dreaming of a better internet

I myself write online of course and I will continue to do so but save for this essay, this latest contribution to the thousands of terabytes of jeremiads that festoon the worldwide web, I don’t have much to say about our online world anymore. I’m tired of it. Half an hour or so a day is ample time to catch up with my online community of people and... See more

Large parasocial platforms transformed the internet into a hostile and impersonal place. They feed our FOMO to keep us clicking. They exaggerate our differences for "engagement". They create engines for stardom to keep us creeping. They bait us into nutritionless and sensationalist content. Humanity cannot subsist on hype alone.

Small and sincere... See more

As with Trump’s shock jock politics, it’s up to us not to take the bait. We do not have to publicly denounce every incendiary ad, particularly when it comes from an anonymous poster or tiny seed startup. Instead of quote-tweeting, you can mute and ignore. Often, dis- engagement is the best way to waste the master-baiters’ time and money.

Anyway, I don’t want to seem like I’m arguing that the internet of 2023 is “fine” or “healthy”--it’s obviously not. Rather, I’d like to make the case that the internet of 2010 (or wherever you would place the peak of “fun” internet) wasn’t particularly healthy or fine, either, and it’s easy to mistake a sense of ease and comfort under bad... See more