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Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

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Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#151

Post by researchers »

kossTKR wrote: post #9

I remember the thousands of interesting and weird pages listed on StumbleUpon - directories of obscure topics, avant garde art projects and detailed field specific blogs - many of them both pretty and thoroughly made. Mind expanding stuff. I feel like today all of that has moved to silos like tiktok and instagram, in extreme short form formats that are easily disposable - so almost no one creates truly great "compila…

A lot of that content has moved to newsletters and Twitter threads. If you know the right people to follow, there are a lot of niche, quirky, and insightful pieces that remind me of the homepages of yore.

One problem is that these things get lost in the timeline. So I made a StumbleUpon for Twitter threads [0]. Check it out!

[0] https://mood.surf

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#153

Post by runevault »

kossTKR wrote: post #9

I remember the thousands of interesting and weird pages listed on StumbleUpon - directories of obscure topics, avant garde art projects and detailed field specific blogs - many of them both pretty and thoroughly made. Mind expanding stuff. I feel like today all of that has moved to silos like tiktok and instagram, in extreme short form formats that are easily disposable - so almost no one creates truly great "compila…

StumbleUpon was such a fun way to blow time where you needed to do something in a bit but had a few spare minutes. At one point in time I probably had a lot of random ass fun bookmarks through that.

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#155

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

amelius wrote: post #10

> Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? Etiquette. For example, humor is frowned upon on some forums (HN included).

I've found that humor on HN is fine, it just can't be the low-effort trash you usually see on reddit.

Reddit loves to beat the dead horse until it's not even recognizable as something that used to be an animal.

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#156

Post by greggsy »

vitaflo wrote: post #134
ineedtosleep wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO it's not just about being bite-sized, memeable content catering to the lowest common denominator. It's that nearly everyone making content is copying marketing strategies. Back then it was more of a show-and-tell vibe, now everything is trying to sell something.

Everyone has become a sellout. When I was growing up this was considered a bad thing. Today it’s a virtue.

I feel like the pendulum is swinging back. Interest rates, rent, housing and commodity prices are up, so discretionary spending will almost certainly be lower.

Could that reduce demand for marketing and advertising in general? Maybe the tighter market will drive up demand for more aggressive data capture? Where does all that leave social sites and content creators who but their empire selling fast fashion an overpriced gaming accessories during a time when access to money was easier?

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#157

Post by NietzscheanNull »

researchers wrote: post #151
kossTKR wrote: post #9

I remember the thousands of interesting and weird pages listed on StumbleUpon - directories of obscure topics, avant garde art projects and detailed field specific blogs - many of them both pretty and thoroughly made. Mind expanding stuff. I feel like today all of that has moved to silos like tiktok and instagram, in extreme short form formats that are easily disposable - so almost no one creates truly great "compila…

A lot of that content has moved to newsletters and Twitter threads. If you know the right people to follow, there are a lot of niche, quirky, and insightful pieces that remind me of the homepages of yore. One problem is that these things get lost in the timeline. So I made a StumbleUpon for Twitter threads [0]. Check it out! [0] https://mood.surf

I really love the design/idea, but after hitting “Shuffle” a few times, it looks like it threw an unhandled exception due to an async error (now I just get a TypeError on every page load):

  O@https://mood.surf/build/routes/tweets/$tweetId-ID4B42CB.js:1:8106
  Zi@https://mood.surf/build/entry.client-R3Z7O5RV.js:5:64683
  li@https://mood.surf/build/entry.client-R3Z7O5RV.js:5:74110
  bs@https://mood.surf/build/entry.client-R3Z7O5RV.js:9:104095
  Kf@https://mood.surf/build/entry.client-R3Z7O5RV.js:9:104026
  st@https://mood.surf/build/entry.client-R3Z7O5RV.js:9:103886
  yi@https://mood.surf/build/entry.client-R3Z7O5RV.js:7:100770
  yi@[native code]
  @https://mood.surf/build/entry.client-R3Z7O5RV.js:5:50511
  @https://mood.surf/build/entry.client-R3Z7O5RV.js:1:4097
  _s@https://mood.surf/build/entry.client-R3Z7O5RV.js:5:50458
  we@https://mood.surf/build/entry.client-R3Z7O5RV.js:5:50393
  Ve@https://mood.surf/build/entry.client-R3Z7O5RV.js:7:98358
  bi@https://mood.surf/build/entry.client-R3Z7O5RV.js:5:69948
  bi@[native code]
  onChange@https://mood.surf/build/_shared/chunk-23IGV2EQ.js:9:31745
  u@https://mood.surf/build/_shared/chunk-23IGV2EQ.js:9:18647
  @https://mood.surf/build/_shared/chunk-23IGV2EQ.js:9:26238
  asyncFunctionResume@[native code]
  @[native code]
promiseReactionJobWithoutPromise@[native code]

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#158

Post by floren »

munificent wrote: post #149
vitaflo wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone has become a sellout. When I was growing up this was considered a bad thing. Today it’s a virtue.

Maybe less virtue and more necessary evil. It was a lot easier to not be a sellout in the economic boom of the 90s when you could find that paid the bills. The younger generation now is barely scraping by. They aren't into hustle culture because they love it, they do it because they're broke.

But 99.99% of people could stream Twitch 10 hours a day, put out half a dozen Youtube videos a week, chase every TikTok trend, and never make a dime. And at the end of it all? They wasted so much of their time doing things to chase the money, instead of things they liked, and when Twitch decides they're not going to preserve archives from unpopular streams, they don't even have the artifact left over.

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#159

Post by blippage »

passedandfuture wrote: post #6

Because you're using the wrong search engine. Try Mojeek for fresh results, and get involved with their community. I believe Mojeek will be a gamechanger.

I recently found www.gopher.com, which has a different feel to than Google or DuckDuckGo.

Re: Why isn't the internet more fun and weird? (2019)

#160

Post by egypturnash »

Akronymus wrote: post #147
egypturnash wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's tons of broke-ass furries who can't afford a ton of commissions. There's also a lot of furries with tech jobs who have more money than they know what to do with, and are willing to pay artists fees that approach a significant percentage of what the techie's hourly wage works out to. Furry art is a significant part of my income and trust me: furry commissions are crazy cheap . Yes, even that one guy charging i…

>Furry art is a significant part of my income looked up your art, pretty cool style youve got going. And yeah, corporate anything can be a pretty miserable experience. Also, maybe I shouldve added a /s to my implication that most if not all furries are somewhat wealthy.

Thanks!

And yeah, it didn't read as sarcasm to me, oh well :)

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