Why am I even here? A reflection on old v new internet
12.1.2025
Why am I even here? A reflection on old v new internet
I have found myself logging onto Gaia Online every few years, checking things out, editing my avatar, spending a few hours in the Rally, only to get bored and forget about it until I inevitably find myself back there again. I know I have longed for an AIM comeback. And I was barely on myspace for a second before everyone moved to Facebook, but even that I remember fondly.
These spaces were what I, and many others, call "old internet". A place where content was sorted chronologically, everything was totally customizable with a bare minimum knowledge of HTML/CSS, and there wasn't an algorithm feeding you content day in and day out. If you are reading this I'm sure you are familiar with the concept as Neocitites itself is a callback to old internet.
Now obviously, if there is old internet there has to be new internet (which I will call nu internet as a reference to my favorite music genre for the rest of this post). Nu internet is mostly comprised of mainstream social media platforms and AI generated search results. It is highly monetizable, with little to no friction placed on its users, and keeps a very minimalist appearance. It's main function is to keep you eating, much like a bag of potato chips except this bag never ends. The content can't be chronological or eventually you will catch up to the last time you were online, in turn, finishing the bag. There can't be any friction or you will stop eating (if someone were to take your family sized bag of chips when you were halfway through it, it is unlikely that you would fight them for it for that long... you might actually be grateful).
TikTok is Lays, Myspace was a home cooked potato stew.
I'm tired of eating fucking flavorless potato chips.
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Now I am not going to spend the rest of this time going into why one is better over the other in any more detail. Other people way smarter than me have talked about his topic extensively (I will link to a very long Youtube video at the end of this that you should check out if you'd like to learn more). If I were to sit here and talk about that I'd just be regurgitating what they have to say anyways. Although, there is something I would like to add to the conversation that I believe is being left out.
Yes, old internet has it's charm and wonder. It's exciting in a way that nu internet can never really be and if you haven't spent much time in old internet spaces I HIGHLY encourage you to. It is more creative and makes us more tech savvy. It doesn't rot our brains from the inside out. But it has a problem....there is too much friction. There is a reason Facebook became SO BIG at the time it came out. It solved a lot of problems people had with the old internet that made it inaccessible to many users. All you had to do was log in and much of the work of profile/content creation and community building was all but done for you.
This may seem hypocritical because the very thing that makes old internet so good IS the friction. Without it, it would just devolve into what we have today, except maybe with more blinkies. Having to create your own profile layouts and going out of your way to interact with content instead of it just being fed to you, these things create friction. AND THAT'S GOOD. It makes you a more conscious and active participant instead of just a mindless consumer. BUT THE PROBLEM IS, that this constant creation and curation creates burnout eventually. If people are going to social media to not feel so alone and bored (the two main reasons people use it) then old internet only kinda solves number two. Loneliness will still be an issue and that will kill the excitement eventually, making even number 2 something that old internet doesn't address long term.
I hear the protests now. "there's tons of community on old internet!" and "nu internet doesn't solve these problems either!"
My answers to that are:
1. Sure, but how accessible is it?
2. You are right, however that doesn't matter. It's about people's perception.
But one thing at a time.
1.The community of old internet is hard to touch as there isn't a social media platform that is used by a solid block of users for people to interact with each other. Sure there is like space hey....but how many people are using that? Gaia online is still up but that website is kinda a crap shoot and I haven't seen more than 4,000 users on at once in over a decade. There are these personal sites, but the average person is not going to want to make their own ENTIRE WEBSITE just to build community. And even then, you have to spend so much time checking out other people's websites to find someone you might have something in common with and then from there who knows if you will even click. You could use nu internet to find old internet people but then at that point the whole thing seems stupid.
And if you don't have anyone to talk to or to share with, the extra effort you put into creating your own website or clicking through a bunch of forums to find someone talking about something you care about who also seems interesting and is not 16yrs old on space hey just doesn't seem worth it. It kills the fun entirely.
2.Nu internet doesn't solve these problems very well, but it is much easier to feel as though it does. When you scroll through TikTok or Reels or whatever it maybe, you are looking at faces. You are one click away from seeing hundreds of comments. There feels as though there is a community (even if any increasing amount of those people are actually bots). If you do decide to make content, even if you never go viral, at least your friends can easily find it and will probably give you a like. That is instant dopamine right there. That is gonna feel a hell of a lot better than the agonizing effort it takes to talk to people on old internet....and I'm saying this as a person who loves old internet.
So enough bitching...what is the solution?
WELP, I wish I had an answer or else I wouldn't be bitching here. This whole blog post took a different route than I was anticipating when I started writing it so I definitely need to think on it more. But the birth of these ideas is here and that's cool. But I think an active effort to be more social is definitely step one. If we want the online village we have to be the online villagers or whatever that stupid saying that is making it's way all over the nu internet goes.
With that said I am going to do my part to try and reach out to old internet creators, participate in forums, create my own art in old internet land. If there is ever a new project to bring old internet like social media back in a way that would appeal to a larger audience I will sign up.
What is your take on this? Again, this is the first time I am kinda going through this though process so it's not a fully fledged opinion yet. Any and all thoughts are welcome!
Thank you for taking the time to read this. <3
Links to the two youtube videos you should definitly watch: