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What do you even look at on the internet anymore?

Garuf

Garuf

Member
Joined
30 Oct 2007
Messages
5,641
Location
Copenhagen
That's a serious question...
...when I was a kid and this was a new forum I could lose so much time to finding blogs from all over the world, random websites on everything from fashion, arts, design, to the correct amount of ferts to add to your (diesel) tank. Talking to people from all over, making friends in what felt like the whole world. There was a sense of weirdo community in everything and it was easy to keep in touch with people, find kinfolk, expand the mind.

These days though, I only turn on my computer to delete emails and because it's easier to type on a pc, I pulled my old rss feeds and all of the old weird blogs died half a decade ago if not longer. People I've known for over a decade I wouldn't begin to know how to find now that social media is dead, I don't even know what I'd search for anymore.

What are you lot looking at anymore and where? I was looking to revive get excited and I couldn't find a single bizarre blog, seems like everyone is trying to be an instagram influencer and I ain't got time for that.

So real talk, what are you even looking at on the net anymore?
 
Many of the YT channels on Aquariums and Plants l used to watch seem to have altered and I started to find now a difficult watch ,not because of sponsorship. I tend to only look in on around 3 or 4 now ,but l always point newcomers to UKAPS and Practical Fishkeeping Magazine
 
There’s a theory called Dead Internet Theory. It’s a speculative theory that believes large amounts of the internet is no longer run by real people but is instead dominated by bots, AI-generated content, and corporate-controlled algorithms.

While there’s definitely layers to this conspiracy, there’s certainly evidence out there to support it. Unless I’m in a very niche interest area of the internet (like growing plants underwater), I can actually believe a lot of what is on the internet is just bots and algorithms. I don’t know if that means humans are turning off to the internet or if actually humans prefer to be served algorithmically selected content. Alec Watson did an interesting video which addresses some of this very recently.



I don’t use any social media and haven’t for a long time. My internet experience is mainly work, my YouTube subscriptions and UKAPS. I stream a lot of music too.
 
News websites, UKAPS and shopping related stuff. Oh, and Wikipedia occasionally. Apart from that I keep off the web.
 
I'm a moderator on www.starwarsforum.co.uk so check in there regularly. It's a lot quieter than it was 10 years ago, but still a great place. Check in on here, Newsnow and Knees Up Mother Brown for West Ham news, BBC for news and sport, YouTube for various stuff. Still pretty active, but no social media, as it's a cesspit!
 
You Tube for sewing/making related stuff and FaceBook for wildlife pond groups. No X, Insta or any of the ones I haven't heard of!
Hours, obviously, on UKAPS!
 
TBH, UKAPS, Youtube.
Fanfiction & AO3 Many Many days spent reading AU stories from book and TV series i Like.
Prime and Ebay, Boohoo, Get Ready Comics, Insta/X,FB, Crunchyroll. And i like to scroll thru Zoopla at houses ill never own but nosey about.
 
I agree with you. Most of the internet these days is trash, not like it was even ~10 years ago. Im just going to say it out loud. Normies ruined the internet. Once smartphones and thus the internet became accessible to a larger part of the general population along with the low IQ social media addiction that seems commonplace these days, things started to go downhill in terms of quality with a side helping of trying to get users addicted to something or the other or to sell them something. We saw the same thing happen with gaming when it went mainstream during the Xbox 360 PS3 era.
Sometimes finding specific information is a monumental task in itself.
Forums are almost dead. Reddit is a barely usable alternative for me.
UX and website layouts are utter garbage most of the time.
I am constantly being told that Im a thief for blocking ads.
Everything needs a subscription or an App
So on and so forth

Apologies for the rant.

I mainly use the internet for the same stuff I always did - information, discussions and entertainment but the way that I do that now is significantly worse than it was 10 years ago
 
As a "digital native" I wasn't really knocking about when the internet was truly weird, but I do think you can find the weirdos on Reddit and tumblr. It's a bit of a mixed bag, but a good way of finding people with shared interests. I also watch a lot of very silly yet high quality YouTubers - if you like video essays about nonsense (video games, pro wrestling, film criticism) I recommend super eye patch wolf. If you're into politics and philosophy, contrapoints is amazing - they're huge videos though, I treat it more like a lecture series. Substack is a good way to keep up with people/topics like a blog, just emailed to you (so... A newsletter).
I still think there's a lot of weirdness on the internet, just not so easy to find. I think the blame doesn't lie with normal people, more with companies trying to monetise information and experience in every way possible. I myself have tried to be a normal person (when I was 16 I had a favourite Kardashian) - I wasn't very good at it, but I think it's very fair to attempt conformity in a society that bangs you over the head with it.

The internet should be a bit like the Antarctic - an unclaimed commons. Unfortunately that's not the case, and money rules. Still, doesn't mean we can't have our outposts, like UKAPS 🙂
 
I tend to visit the same small collection of pages and groups and have been doing for some years now. I check into my boardgame and RPG groups once or twice a week and have been doing that for 10 years or so. I visit the Met Office, BBC weather/news site and the occasional TV/Film site for something I particularly want to see and also do the odd bit of shopping for things that are difficult or impossible to get up here locally. Oh and I now visit this site too.
 
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