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

jarredsumner.com

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

#241

Post by WillPostForFood »

hbn wrote: post #100
marginalia_nu wrote: post #40

All the fun and weird stuff is still around, it just typically doesn't SEO well and doesn't show up on Google, and is too long-tail to show up on popularity-based algorithms like those of Reddit or Facebook. I've spent the last year or so building tools and algorithms specifically to dig up "fun and weird". It's still there: https://search.marginalia.nu/explore/random

There's still something to be said about the fact that all the mainstream internet platforms don't really encourage much in terms of "internet creativity" outside of the tight boundaries that are allowed (uploading a video, writing text, posting a picture, etc) The fact that MySpace was mainstream and allowed for HTML/CSS hacking did exactly what the article said -- it tricked a generation of teenagers into learning…

The good thing about MySpace, which was arguably also its weakness to Facebook, was that you weren't forced to use a real name. You could create multiple accounts, multiple identities, let your freak flag fly. Facebook/Instagram are so tied to people's real lives that you don't just have to filter yourself, you basically have to construct a false happy life for public display.

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

#242

Post by Blikkentrekker »

O__________O wrote: post #21
Blikkentrekker wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction: English-language Google is. — I find that very often the vaunted Anglo-Saxon moralism indeed only polices English content. I can find the most interesting and entertaining subjects searching in Japanese that do not show up when the same search is replicated in English, where it instead gives me something only barely related to my search that was simply popular enough. It's quite simple how Twitter is actu…

Every culture has their norms, including Japan. Japan may have some areas they are more flexible with, but they have just as many, if not more that they rigid about too. People are different, trying to make them the same would be just as boring.

Perhaps Japan does, but I'm simply saying that Anglo-Saxon moral overlords do no care about enforcing Japan's sense of moral offence, only their own, or even when written in Japanese.

People have long noted that one can get away with writing many things that would have one banned or removed on Reddit or Twitter, so long as one not do it in English but in another language. The same thing applies to Youtube's anti-swearword system that really only demonitizes based on English swearwords, not in any other language.

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

#244

Post by anthk »

hudsonhs wrote: post #236
hbn wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a site I like to link whenever this discussion comes up (not associated): https://wiby.me I love hopping in and hitting the "surprise me" every once in a while, and reading some obscure webpage written by an actual person with a passion for a subject. In the past I've seen a site dedicated to the soundtrack for a film series (I can't remember which), not even necessarily streaming the soundtrack or something,…

I clicked "surprise me" and found a page that has a picture of astronauts on the ISS with SPHERES: http://www.madsci.org/ In high school my friends and I were on a team for a robotics/programming competition run by NASA and MIT that involved programming 3d models of these SPHERES to do some action in a virtual space against an opponent. But if you made it to the final round, you got to watch your code get executed by…

Perfect page for Links+ on my OBSD powered crappy Atom N270 netbook :).

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

#247

Post by Nasrudith »

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.

Frankly it always struck me as kind of insane that it was considered a bad thing. Especially since the definition of selling out seemed to consist of any and everything while not being successful. Was it some hippie movement vestige or something?

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

#248

Post by tastysandwich »

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 awesome!

I remember when I first showed my mum how to use a computer, StumbleUpon (the FF add-on) was one of the first things I installed. She was hooked! And then she'd email me every time she saw something interesting - which was every 5 minutes...

I guess now the equivalent is your mum tagging you on Facebook?

(Thankfully my mum's not on social media)

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

#249

Post by jacooper »

Cr4shMyCar wrote: post #234
fleddr wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I think we have a discovery problem. There's plenty of room for both groups. In a way the internet is limitless. A lot of that weirdness still exists, it's just incredibly hard to find.

That weirdness does still exist, whether it's kept up from a long time ago or people making brand-new weird stuff. I got into making a site on Neocities, essentially a modern Geocities equivalent, a while back after a friend told me about it. I didn't end up sticking with it too long, but I found so many gloriously weird personal sites, projects, shrines, zines, and fan pages.

Quick question, what makes Neocities different than Cloudflare/GitHub/GitLab/Codeberg/x Pages? Its just like any static page hosting right? The selling point is its open source?(Codeberg and GitLab are open source.)

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

#250

Post by jacooper »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #228
fleddr wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I think we have a discovery problem. There's plenty of room for both groups. In a way the internet is limitless. A lot of that weirdness still exists, it's just incredibly hard to find.

That's a good point. I'd love to find a small chatroom full of a couple dozen strangers who share my interests, and many thousands of such chatrooms surely exist, but I'd never find one unless I had a friend point me to it.

I mean, you and me and many other are here on HN, so I think close enough?
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