoraphobic symptoms and sinking my time online. The "genie" had been fully released from the bottle, totally trashing the years confining it. But now that the milk is spilled, there's no point in sulking over it.
Of course, being in certain spaces is like breathing in black mold so I would suggest disconnecting from the usual suspects. But the net is blending into the real more and more day after day. The "Veil" is being shredded and it'll may come to point where you'll struggle on what is real and what is simply code on the net. But like outside of that, there are chances. There are people you can just bump into and talk to if you simply just let it happen, never to see them again lol. It's a struggle to force those interactions but the easiest way I found (and you've probably heard this already) is to just let people talk about themselves.

It's not possible to live the stereotypical normal life that you see in shows and read in books. But it is possible to live a fulfilling life as yourself, no matter the current drawbacks life throws at you.
 

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