>What happened? My theory involves the period where the line between "internet" and "regular" media evaporated. All media now considers the internet a first-cl

>What happened? My theory involves the period where the line between "internet" and "regular" media evaporated. All media now considers the internet a first-class delivery platform. That wasn't compatible with the idea that the things on the internet default to being understood as frivolous and untrustworthy. Like, yes, on a purely technical level it's compatible. We did once have an internet where it was the job of every single person or media outlet to earn their legitimacy to an audience who had a default-ignore attitude. In practice, it was an incompatibility that caused force vectors in the world to evolve towards a solution. The goal condition being that frivolous "offline" media could go online without being exposed as frivolous bullshit. And the answer that fell out of the system was that everything became all serious all the time. I don't have a good explanation, this idea is kinda fresh in my mind. But I think it's the forest containing the trees I used to complain about.