4 ms·
The Old Internet was mostly populated by English-speakers who could afford Internet access and had the attention span to work through the process of getting onl
by gary_0 3y ago
The Old Internet was mostly populated by English-speakers who could afford Internet access and had the attention span to work through the process of getting online. The ratio of legit hackers to Septemberites was a lot higher. Corporations had only the vaguest impression of how to exploit Internet users for profit. Foreign nation-states didn't yet have gigabit pipelines pumping out propaganda and misinformation. Cyberspace hadn't been industrialized yet.
Most of the junk you had to clear out of your forum beyond the usual dick pill spam was Serdar Argic[0] bot posts, Time Cube[1] style schizoposting, or trolling from the likes of GNAA[2]. You didn't really even know what they were on about, most of the time. You never felt like you were censoring a legitimate opinion, deleting stuff like that, and anyways, nobody complained. We were there to talk about Star Wars Episode I, make "all your base" jokes, or try to get our Linux drivers working because Bill Gates was the devil.
If you got banned from a popular website, it didn't affect your life outside the Internet at all. (Nowadays, if you die on the Internet, you die in real life.)
Google had no trouble keeping spam blogs out of the page 1 results, but gave you some interesting links if you looked up "santorum". Half the Internet seemed to think 9/11 was an inside job, and there were some frothy arguments about it, but believing either way usually didn't affect the rest of your identity.
It was a wonderful and crazy place, but it was the product of a particular time. And even though I'm angry that the Internet is now just bland junk posted inside digital gated communities, I doubt lightning is going to strike twice. Look to the future, not to the past.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serdar_Argic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serdar_Argic
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Cube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Cube
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNAA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNAA
- joiqj 3y agobtw, the gnaa still exists in a way, in the form of the LRH.
- asjfka 3y agoNon-english people and "foreign nation-states" being connected to the internet are not problematic. GNAA was deeply racist, homophobic and offensive.
- gary_0 3y ago> Non-english people ... being connected to the internet are not problematic I didn't say they were. Also, I meant undemocratic nation-states. And GNAA, offensive? You think?
- soligern 3y ago>wonderful and crazy place >GNAA Pick one. Weev is basically your standard Neo Nazi openly calling for the genocide of non whites. That “hilarious” trolling was a recruitment drive to enlist more people to that cause. That’s like saying Nazi Germany was a whimsical and silly place. You don’t give a shit because you’re not the butt of the joke.
- gary_0 3y agoRun-of-the-mill trolling didn't make the Internet Nazi Germany. You just delete that crap and move on, otherwise the trolls win.
- a5withtrrs 3y agoWhat is a 'Septemberite'?
- newoldhead 3y ago"eternal september" refers to when the internet became accessible to "normies," thus supplanting the old internet vibe (mainly hackers, engineers, etc) in favor of being useable by the general public.
- nehal3m 3y agoSomeone who went online for the first time in September, when college starts and students get a turnkey way to do that, as opposed to gaining the interest and working through the process themselves.