new internet

The timeline isn’t settled.

The @-mention isn’t settled.

Nothing is settled. It’s 2003 again!

If you are 22 years old, Twitter has been around for about as long as you’ve known how to read. YouTube is fixed as firmly as the stars. I honestly don’t know how that feels, but I wonder if it’s claustrophobic?

🚨This is the trap that social media, and by extension all of us, are in:

📈Toxicity drives use. Lowering toxicity drops ad sales (if you are ad supported) & engagement (even if you are not)

📉Toxicity spreads like a disease. It turns regular users toxic & makes networks awful

Back in the 2000s, a lot of blogs were about blogs , about blogging. If that sounds exhaust­ingly meta, well, yes — but it was also SUPER generative. When the thing can describe itself, when it becomes the natural place to discuss and debate itself, I am telling you: some flywheel gets spinning, and powerful things start to happen.

About this Class #

There are two meanings of internet:

• the infrastructure that connects computing devices,


• or the ecosystem of applications built on that infrastructure.

When the average person says “internet” they usually refer to the second definition. This class, on the other hand, explores the first.

But, the enshittification of the internet isn't a consequence of entropy, it's a choice. And it's blatantly clear that the choice of the builder of these systems aren't trying to help their users anymore.