Internet Metastasis
#1
This is a revival of my (unfortunately lost) thread on the previous forum.

Most internet technologies were at first simulations of things in the real world. E-mail is an electronic simulation of actual mail. Early internet forums were electronic simulations of bulletin boards displaying upcoming events. IRC was an (imperfect) attempt to recreate the atmosphere of a communal conversation space, as indicated by elements like the /me command that simulated the "embodied", non-verbal aspects of face-to-face communication. Adding to this, many user interfaces prior to 2010 implemented a "skeumorphic" design, which aimed to replicate the appearances and textures of real things:

(I especially liked the old YouTube icon - an old-timey TV, not pictured here.)

As the development of the Web continued, and people spent a greater portion of their conscious existence in the online space, many of the old skeumorphisms - those fetters of simile - were cast aside. Early e-mails began with hand-written subject lines and ended with "regards", just like snail mail, even though e-mail protocols generated these lines automatically. These practices are now uncommon outside of formal or bureaucratic settings. Similarly, as IRC gave way to newer platforms like Discord, /me and other avenues of "character expression" went out of fashion (considered a "cringe larp" by a generation alienated from physical action). They were succeeded by screencaps and reaction GIFs, which not only wildly diverge from how people act in meatspace, but are impossible to even conceive of in real life - imagine a guy carrying a flipbook or camcorder wherever he goes, showing fitting videos to interlocutors as they pop into his mind.

Now, as the Wired becomes the primary mode of communication for many, the early trend has been reversed. Online-only conventions are percolating into the real world. The most developed version of this phenomenon can be seen among "woke" leftoids, whose ideology is wholly formed by broadband hysteria:


You could write a dissertation on the bloke at 2:30, and the origin of each and every bizarre affectation he displays in the twenty-five seconds that follow. From his rattling off what is essentially a Twatter bio at the beginning, to the affected slam poet cadence he delivers the rest of his "speech" in, to the Special Emphasis he puts on Important Therapy Words, to his autistic unfamiliarity with body language (betrayed by the bizarre gestures he makes with his right hand, and his awkward conscious attempts to supplement them), to the way his speech drags on without underlying structure, as if he's expecting a storm of likes and retweets to follow every point he makes.

If you watch videos of Fentanyl Floyd riot organizers (esp. CHAZ / BHAZ "thought leaders", some of the most internet-poisoned people to ever live), you'll see many of the same behaviors manifested, all towards the same end: these people are trying to create an internet hugbox in real life. This was tractable in the days of the insular internet, of pseudonyms and infrequent real-life meetups; not so much in an all-encompassing web of faceposters and oversharers. These attempts will continue nonetheless, and the ensuing fallout will be funny, if nothing else.

Would like to hear your thoughts on this @anthony @Verl @capgras
#2
That was the longest 12 minutes of my life, I'm pretty sure. It was portrayed almost exactly like how I imagined an attempt by terminally online socialists would organise something like this: the incessant emphasis on making everyone feel as comfortable as possible, ignoring the fact that deviating from the norm for these social events would ironically make others uncomfortable (as can be seen by the old fella who was having too much trouble trying to vote online); the ridiculous bureaucratic kvetching over the dumbest stuff, like a modern day Sanhedrin; et cetera.
#3
(04-18-2022, 09:21 AM)Heil Wrote: There is no more "real life" like some people like to imply, the internet is a part of real life. You can't "log off", the internet is how you access your banking account, how you purchase things you can't find in increasingly downsizing local stores, how you do school work and often times how you do company work, and where most people spend their free time on using social media to detail every part of their life. All of this is a result of that.
This is something I've begun to realize more and more the past few couple years, mainly with the onset of Covid. A lot of restaurants and bars around me have just gotten rid of physical menus and put QR codes on tables, other services require you to 'check in' online to show you're there, the college I went to is getting rid of physical student IDs in favor of some online app/service. There's a continual transition to the digital, a lot of it had already been going on before, but I think a lot happened rather quickly during the pandemic under the guise of 'public safety.' If I recall correctly, a lot of cities that mandated vaccines for all indoor venues developed some sort of app, so you're either forced to carry papers or have your phone on you so they can check your status. We even have members of congress talking about mean tweets during a session. Stuff like this would have probably been unimaginable even 10 years ago.
#4
I have this idea I can't quite articulate regarding this. In the past we lived in the real world and acted on it through the virtual world/culture/society; now we live in the virtual and act on it through the real world. A fanged noumena sucking the colors from your vision. The roles are reversed, it's a game of hockey where the goals score players. I'm at the point where it's refreshing to meet a striver with no purpose but gaining status/wealth, at least they have one foot left in reality.
#5
Some time ago I happened to be wandering around town, and as I passed by a small teriyaki place run by an elderly chink immigrant (relevant as it implies that he's almost certainly quite offline) I was struck by the the lack of cohesive aesthetic, so to speak. I realized that within a fairly brief span of my own memory, a change had occurred in public commercial spaces, in short, a shift from a view of the space from the first person to the third. Previously, as far as I could tell, the spaces were largely curated unconsciously, by the immediate appearance, contextual, now everything in the space had to be curated and evaluated, ultimately from the camera's perspective. Everyone an actor, and everywhere a set.
#6
Great poasts relating to the effects of the internet on society. What I fear is how the long-term impacts of constant internet usage will be on our cognition. Will Gen Alpha, who already seem to spend more time in the Wired than the real world, have completely different forms of thinking, a la Sapir-Whorf theory. Are we even, a 'movement' with a majority of its members having grown up with the internet, ever able to concieve of a world before the internet? Are we doomed to only limit it? Or must we ascend, accelerationism?
#7
(04-19-2022, 01:41 AM)Verl Wrote: Great poasts relating to the effects of the internet on society. What I fear is how the long-term impacts of constant internet usage will be on our cognition. Will Gen Alpha, who already seem to spend more time in the Wired than the real world, have completely different forms of thinking, a la Sapir-Whorf theory.

They will have more power than we could ever conceive of. We are mere cyborgs witnessing the birth of a totally machinic race.
#8
(04-11-2022, 11:46 PM)Chud Wrote: If you watch videos of Fentanyl Floyd riot organizers (esp. CHAZ / BHAZ "thought leaders", some of the most internet-poisoned people to ever live), you'll see many of the same behaviors manifested, all towards the same end: these people are trying to create an internet hugbox in real life. This was tractable in the days of the insular internet, of pseudonyms and infrequent real-life meetups; not so much in an all-encompassing web of faceposters and oversharers. These attempts will continue nonetheless, and the ensuing fallout will be funny, if nothing else.

I'm optimistic that in the same sense these "thought leaders" manifested "their thing" in the real world, it is possible for "our thing" as well. I wonder how long will it take to get a politician campaigning on nigger-death-advocacy or for Trump to declare Dark MAGA?
#9
(04-19-2022, 04:56 AM)Guest Wrote:
(04-11-2022, 11:46 PM)Chud Wrote: If you watch videos of Fentanyl Floyd riot organizers (esp. CHAZ / BHAZ "thought leaders", some of the most internet-poisoned people to ever live), you'll see many of the same behaviors manifested, all towards the same end: these people are trying to create an internet hugbox in real life. This was tractable in the days of the insular internet, of pseudonyms and infrequent real-life meetups; not so much in an all-encompassing web of faceposters and oversharers. These attempts will continue nonetheless, and the ensuing fallout will be funny, if nothing else.

I'm optimistic that in the same sense these "thought leaders" manifested "their thing" in the real world, it is possible for "our thing" as well. I wonder how long will it take to get a politician campaigning on nigger-death-advocacy or for Trump to declare Dark MAGA?

Meme magic is indeed real, and as the algorithms get more and more elaborate and esoteric, I believe we will see a class of soothsayers and oracles who will direct the wind in the favour of any anon who can be the highest bidder.
#10
(04-19-2022, 04:16 AM)Chud Wrote:
(04-19-2022, 01:41 AM)Verl Wrote: Great poasts relating to the effects of the internet on society. What I fear is how the long-term impacts of constant internet usage will be on our cognition. Will Gen Alpha, who already seem to spend more time in the Wired than the real world, have completely different forms of thinking, a la Sapir-Whorf theory.

They will have more power than we could ever conceive of. We are cyborgs witnessing the birth of a totally machinic people.

Or, the Sun does a funny and fries all electronics, which would be even funnier in consequences. The total collapse is inevitable anyway, since there's literally no people to maintain the most basic of things - the destiny of the gen alpha is reenacting jonestown on a scale previously considered unimaginable



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