> What’s the ratio of followers to following you have? Are your story highlights organized and “aesthetic”? What reels are you liking? [...]
> It has become so shallow, you can tell almost nothing about who someone actually is through Instagram or tiktok. You can only tell how they want to portray themselves to the general population and, by how they organize their profile, if they are eligible to be a part of your social circle.
> [In the past,] There was little incentive to lie, to manipulate truth, and each blog entry or piece of information was tied to identity. (except in the cases of anonymity).
There's this idea that the internet had a point where it was _universally_ genuine, curious and welcoming. I don't really remember that? I'm a sucker for rose-tinted memories, but I don't think I remember 00's forums NOT being social cliques. There was a lot of posturing, clout-chasing, and mean-spirited trolling. Your identity online was crafted from scratch for a particular space because you really could be as anonymous as you wanted to be. A pseudonym on an image board, forum accounts, personal sites, that pitiful amount of web space your ISP would give you, MMORPG account, MUCK profile, etc could all be totally distinct "people".
Lying on a speed running forum about a time you got in a game. Making things online, just to dog pile on hating 1 particular person. The mean shit people said to each other on any IM platform. Cyber bullying was a word I remember being tossed around a lot in the mid 00's.
The corpo vibe of things today sucks. Totally agree. But it's not like the internet of 2005 was this utopia of good vibes and positivity. It's never going to be that _universally_. Find your tribe eh?
Lying on a speed running forum about a time you got in a game. Making things online, just to dog pile on hating 1 particular person. The mean shit people said to each other on any IM platform. Cyber bullying was a word I remember being tossed around a lot in the mid 00's.
The corpo vibe of things today sucks. Totally agree. But it's not like the internet of 2005 was this utopia of good vibes and positivity. It's never going to be that _universally_. Find your tribe eh?
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However,
Fuck yeah they did :)