The internet feels smaller than it used to be.

[Aral]

I miss how communities seemed to have so much more of an identity. Now, communities for interests on >reddit or twitter often feel like constantly rebirthing generations of faceless, nameless husks who do little to nothing to put color into the community in which they take part in. It's kinda sad.

But maybe I'm just getting old, and it's all rose colored glasses. Maybe nostalgia has a grip on me.

I don't think you've got rose coloured glasses. >reddit, Twitter and all definitely impoverished the internet and made it smaller. For example: I'm typing a question that I'm asking myself. The first stuff I see: Quora, reddit. I don't see, like, pages where people tell their opinion, or even articles first. I see these. It's infuriating me a wee bit, not gonna lie. I've blocked Quora with a firefox extension because I can't stand that site. I'm looking for how to get a certain alchemy recipe in a game? First thing I see: subreddit. I want to see an episode of a NatGeo documentary? First thing I see: youtube. Then dailymotion, veoh and all, that I prefer using for that kinda stuff. I think that now 80% of the internet is the 5% of big websites and corporations. It wasn't like that back in time.

Plus it completely ruined the pleasure of interacting with a community for the most part. Now everyone is fighting each other, there is drama in every fucking corner, people are super politicized and polarized. The fandoms are absolute trash. I don't think back in the day the disgusting MLP, Steven Universe, FNAF and Undertale fandoms, among others, would've been so bad. There would've been a couple of bad sites but as a whole it wouldn't have been so fucking awful. Look at the much bigger Pokemon fandom. It may be insanely big, but it's nowhere as much of a trashfire as, for example, *blergh* Steven Universe fandom.

This is why we should strive to make Agora Road, Geocities and all type communities stay alive. We are the last remnants of that era when everything still had its individuality. The normies can stay on their mainstream bullshit media for all I care, some of them will get sick of it or realize they never liked it in the first place, but didn't know any better, and join us, but there's no way I am coming back there.

 

[Aral]

Web 2.0 killed everything

2.0 killed the internet star...

 

[justish]

What kind of videos do you do?

None so far but I'm writing a script on one about how web 2.0 is dog shit and how the internet feels different.

 

[SELCOUTH]

Everything has converged towards the big 4, Twitter, Facebook, >reddit and 4chan. But I think we are entering a rebirth of old style internet communities since I've been seeing a lot of sites like this one popping up. I think the younger generations who grew up without forums are going looking back in time and realizing that places like this are loaded with freedom of expression and personality. 4chan has long been the last vestige of anonymity and people are starting to realize that anonymity on the internet can be a good thing, even if it comes with its faults.

 

[Restricted VHS]

I only visit a handful of sites now days. As a minimalist, I don't think it's a bad thing. Most of my time on the computer is spent consuming media or playing games.

 

[joypistols974@aol.com]

I've been stuck in a facebook-instagram->reddit-twitter loop for a long-ass time. I remember browsing skyrim forums, generalist internet communities, music fansites and all back in the days. It seemed more like a true "browsing" rather than endlessly scrolling shitty facebook meme groups.

The fact content is now infinite also damages the experience imo. In my younger days, I would go to a forum and I had time to read about everything before something truly new came up. I also remember being absolutely delved into a true written conversation on a specific topic, which doesn't happen anymore.

EDIT: oh yeah I also remember turning the internet upside down in search for news about GTA V in 2011-2012-2013

 

[Hoshi]

I want to caveat that statement by saying that nothing is forever, and there is so much more possible with the internet now than there was, say, 13+ years ago or so. But it still feels small. Why is that?

Because fansites are falling by the wayside, and traditional message boards much like this one are long gone, for the most part. I can name massive communities that had dozens of new posts every day now are ghost towns. I guess you can kind of see why they didn't stand the test of time - places like >reddit, Twitter, etc. have made it way easier to investigate all your interests without opening several tabs, visiting several websites, or remembering a bunch of passwords. You log in once and all the community you need is at your fingertips.

But I think something was lost in that transition. Fifteen years ago, I could go out and look for a Fire Emblem fan-forum and if I didn't like the community vibe there, there was another active Fire Emblem forum that I could try that might have a totally different vibe, look, community, signatures and avatars and events and whatnot. Shit, it was probably in the affiliates! They truly felt like little villages dotted all across the endless net, and visiting different forums was a real treat just to see how it was different from the community that you yourself frequented.

I miss that. I miss how communities seemed to have so much more of an identity. Now, communities for interests on >reddit or twitter often feel like constantly rebirthing generations of faceless, nameless husks who do little to nothing to put color into the community in which they take part in. It's kinda sad.

But maybe I'm just getting old, and it's all rose colored glasses. Maybe nostalgia has a grip on me.

Hopefully you guys understand where I'm coming from, though.

I understand you completely. Post-2010 is where things really started to become homogenized and sterile on the internet. Things really went into overdrive a few years following that though; everything became concentrated across a handful of websites and in those websites were microcosms of communities but they're a poor imitation of the preceding internet subcultures. It became more difficult to make friends on the internet after a point too. I had internet pals I used to communicate with via MSN, AIM, and then Skype and now they've all disappeared into the nether. The Dead Internet Theory post that drew me to this site nailed it and is part of the reason why I signed up to begin with.

I think it's safe to say that most everyone on here misses what has been long lost.