5 ms·

Coming of Age at the Dawn of the Social Internet

70 points by cocacola1 3y ago

gwern 3y ago
A _Book of the Long Sun_ Gene Wolfe fan! I'm surprised he wasn't a _New Sun_ fan instead when he was in middle school. _Long Sun_ tends to appeal to older people.
- brobinson 3y ago
  This is the second reference to BotLS I've seen today on HN. The other was here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38938981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38938981 I've read the four BotNS books. Is BotLS worth it if I had mixed feelings about those?
  - gwern 3y ago
    Depends on why you didn't like New Sun. Long Sun is a rather different beast. I loved New Sun for the intricate writing and picaresque SF dying earth, time loops, meta-fiction, cosmology and so on; but Long Sun is written in a much flatter 'late Wolfe' style, is more straightforward and introspective, more of an extended meditation on religion (even false ones) & leadership & personal integrity. You can like both, but I don't think I've seen many people claiming to like them equally. (And Short Sun is even less popular - it's just a bit too weird in delving into Wolfe's subtle fixation on insects/vampires and memory loss/personal identity, and you have to get through Long Sun first which is almost as different from Short Sun as Long Sun was from New Sun... I'm not sure if anyone really likes Short Sun.)
  - myth_drannon 3y ago
    I enjoyed New Sun, but Long Sun was such a drag. I stopped on the third book in the middle, just couldn't push myself anymore.
jauntywundrkind 3y ago
> Still, I think something more fundamental has been lost for all of us as social media has evolved. It’s harder to find the spark of discovery, or the sense that the Web offers an alternate world of possibilities. Instead of each forging our own idiosyncratic paths online, we are caught in the grooves that a few giant companies have carved for us all. Matches up with my view, reasonably good captureance.
- genman 3y ago
  Yes, this happens when you don't curate your feed and accept the default feed provided by the companies. For example I checked out some artists in Instagram (that I don't use regularly) and I observed that closing the artist page will redirect onto main page instead of closing the app and this main page is filled with "engaging" garbage I really should not have any interest in. If you are not actively seeking for something then you will not find it. There still exits very unique content but it indeed is very often hidden in some closed Facebook forum that is not visible for search (e.g. googling). There is interesting content that does not surface by itself because it is not shared by masses but a lot of such content has also died when people have shut down their personal web pages or have lost access to them or the service they used has ceased to exist.
  - asdff 3y ago
    The author was getting at the fact that you are on instagram or facebook, rather than a unique website with its own ideas and sensibilities. That used to be the norm a decade or two ago: people wouldn't have a smattering of accounts they'd follow on a single platform, but a smattering of independent websites they'd visit. At least for me, those days felt a lot more exciting on the web.
    - genman 3y ago
      I certainly agree with you but a lot of that content got archived (and some of it is still directly available) but if for example Facebook would become extinct then a lot of content held there will follow without any rescue. A lot of niche content in now on Facebook in some groups or now even worse, in some group chats, or in closed groups or even worse, invite only groups. The content might be there but it is incredibly difficult to discover (it was once called a deep web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_web).
squigz 3y ago
https://archive.is/Ku8hd https://archive.is/Ku8hd
- linusg789 3y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20240113111222/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/coming-of-age-at-the-dawn-of-the-social-internet https://web.archive.org/web/20240113111222/https://www.newyo...
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
Based on/part of a forthcoming book by the author: Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/695902/filterworld-by-kyle-chayka/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/695902/filterworld-...
AlienRobot 3y ago
I agree that the web has gone downhill, but I don't think it's just the web. It's software in general. When we were new to computers, every application was new. Now, every application is a rehash of a previous application, except with missing features and a more "modern" look that completely disregards decades of what we know about UI/UX. One example that I think about a lot is how we have copy and paste and drag and drop, but that's it. That's been it for decades. Nobody has invented a new way of getting data from program A to program B in ages. By the way, Neocities is a website that tried to capture the Geocities feel by letting anybody just upload a static website hosted in a subdomain. They do seem to have some Lain fansites there.
- sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
  Everything just gets worse as you age. Sure, my dad said it too back then, but he just didn't get how the world moved on and improved. This time around though it's real, everything gets more stupid and dumb and I hate it.
  - waldothedog 3y ago
    Not clear if this is sarcasm or not?
    - AdrianB1 3y ago
      Probably not. You will see it yourself when you reach 50 years old.
    - hutzlibu 3y ago
      I think (hope) it was sarcasm, but one sign of this time and age is, that it is increasingly hard to tell. Often people themself don't know anymore .. So anyway, in this case I think the bitterness is real and the awareness, that it might be "just subjective" and not objective but that doesn't change the bitterness and misery of watching all those idiots out there ..
      - 3y ago
aussieguy1234 3y ago
I signed up to Nostr and it feels like an early version of the internet. Being supposedly uncensorable, there is the same toxic content you'll find in the mainstream social networks e.g. Twitter. But unlike on those platforms, it's not algorithmically boosted as "engaging content". Only the small minority that actively seeks it out will find it. On the mainstream sites I'm being regularly exposed to Russian/Chinese propaganda and content from other groups I did not sign up for. So far on Nostr, I'm getting none of this after following a few tags.
m3kw9 3y ago
With AI avatars that one day maybe always available to talk and talks as long as you want and as naturally as you’d like, this is why it is the dawn.

70 points by cocacola1 3y ago

A _Book of the Long Sun_ Gene Wolfe fan! I'm surprised he wasn't a _New Sun_ fan instead when he was in middle school. _Long Sun_ tends to appeal to older people.

brobinson 3y ago
This is the second reference to BotLS I've seen today on HN. The other was here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38938981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38938981 I've read the four BotNS books. Is BotLS worth it if I had mixed feelings about those?
- gwern 3y ago
  Depends on why you didn't like New Sun. Long Sun is a rather different beast. I loved New Sun for the intricate writing and picaresque SF dying earth, time loops, meta-fiction, cosmology and so on; but Long Sun is written in a much flatter 'late Wolfe' style, is more straightforward and introspective, more of an extended meditation on religion (even false ones) & leadership & personal integrity. You can like both, but I don't think I've seen many people claiming to like them equally. (And Short Sun is even less popular - it's just a bit too weird in delving into Wolfe's subtle fixation on insects/vampires and memory loss/personal identity, and you have to get through Long Sun first which is almost as different from Short Sun as Long Sun was from New Sun... I'm not sure if anyone really likes Short Sun.)
- myth_drannon 3y ago
  I enjoyed New Sun, but Long Sun was such a drag. I stopped on the third book in the middle, just couldn't push myself anymore.

jauntywundrkind 3y ago

> Still, I think something more fundamental has been lost for all of us as social media has evolved. It’s harder to find the spark of discovery, or the sense that the Web offers an alternate world of possibilities. Instead of each forging our own idiosyncratic paths online, we are caught in the grooves that a few giant companies have carved for us all. Matches up with my view, reasonably good captureance.

genman 3y ago
Yes, this happens when you don't curate your feed and accept the default feed provided by the companies. For example I checked out some artists in Instagram (that I don't use regularly) and I observed that closing the artist page will redirect onto main page instead of closing the app and this main page is filled with "engaging" garbage I really should not have any interest in. If you are not actively seeking for something then you will not find it. There still exits very unique content but it indeed is very often hidden in some closed Facebook forum that is not visible for search (e.g. googling). There is interesting content that does not surface by itself because it is not shared by masses but a lot of such content has also died when people have shut down their personal web pages or have lost access to them or the service they used has ceased to exist.
- asdff 3y ago
  The author was getting at the fact that you are on instagram or facebook, rather than a unique website with its own ideas and sensibilities. That used to be the norm a decade or two ago: people wouldn't have a smattering of accounts they'd follow on a single platform, but a smattering of independent websites they'd visit. At least for me, those days felt a lot more exciting on the web.
  - genman 3y ago
    I certainly agree with you but a lot of that content got archived (and some of it is still directly available) but if for example Facebook would become extinct then a lot of content held there will follow without any rescue. A lot of niche content in now on Facebook in some groups or now even worse, in some group chats, or in closed groups or even worse, invite only groups. The content might be there but it is incredibly difficult to discover (it was once called a deep web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_web).

squigz 3y ago

https://archive.is/Ku8hd https://archive.is/Ku8hd

linusg789 3y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20240113111222/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/coming-of-age-at-the-dawn-of-the-social-internet https://web.archive.org/web/20240113111222/https://www.newyo...

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

Based on/part of a forthcoming book by the author: Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/695902/filterworld-by-kyle-chayka/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/695902/filterworld-...

AlienRobot 3y ago

I agree that the web has gone downhill, but I don't think it's just the web. It's software in general. When we were new to computers, every application was new. Now, every application is a rehash of a previous application, except with missing features and a more "modern" look that completely disregards decades of what we know about UI/UX. One example that I think about a lot is how we have copy and paste and drag and drop, but that's it. That's been it for decades. Nobody has invented a new way of getting data from program A to program B in ages. By the way, Neocities is a website that tried to capture the Geocities feel by letting anybody just upload a static website hosted in a subdomain. They do seem to have some Lain fansites there.

sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y ago
Everything just gets worse as you age. Sure, my dad said it too back then, but he just didn't get how the world moved on and improved. This time around though it's real, everything gets more stupid and dumb and I hate it.
- waldothedog 3y ago
  Not clear if this is sarcasm or not?
  - AdrianB1 3y ago
    Probably not. You will see it yourself when you reach 50 years old.
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    I think (hope) it was sarcasm, but one sign of this time and age is, that it is increasingly hard to tell. Often people themself don't know anymore .. So anyway, in this case I think the bitterness is real and the awareness, that it might be "just subjective" and not objective but that doesn't change the bitterness and misery of watching all those idiots out there ..
    - 3y ago

aussieguy1234 3y ago

I signed up to Nostr and it feels like an early version of the internet. Being supposedly uncensorable, there is the same toxic content you'll find in the mainstream social networks e.g. Twitter. But unlike on those platforms, it's not algorithmically boosted as "engaging content". Only the small minority that actively seeks it out will find it. On the mainstream sites I'm being regularly exposed to Russian/Chinese propaganda and content from other groups I did not sign up for. So far on Nostr, I'm getting none of this after following a few tags.

m3kw9 3y ago

With AI avatars that one day maybe always available to talk and talks as long as you want and as naturally as you’d like, this is why it is the dawn.