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I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

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Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#21

Post by JimboOmega »

foolofatom wrote: post #13

I think the internet is less fun now -- I can't decide if its from maturation of technology or maturation of people though. (Has anyone else felt like things became less fun as they got older?) I felt a greater sense of community 10 years ago when I mostly used IRC and PHP BBs. The communities were smaller, and it was fun even if you disliked people. Flame wars and trolling were mostly for the audience's amusement, b…

I don't know either but I have absolutely had the same experience. Although for me the heyday of IRC was 20 years ago, and even then (in the late 90s) it felt dated and quaint. People at that time were moving on from ICQ to AIM, and IRC was the old, weird place you went to get anime DivX videos in particular.

I do think the maturation of "troll culture" has really devalued a lot of the Internet. Virtually any event or topic has groups around it dedicated to being as loud as they possibly can, and that kind of sucks some of the air out of it. Loudness is way overvalued by the Internet.

I enjoyed going into IRC chats and spamming offensive things when I was 14 (more than 20 years ago), but that phase lasted a few months, if that, for me. It seems to be almost a profession now - my idea of offensive was just repeated curse words and flooding. Trolls these days go all out.

And it's not that I can't ignore them, but it feels the broader world can't, and we have to always fight about what to do about them, and how whatever asshole on twitter said whatever super offensive thing or how somebody doxxed somebody or whatever.

Plus! Wikipedia has gotten old. When I was young I was curious about tons of things but going to the library to look them up was way too much work. Answers at the touch of a button? Links to related content? It was endlessly valuable and interesting but I've kind of exhausted most of the random topics I was interested in. I still spend a lot of time on wikipedia, and I'm still curious about new things, but the backlog isn't what it was then.

It's sort of like 80's music. For a few years in the mid-2000's I kept being shocked how a favorite 80's station would find yet another hit I had never heard but now fell in love with. But the musical content of the decade was indeed finite, and I can't remember the last time I fell in love with a new 80's song (I've moved on to KPop but that's another story).

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#23

Post by hugh4life »

I don't have this problem. My problem is that I'm so good at finding interesting live internet drama and stories that I get extremely bored with most fictional forms. The only fictional books and movies I have any desire to consume are the books and movies I wish I had read or watched when I was much younger.

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#24

Post by jakespencer »

cityzen wrote: post #6

I have been saying I've "reached the end of the internet" for awhile now. I am 44 and have been working on the web since mid 90s. I remember so much cool stuff from then. Trying to get a 56k modem to work, dealing with the fact that you couldn't always get online or if you did you could get kicked off at any time. I remember streaming the Tibetan Freedom Concert with realplayer back in '98. The first mp3 i got, napst…

I have nothing interesting to add, except that I literally just stood up from reading House of Leaves in bed before sleep.

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#25

Post by wakkaflokka »

nanomonkey wrote: post #14

The author hasn't come across the decentralized web (ie scuttlebutt or dat). That's where I've found all the personalized interesting content.

Can you expand a bit more on this? How do you find content on these decentralized services?

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#26

Post by lancewiggs »

slagfart wrote: post #20
nanomonkey wrote: post #14

The author hasn't come across the decentralized web (ie scuttlebutt or dat). That's where I've found all the personalized interesting content.

pls help me get online, nerd Seriouspost: Agree with all that’s been said. Corporations have turned the web into an unpalatable wasteland. The prospect of someone finding out my name and job has taken all the joy out of calling someone a fuckhead online. I want to find it again. I will start searching, but the good communities I’ve found have been invite only.

Did your joy of calling someone else something bad remove the joy for everyone else?

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#27

Post by dchuk »

foolofatom wrote: post #13

I think the internet is less fun now -- I can't decide if its from maturation of technology or maturation of people though. (Has anyone else felt like things became less fun as they got older?) I felt a greater sense of community 10 years ago when I mostly used IRC and PHP BBs. The communities were smaller, and it was fun even if you disliked people. Flame wars and trolling were mostly for the audience's amusement, b…

I’ve actually been thinking about this recently, as I was also a heavy forum user back in the day.

Why don’t we just start a forum for the HN crowd? Not a new interpretation of the forum model or anything like that, literally any instance of vbulletin or phpbb or something comparable and “traditional”.

If people are genuinely interested in this, I would be up for spinning something up over the weekend.

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#28

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

He's just old. Go to Tumblr, Facebook groups, Instagram. There's thousands of places to waste your time with vapid, unyielding streams of barely entertaining content. I recently spent hours going through bad geography memes. Geography. Memes.

Or you could go old-school. Fark.com is still around, as is SomethingAwful. Reddit has tons of content. And if you're not at work and looking for a horrifying thrill ride, 4chan. IRC is just kind of depressing after you've been away from it for a while... like, a decade later, these same people are still sitting on these channels every day, all day? Then again, I'm still on this waste-of-time news feed...

Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore

#30

Post by PhasmaFelis »

dchuk wrote: post #27
foolofatom wrote: post #13

I think the internet is less fun now -- I can't decide if its from maturation of technology or maturation of people though. (Has anyone else felt like things became less fun as they got older?) I felt a greater sense of community 10 years ago when I mostly used IRC and PHP BBs. The communities were smaller, and it was fun even if you disliked people. Flame wars and trolling were mostly for the audience's amusement, b…

I’ve actually been thinking about this recently, as I was also a heavy forum user back in the day. Why don’t we just start a forum for the HN crowd? Not a new interpretation of the forum model or anything like that, literally any instance of vbulletin or phpbb or something comparable and “traditional”. If people are genuinely interested in this, I would be up for spinning something up over the weekend.

That could be interesting.
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