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I do miss when there was more web on the Web. I've been wondering if the problem is that I don't search as much as I used to, or if there just isn't as many fun
by Pigo 9y ago
I do miss when there was more web on the Web. I've been wondering if the problem is that I don't search as much as I used to, or if there just isn't as many fun sites to visit these days. There actually used to be hangouts on the web outside of chat and social media, like bizarre, bangedup, or the old 4chan. It used to be a blast just to read through 4chanarchive, to see how many times Pawn Stars got called during the last BattleToads thread. I used to see anons in front of the Scientology building in Cincy on a regular basis. I think that's why I enjoyed HWNDU so much.
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoYou say "more web the Web", but your main example is that your bubble was 4chan; this article implies the exact same thing, but with the bubbles being Google, Facebook and Amazon.
- d3ckard 9y agoI think his point is more that Web used to be plenty of smaller bubbles, with distinct culture and separate communities. Now we have only giant bubbles, which get homogenised, as everything of that scale is. I share the sentiment.
- Pigo 9y agoYeah, you definitely articulated it better than I could have. But I mentioned other sites besides just 4chan. Even IRC had networks full of active rooms, with people from around the world. I just know there used to be more things that I considered fun, and now I'm hard pressed to find such things. I'm not going into Freenet or Tor just to find something that doesn't violate YouTube or Facebook rules.
- TallGuyShort 9y ago>> Even IRC had networks full of active rooms >> I'm not going into Freenet Well there's your answer.
- Pigo 9y agoI know there's a freenet on IRC, but it seems to be people mostly talking about programming. Which is handy sometimes. But the freenet I was actually referencing was this project https://freenetproject.org https://freenetproject.org
- TallGuyShort 9y agoOoohhh and what I'm thinking of is actually freenode. My mistake :)
- eikenberry 9y agoIs this site a giant bubble? I spend a lot of time here and don't think of it that way.
- fiatjaf 9y agoYour comment is badly written and full of unintelligible words.
- dang 9y agoWe've asked you before not to post unsubstantive comments. Here you've crossed into incivility as well. If you keep doing this we're going to ban you, so would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and clean up your act? All: Other comments being bad doesn't mean it's ok to make the site even worse. The guidelines cover this issue too, so please read and follow them!
- fiatjaf 9y agoOk, you're right. I'm sorry.
- bertil 9y agoI can’t (and I won’t try to) tell how hair-raising was your experience of 4-chan, but Facebook has groups with… interesting content. Nothing that would get Facebook itself in legal trouble (actual CP & terrorism) but those still exist, if more discreet. If you object to having your name associated to it, reddit also has fun places.
- Pigo 9y agoI definitely reddit, and try to cultivate subreddits I find interesting. But just commenting and looking at funny pictures is only fun for so long. I know that old 4chan carries some other connotations, but I don't think people realize how much other stuff was happening there. It was more about things happening in real life, but just written down for posterity.
- slededit 9y agoIt's hard when the search engines you use are actively guiding you to things that are similar to what you searched for before. Try google from a library computer some time and you'll see the bubble that's been created for you.
- alexanderstears 9y agoThere are too many normies on the web these days.