The internet is (a little) boring | Hacker News Reader

The internet is (a little) boring

blog.basementcommunity.com

"I think there seems to be a weird phenomenon going on right now, where a new online subculture is popping up, full of people who are burnt out on today's Internet and looking for ways to purge themselves of their online accounts, myself included. 2005-2015 is when I would argue were the best years for this subculture. You had cool new social networks popping up like Youtube and Facebook, really addictive games like Runescape, World of Warcraft, Club Penguin, Neopets, and meme culture came in full force with Lolcats and Rage Comics. People online were still more outcast-ish, and it wasn't necsesarily cool to be "terminally online," which is a phrase that you'll hear often today. Being online and part of these communities was new and fun, and there was this feeling of belonging to an "in crowd." It was less formulaic and everything you saw felt new and original."

> "Back in my day..."

I agree with the overall premise, but I would pull it back by 1 - 2 decades.

that's really interesting to hear. so you're saying people got fatigued once "Web 2.0" was becoming a thing? (not that Web 2.0 started with social media, but I think it blew up in the early 2000s at least).

Well. We Bitnet Relay people got bored by the taste-, and faceless IRC crowd suddenly appearing. What a bunch of uncultivated newfags they were. The ultimate watering down of internet quality however were the AOL and Compuserve CDs popping up everywhere and connecting the plebs to the holy lines. These people even didn't uudecode alt.binaries.tasteless... /s

You're part of the flood you speak of. Part of the _in_ crowd, not outcasts where "nerd" was used in a derogatory manner.

See how that works? ;-)

Oh, and AOL and Compuserve were better when they came on floppies.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com