I want to ask you all about your thoughts or opinions on the idea that there exists even today the presence of a thriving authentic internet.
Having just watched n0thanky0u's recent youtube video titled 'I miss authenticity on YouTube' (I refer to this only as a reference point, not to discuss the video content itself) I found my thoughts coming back to a subject that I often speculate on, that even now there may exist a, dare I say it, large number of original, compelling, thoughtful content creators (sorry) that consistently put out quality ideas, media and opinions.
There are a number of supporting arguments I have to support this idea, of which I will summarise briefly a few below: 1. Certainly there do exist *some* such people (I will use the word 'people' as a catchall for the individuals themselves, the websites, blogs etc that they maintain, and their content) who, forgive me for not naming any here, you will certainly be aware of. Think of those niche blogs you visit; those really obscure threads that you follow. We acknowledge as an axiom that they do exist although at first consideration we might admit that they appear very few and far between. 2. The problem of the scarcity of said people can be mitigated by considering that the total sum of internet users has swelled to magnitudes of the total number of internet users from, let's say, the year 2000. Let us consider the admittedly hypothetical idea that the number of quality people has remained the same and it follows that their work only becomes all the more obscured by the overwhelming swathes of trash that constitutes the modern day web and its content. What might be the top 1% quality work from 2000 might now make up 0.0001% of the current mass by number, even if the gross number remained the same. I don't see any evidence that the total sum of quality people (I can't bear to use the phrase 'content creator' any more than I can help) could not have remained the same or even increased in the past quarter century. This is of course a private speculation of mine since I see no evidence of the contrary either. The modern internet does not allow quality content to float to the surface layer. It must be sought and then ideally shared among friends and in the very obscure corners that all of us here frequent from time to time. Again, the modern web won't allow such things to be visible in a high throughfare platform. 3. An answer to the question 'So where are they?' They are here, and they are there in those standalone websites. By definition any work worth its salt won't be on ****'s front page or ****'s feed or timelines. We must seek them out ourselves like we used to, remember? They are too frail to stand the massive userbases of **** websites so they must be furtive and elusive, to be heard about by being shared among likeminded friends. So naturally they can seem difficult or impossible to find without some effort or time. However to restate point 1. *they do exist* and it's our duty to encourage them, frequent them, share them and to preserve them.
We (you and I here) occupy a very small island community in what seems like an internet of continents and we are aware of ourselves and said continents. Could there be other islands out there of which we at least for now are unaware of? And could they too be unaware of us? I have tried to avoid making definite statements here about whether the amount of 'good work' is greater than it was in the golden age of the internet or if it is dying out because I do not know the answer. I want to know what you might have to say about this subject.
I want to preface this by saying, I do think it is likely that there are /many/ pocket isolated groups of "quality people" as you put it.
so where are they? this island only exists because the confluence of niche interests created a person who wanted to escape discord, had experience with chan culture, and had the know how to host a text board. this "denpa" has computer literacy, tech minimalism, and FOSS, as close to it's core as otaku media. Imagine a different island based around gothic lolita fashion. where would they be? would there be any drive to escape discord if they ended up there? no probably not. But they might still want public facing sites. Lowest common denominator then - neocities? I know you discount the giant shithubs, but i suspect many "quality" people who havn't found islands are posting on corpo web and getting hardly any traction: Youtube videos with <20 views, instagrams with 3 followers, medium articles with 10 reads, etc. It's hard to find these types for obvious reasons. additionally this kind of feedback conditions people who would become prolific to stop, a lot of the time.
3 Name: Anonymous2024-06-17 23:15
>>2 ie they are likely to become lurkers much of the time
I have watched a whole big mountain of podcasts and when it comes to day in the life snippets of some guy wanting to talk about whatever he's thinking about, the only things I've watched that are totally like that are n0 (with his pretty rich tapestry of topics he's found on the internet) and then Sam Hyde on Hydewars being low key miserable about his firing from adult swim and talking about lifestyle of a creative person/trying to give life advice.
I'd definitely like more rambles of people about topics they're thinking about, i just finished the 2nd half of the 12 hour podcast
Having just watched n0thanky0u's recent youtube video titled 'I miss authenticity on YouTube' (I refer to this only as a reference point, not to discuss the video content itself) I found my thoughts coming back to a subject that I often speculate on, that even now there may exist a, dare I say it, large number of original, compelling, thoughtful content creators (sorry) that consistently put out quality ideas, media and opinions.
There are a number of supporting arguments I have to support this idea, of which I will summarise briefly a few below:
1. Certainly there do exist *some* such people (I will use the word 'people' as a catchall for the individuals themselves, the websites, blogs etc that they maintain, and their content) who, forgive me for not naming any here, you will certainly be aware of. Think of those niche blogs you visit; those really obscure threads that you follow. We acknowledge as an axiom that they do exist although at first consideration we might admit that they appear very few and far between.
2. The problem of the scarcity of said people can be mitigated by considering that the total sum of internet users has swelled to magnitudes of the total number of internet users from, let's say, the year 2000. Let us consider the admittedly hypothetical idea that the number of quality people has remained the same and it follows that their work only becomes all the more obscured by the overwhelming swathes of trash that constitutes the modern day web and its content. What might be the top 1% quality work from 2000 might now make up 0.0001% of the current mass by number, even if the gross number remained the same. I don't see any evidence that the total sum of quality people (I can't bear to use the phrase 'content creator' any more than I can help) could not have remained the same or even increased in the past quarter century. This is of course a private speculation of mine since I see no evidence of the contrary either.
The modern internet does not allow quality content to float to the surface layer. It must be sought and then ideally shared among friends and in the very obscure corners that all of us here frequent from time to time. Again, the modern web won't allow such things to be visible in a high throughfare platform.
3. An answer to the question 'So where are they?'
They are here, and they are there in those standalone websites. By definition any work worth its salt won't be on ****'s front page or ****'s feed or timelines. We must seek them out ourselves like we used to, remember? They are too frail to stand the massive userbases of **** websites so they must be furtive and elusive, to be heard about by being shared among likeminded friends. So naturally they can seem difficult or impossible to find without some effort or time. However to restate point 1. *they do exist* and it's our duty to encourage them, frequent them, share them and to preserve them.
We (you and I here) occupy a very small island community in what seems like an internet of continents and we are aware of ourselves and said continents. Could there be other islands out there of which we at least for now are unaware of? And could they too be unaware of us? I have tried to avoid making definite statements here about whether the amount of 'good work' is greater than it was in the golden age of the internet or if it is dying out because I do not know the answer. I want to know what you might have to say about this subject.
"Too weird to live, and too rare to die."