i’ve been thinking about the old web a lot in recent months. about the lack of ownership that plagues our generation. the disappearance of personal sites and hobby forums. feeling disconnected from history, from tradition, yearning to belong somewhere in an increasingly individualized world. seeing that for the first time in many generations i’m not expected to have physical copies of family photos, of art and music – and wishing that i had to. realizing that creating physical archives is not only optional but a goddamn chore, a strenuous walk upstream.

i wanna try and break down the things that have gotten worse. not to bitch and moan – although that is a nice bonus – but to organize my thoughts around it and actually do something meaningful. complaining without action is not entirely pointless – letting out frustration is healthy and important, and god knows we got frustration in spades – but it’s not the sort of thing i feel the world needs any more of, not here at least. so might as well try:

noise

less so of the physical kind – although that one is also getting worse, with more and more ostensibly-adult individuals forgetting that they occupy space in the real world when they blast brain-rotting vertical videos on public transport.

i moreso mean the noise that these people, and most everyone reading this, experience in their day-to-day online lives. the web is unusable without an ad blocker, and companies have been trying to crack down on those for years. cookie popups are wasting precious human hours and do nothing more than add distractions. and man, the distractions.

lock screen popups, chat notifications, random apps buzzing to let you know of a new business proposition, marketing emails, spam texts, a hyperspecific ad during your tiktok endless scroll and a sponsored segment that the platform insists is worth your time. friend suggestions of people you don’t know, inflammatory comments rising to the top of the recommended viewing order, essential apps that might as well make a quick buck with an ad while it loads and a streaming service gently reminding you that you could get a better service if you were less poor – and boy howdy are there apps out there that promise to help you be less poor.

choice

remember searching for things and actually finding them?

it’s hard to overstate how radical of a change was to move from searched content, to recommended content and all the way to algorithmically served content. companies are deciding what to put in front of our faces, how we should pass our days, and they do not have our best interest in mind. most of us know this, right? so why the hell does it keep working?

because discoverability is at an all time low, among other things. using youtube without recommendations makes it nearly impossible to find new channels. searching google will either lead you to reddit or ai sites. web rings don’t exist, and email newsletters need to squeeze through endless spam in your inbox. if you can't stand the algorithm, get out of the platform.

hostility

money doesn’t care about your feelings, until they’re up for grabs. the exploitation of the human mind has never been this advanced, with algorithmically-served vertical videos being the closest thing to an infinite entertainment machine that has ever been invented. the careful consideration of every detail, the type of content that will make you stay, the kind that will get you to come back, and most of all the emotional rollercoaster that is meticulously designed to be just unsatisfying enough.

comments are a whole different kind of hell. while there are pockets of lovely discussions, especially under well-crafted pieces of art that invite genuine engagement, it seems that the bottom of the barrel has never been this spacious. the ways in which any asshole can derail an entire conversation, jump into every thread to assert their god given right as a red blooded american do be a little shit. the power of bad actors is immense, and the job of preserving a decent place is thankless and cumbersome. entropy is pulling hard towards the baseline state of online activity: anonymous, inflammatory, low quality.

streaming

it looked so promising at the start. everything you want, any time you need, for the low-low price of the company operating in the red for a few years. but since then they’ve jacked the prices up, removed services, taken down human creations and in their place put slop. who needs art when you can have content?

this is part of a general lack of ownership. it’s both incredibly easy today to have too much junk and frustratingly hard to have anything you actually care about. the music you pay for is on a lease, tv series people have dedicated their entire lives to can disappear at the blink of an eye if they ever become unprofitable. things are not yours, they’re not even theirs.

ai

i’ve been one of the proponents of ai at the start. not a hardcore evangelist, but an excited fan. the rapid progress of large language models was incredible to see, and the potential uses were endless. the limit was not yet known. i wondered how it would look in two years.

and it looks like shit.

i think many of us knew that along with whatever improvements to our daily life, brand new forms of laziness will come. every phd that would become easier to write will accompany a hastily pasted article by an underpaid intern, soon to be replaced by an equally competent machine. and yet i never imagined it’ll be this bad.

search engines are becoming useless. spotify playlists include more soulless content that really deserves this acrid description as opposed to art. ai images reduce the already barely-existent effort of crap production to new lows. and ai itself, in almost all of its forms, seems to have hit a ceiling – and it’s… fine. no more, no less. it’s pretty good at translation, can write a decent program and useful for data organization and general advice. that’s it. and yet it’s everywhere, employed for everything, and demands even more effort from anyone who knows they deserve better. the walk upstream is a now a trudge.

yet giving in and tumbling down is not an option. time to get practical:

have better tools

i’ll soon be making a list of tools i use online to keep myself safe and sane. the internet as it stands is wasting our time and messing with our lives. it’s also an amazing place that we have the privilege and obligation to be in. might as well make the best out of it.

use better sites

you don’t always have to conform with the tech monoliths just because they say so. google search is making you question humanity? go with duckduckgo. spotify becoming more expensive? bandcamp is there. netflix just blocked your favorite show? may i offer pirating in these trying times.

own things

physical and otherwise. download mp3s off of spotify, take the .exes from steam to your drive. buy stuff in thrift shops, they’re cheaper and they tend to last. print photos and make albums so google can’t delete your memories. backup data, don’t let it rot.

make stuff

along with the enshittification of the larger web, more options are popping up for private website hosting. you can still make visual art, music and writing. and you can learn how to do those things entirely online! pretty neat, eh?

experience art

books, movies, games. go to museums (many have free days). read at the library. download media. there’s enough art to go around that is both old and free. and if you can, buy art from the artists themselves. enrich your soul with beauty.

read about it

you’re not alone. reading other people’s writing on the subject and similar topics can help inspire you to action, make you feel part of something, or just alleviate despair. this article by CJ The X is a good place to start.

be with people

social media is conditioning us to be alone, angry and scared of our fellow humans. while not everyone is decent folks, most are, more than the media would lend you to believe. go outside and meet others irl if you can, or at the very least find human-centric online spaces. spend time with friends and family, of any kind. have conversations. experience art together. play games. be there, in reality, in the place that you really are.

help others

big companies are predicated on the fact that most people aren’t tech savvy enough to know that they can do better. you probably have friends and family whos time is being eaten away by algorithms and ads. offer a hand. if they accept it, help them out and make their daily lives slightly better. it matters, and it scales.

all of this is indicative of a certain time we’re living in. god knows the state of the internet is hardly the most pressing issue these days. but it is a symptom, and while treating the symptoms isn’t the same as treating the condition, it’s a start. it can free up your mind to do better things and to live more beautifully. it can make you happier, and in my books, that is a valuable thing.

fight for your time and attention. protect your soul from the greed of others. have things that are dear to you and cherish them. make art because an ai can’t take the joy and miracle of creation away from you. love people and let them love you back. experience beauty, take part in community, be real and alive and help others and allow them to help you.

embrace quality. demand it. make it.