Individuals on the Internet and the lack therof

[necross]

Thing is I only feel "older" when I'm on these newer sites like Twitter. The farms isn't like that for me. People still talk here. Even though people are VERY careful here with their identity. I can tell who a poster is anymore just by how they word things. People still live here.

The rest of the internet is a wasteland. It's just for work, for art commissions, ads, literally everything that makes you the product. Everyone has to be perfect when they take a picture. Can't just take one and call it good. Gotta get out that shitty ring light and a million filters. It's fake. No soul.
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This KINO from 2008 of the boys playing some Halo in Iraq running off a truck battery? That is peak internet. Literally joining people from worlds apart. This doesn't happen much anymore, these candid shots.

Yeah man, I've personally seen that change myself. It's kinda like cable TV...businesses got ahold of it that it became scummy and virtually unwatchable, so people flocked to the internet...history repeats itself. Internet personalities getting popularized definitely contributed to this. When I was a teen for example I made a Twitter to share my art, but namely with the prospect of hopefully making some income through commissions.
The moment I realized how unhappy this made me and the sheer amount of shameless garbage on there made me quit fast.

I found the Farms in passing and though I didn't think I'd stay, I like it. It's like one of those last bastions of the old internet I knew.
I've seen some crazy shit but people are more candid about their experiences.

Also I love that pic, reminds me of the times me and my sib huddled on one laptop together to play some Jazz 2 multiplayer It was funny as shit trolling eachother by peeping who did what on the screen before the keyboard got sent flying in tard rage

Funny how limitations give us more genuine experiences.

 

[Gorton Colu]

I think that's it's the heterogeneity of culture and ethnicity that are amongst the real causes of a lack of individuality.

Monocultures motivate people to be creative and form cliques and social groups in order to express themselves. At least here in the States, people used to be much more involved in clubs, sports, bands, etc...

Nowadays, hardly anyone does anything as your "uniqueness" is already found in your identification with broad mostly worthless traits like political beliefs, sexual orientation, race, class and so on. People are not motivated to explore as they're handed a prepackaged 'individuality' unearned and uninteresting. Lame.

 

[WelperHelper99]

That's no longer the case. For some time now, all parents do is that they simply give their kids a phone for it to do the parenting for them, phones who will, thanks to the algorithmic nature of the modern internet, show their kids the exact same content, bring them to the exact same communities, and cause them to internalize the exact same opinions in the exact same manner, with zero input from outside agents. Once again, more homogenization of the individual, naturally leading to less discussion and conversation

This is honestly sad. Algorithms killed creativity. People don't explore the web anymore. There are tons of websites. Tons. Most are just hidden because nobody looks. There are still message boards for old TV shows well over 20 years old just chugging along, but nobody seems to notice they exist

Yeah man, I've personally seen that change myself. It's kinda like cable TV...businesses got ahold of it that it became scummy and virtually unwatchable, so people flocked to the internet...history repeats itself. Internet personalities getting popularized definitely contributed to this. When I was a teen for example I made a Twitter to share my art, but namely with the prospect of hopefully making some income through commissions.
The moment I realized how unhappy this made me and the sheer amount of shameless garbage on there made me quit fast.

I found the Farms in passing and though I didn't think I'd stay, I like it. It's like one of those last bastions of the old internet I knew.
I've seen some crazy shit but people are more candid about their experiences.

Also I love that pic, reminds me of the times me and my sib huddled on one laptop together to play some Jazz 2 multiplayer It was funny as shit trolling eachother by peeping who did what on the screen before the keyboard got sent flying in tard rage
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Funny how limitations give us more genuine experiences.

The internet is basically cable TV 2.0. First no ads, now mega ads. And yeah the farms feels like the last holdout. That's why I love it here. I get to talk about the old days. I miss CO op so much lol. Sharing a screen is special.

I think that's it's the heterogeneity of culture and ethnicity that are amongst the real causes of a lack of individuality.

Monocultures motivate people to be creative and form cliques and social groups in order to express themselves. At least here in the States, people used to be much more involved in clubs, sports, bands, etc...

Nowadays, hardly anyone does anything as your "uniqueness" is already found in your identification with broad mostly worthless traits like political beliefs, sexual orientation, race, class and so on. People are not motivated to explore as they're handed a prepackaged 'individuality' unearned and uninteresting. Lame.

It is lame. I just want someone on one of these social media sites to say SOMETHING. Say you like Apple Pie over Blueberry and go into a autistic rant over it. The internet was built for that. Have some fun, please.

 

[Toji Suzuhara]

This is honestly sad. Algorithms killed creativity. People don't explore the web anymore. There are tons of websites. Tons. Most are just hidden because nobody looks. There are still message boards for old TV shows well over 20 years old just chugging along, but nobody seems to notice they exist

I just found this wiki about about consoles and retro hardware, do you know what my chances of finding it would have been if instead of having a Youtuber go out of his way to mention it in a video I searched for it myself? Literally zero, I would have simply found rows after rows of Amazon and eBay links trying to sell me something, or midwits on reddit talking about it with no clue. And this is a wiki, are you trying to find a personal website? Then better pray that it isn't named after anything remotely popular, the only way to find something nowadays is either by someone else telling you about it or by typing the domain name. Web browsers have literally gone full circle

 

[necross]

I just found this wiki about about consoles and retro hardware, do you know what my chances of finding it would have been if instead of having a Youtuber go out of his way to mention it in a video I searched for it myself? Literally zero, I would have simply found rows after rows of Amazon and eBay links trying to sell me something, or midwits on reddit talking about it with no clue. And this is a wiki, are you trying to find a personal website? Then better pray that it isn't named after anything remotely popular, the only way to find something nowadays is either by someone else telling you about it or by typing the domain name. Web browsers have literally gone full circle

So damn true man. (Also thanks so much for sharing the site! I LOVE reading about this stuff and I'm learning to fix my own tech It just proves your point, I would never be able to find this goldmine otherwise)
Hope I'm not derailing the thread, but on the topic of the net, niches are really both being commodified and extremely alienated at the same time. I follow a lot of old fantasy artists like Frank Frazetta and Gerald Brom, and some other ones here and there like John Singer Sargent and René Gruau; and it's difficult to find their authentic artwork without having tons of AI slop in my images tab that used to be reliable. I'm not personally against AI but it doesn't help finding good sources is more buried nowadays. It's a bit of a reach but it does pertain to the topic of how samey everything feels I think, I'm seeing a surge of dumbass channels on YT using classical art for shorts where it describes the obvious and it aggravates me in a very subtle but annoying way.

 

[Space Police]

Because people do things on the internet to join an in-group and become part of something larger rather than post their thoughts for the sake of it.

 

[Abbadon's Gate]

This is along the same lines as classifying everyone as a "community" which is another word I've grown to hate especially because it rarely applies. "The Kiwi Farms Community" is a phrase that only exists to remove any differences between the large and varied group of people that come here in order to boil us down to whatever is tweet worthya nd people apply this nomenclature to everything.

 

[Bloitzhole]

I agree with your assessment but I don't think it is due to de-individualization.
There's no deep research for me to back this up but what I think happened is rather that the internet became individualized - oriented around the single person (or consumer), rather than the collective.

I believe that the motivation behind putting something on the internet was less centered around validation of the self, and far more about sharing for the sake of the other, the group of users, the internet as a whole back in the late 90s / early 2000s.
You are sharing something primarily because it could be funny / useful / worth seeing for someone else. Maybe without any identity tied to it because you're just some anon.

I think that's not a black and white thing mind you, just where the balance tends to shift towards.

Now switch that priority around to the other extreme. It is primarily you who matters. It's not about the candid moment others might enjoy because they see something familiar reflected in it. It's about how what you post benefits you - financially or emotionally. You're the most important. On with the ringlight and filters, because you need to look your best. Monetize the content. Adhere to the guidelines that will make you most seen, most liked, most exposed. Appeal to the group to ensure you have a base to back you up. Because you, the individual, is what the internet is for and you'll use it for yourself primarily. It's not about leaving something for others long term, without the idea of personal gain at the forefront.
I think the "we" you refer to is symptomatic of wanting to be backed up to feel bigger when using the internet for the sake of your individual interests alone. The conversations had in cliques are after all primarily about making you feel good and humans LOVE feeling validated by others.

When you de-individualize, when it's NOT about you, you don't need the groupthink because you are doing something primarily for the sake of the other. When you make the internet about yourself, you tie your validation to the feedback you receive by whoever sees it, because really it's about you. It's not about having a conversation for the sake of the conversation with the other, that's not self-serving enough. If it was, one would seek out disagreement as much as agreement. But it's not, it's just about the conversation making you feel good about your stance - thus echo chambers become far more appealing.

 

[I (Don't) Have A Gun]

It wasn't like this when I was younger.

No you were just stupid and ignorant when you were younger.
People have been inclined towards tribalism since... well since the origin of humanity.
We've always divided ourself into groups, be it tribes, clans, castes, religions etc.
The internet has just offered a means of finding your "tribe" easier. Instead of being the isolated weirdo in a homogeneous group you can now go online and find other weirdos like you from across the world.

You're a lot more likely to get viciously dogpiled for a mildly unpopular opinion online than in real life where people tend to be more polite and circumspect. That probably contributes to not wanting to stand out from the crowd too much, which leads to adopting the group identity.

I'd argue it's a natural function of the human brain with us being a social species.
Conformity was fundamental to human survival in more primitive times. Hunters needed to hunt, gatherers needed to gather etc. It's only really the advancement of technology and the abundance that has come from it that society had developed enough "fat" to sustain jobs and careers that aren't directly essential to survival. But that doesn't mean humans have biologically advanced all that much, so our brains still operate on primitive caveman logic.

I think I get that. It's how I post on other sites.

I kinda have to, since I know a bunch of fags and trannies IRL and plenty of my friends are weird lefty hippie types.
Yeah I have no idea how that happened.

At least here in the States, people used to be much more involved in clubs, sports, bands, etc...

I would argue it was his way all across the world in some form.
Humans are social creatures, we crave to be around and interact with other people. Back in the day people had to leave the house to do that, and although interacting online is an inferior alternative it is easier and it does scratch that social itch.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

I feel for you, OP
It's particularly baffling to me when political activists and pundits use the word "we" when criticizing, if not condemning, what government actors do
cf. "we set up women's quotas to stifle society, we imported refugees", dude, who the fuck is this "we"? You one of them?! To the wall!

At this point I sincerely believe that the proliferation of the word "we" when talking about state actors is nothing but a successful communist language manipulation ploy (too many such cases) to make it harder to identify and attack bad actors

 

[WelperHelper99]

I just found this wiki about about consoles and retro hardware, do you know what my chances of finding it would have been if instead of having a Youtuber go out of his way to mention it in a video I searched for it myself? Literally zero, I would have simply found rows after rows of Amazon and eBay links trying to sell me something, or midwits on reddit talking about it with no clue. And this is a wiki, are you trying to find a personal website? Then better pray that it isn't named after anything remotely popular, the only way to find something nowadays is either by someone else telling you about it or by typing the domain name. Web browsers have literally gone full circle

Searching up wikis were my childhood. I loved doing that because there was literally was one for everything. And really you still can. You will have to actually search though if it's niche. But it's there. Not to sidetrack too hard, but 1d6chan wiki is personally my favorite. It's a bit of 4 chan, but with a board game twist. It has made me laugh harder than any other website asides from the farms. It also taught me things like how model kits are actually made, which is cool.

I believe that the motivation behind putting something on the internet was less centered around validation of the self, and far more about sharing for the sake of the other, the group of users, the internet as a whole back in the late 90s / early 2000s.
You are sharing something primarily because it could be funny / useful / worth seeing for someone else.

I think that's not a black and white thing mind you, just where the balance tends to shift towards

I feel this almost ties into wikis for everything becoming more hidden. Those were a product of the late 90s, early 2000's. You're just a editor on a massive site about really anything, could be toys, books, whatever. Now it's becoming more... selfish. More fake. People worry about how they look than just being "a guy on the internet". It's less sincere.

 

[Grub]

I mean that probably is what's happening. It just feels weird. I was sold all these social media apps as a "way to find people" and it's like... nobody really wants to be found lol. It's basically a collection of group chats that occasionally leave a comment.

Social media is an unnatural way for humans to communicate. Historically, humans communicated with at most 50-100 people over their entire lives, if that. This idea of publicly communicating with everyone and anyone is not really the way humans are.

As for comment chains, I always found that fun. Good place to shitpost. Now though they are so censored that you can't really do anything. It just feels like the internet is getting smaller I guess.

Public comment chains on Facebook are wild and they've made me lose what little faith I actually had left in the general intelligence of humanity. I'm regularly stunned by how unbelievably retarded some people are.

People, and in particular people who use the internet heavily, have become very atomized during the last decade.
It's small little cliques who only interact with one another when it comes to very specific subjects, that by itself leads to an homogenization of thought,

This is pretty much the way people actually are. They insulate themselves into social groups with others that share common goals or interests. Even before the internet cliques and social exclusion were a thing. TV also had a big part in shaping opinions and cultural behaviour before the internet.

We fast-forward to the early days of the web, say early 90s to late 00s, what was different from those times to now? For one, parents encouraged their children to socialize more with their peers, the usual "Get out of your room and go catch some sunlight!", and also the fact that the internet didn't guide your hand, but that instead you had to go out and look for the things that you wanted to find, such thing made it so that there was a possibility that you might encounter another thing along the way that caught your attention more, that way expanding your horizons.

In the early days of the internet I was actively encouraged to thoroughly lie about who I was or just not to talk to people at all and it was very much a solo experience most of the time where I just read things and didn't interact at all with anybody.

That's no longer the case. For some time now, all parents do is that they simply give their kids a phone for it to do the parenting for them, phones who will, thanks to the algorithmic nature of the modern internet, show their kids the exact same content, bring them to the exact same communities, and cause them to internalize the exact same opinions in the exact same manner, with zero input from outside agents. Once again, more homogenization of the individual, naturally leading to less discussion and conversation

The people I know with kids are pretty good at not doing that but even if you don't just stick a phone or tablet in your kid's hand and walk away it's tough to avoid that shit. Kid's TV shows and streaming platforms these days are pretty bad in particular. There's tons of subtle shit hidden in them and the autoplay algorithms will just keep shit going if you're not paying attention. YouTube kids is really bad. None of the parents I know will let their kids watch it. The algorithm mixes in toddler age shit with all kinds of questionable shit and just autoplays it all endlessly.

 

[WelperHelper99]

Social media is an unnatural way for humans to communicate. Historically, humans communicated with at most 50-100 people over their entire lives, if that. This idea of publicly communicating with everyone and anyone is not really the way humans are.

I agree. I just find it odd. You and me are talking on the Farms right now. The only people I've held a conversation with on Twitter.com was a art scammer I decided to fuck with and yank his chain. It wasn't a good conversation either, his English sucked and I felt like I was at a street market getting sold a "very good deal".

I guess that comes with only knowing 50-100 people though. Scammers and salesmen are built for that shit. They actively go out of their way to seek engagement. Regular people dont.

As for the Farms, it's smaller, more contained. You don't see the other person's face, but the culture and message board format promote actually talking to eachother instead of leaving a "wow, thats cool" reply that means nothing.

Public comment chains on Facebook are wild and they've made me lose what little faith I actually had left in the general intelligence of humanity. I'm regularly stunned by how unbelievably retarded some people are.

I'd argue some of its on purpose. Personally when I say something in a youtube comment, if I'm not trying to help clarify something in a video, I'm just shitposting, meming, nothing should be taken seriously because I'm doing it to laugh. I don't know if Facebook is similar, I haven't given Zucc my data yet, but I'd imagine so.

 

[Aztec Death Squad]

We fast-forward to the early days of the web, say early 90s to late 00s, what was different from those times to now? For one, parents encouraged their children to socialize more with their peers, the usual "Get out of your room and go catch some sunlight!",

And for one thing, the Internet was contained to a single family desktop on a PC that weighed 20 lbs. It didn't fit in your pocket and didn't follow you literally everywhere you went.

 

[Grub]

I agree. I just find it odd. You and me are talking on the Farms right now. The only people I've held a conversation with on Twitter.com was a art scammer I decided to fuck with and yank his chain. It wasn't a good conversation either, his English sucked and I felt like I was at a street market getting sold a "very good deal".

There's a disconnect between us. All I know about you is information you've divulged about yourself that I've come across on here and vice versa. Neither of us has any real personal stake in anything other than the conversation at hand. The farms is also designed to effectively facilitate communication. Replying to eachother is quick and easy with multiple ways to quote replies. Even replying to multiple people in a single post is easy. Text can be formatted in a ton of ways and character limits per post are quite high to allow for a good range of expression. It's easy to keep track of people and conversations and pretty much anything you're interested jn and return to them if need be. Even the much maligned sticker system allows for a decent range of non-verbal expression allowing posts to be kept more on track and conversational. Essentially, the opposite of modern social media in pretty much every way.

I'd argue some of its on purpose. Personally when I say something in a youtube comment, if I'm not trying to help clarify something in a video, I'm just shitposting, meming, nothing should be taken seriously because I'm doing it to laugh. I don't know if Facebook is similar, I haven't given Zucc my data yet, but I'd imagine so.

Youtube comments look like works of literature compared to facebook comments on public posts. There's obviously some shitposting comments but no I'm talking about real comments and arguments people get into. I'm talking comments on the algorithm driven posts facebook shows you. The stuff with hundreds or thousands of comments from random people. The type of posts where normie memes and shit come from. People are so brain dead retarded I don't even understand how they've become functioning adults without inadvertently killing themselves in some retarded way.

Like picture the most brain dead retarded, clearly lacks reading comprehension and misinterpreted everything in the article post on an A&N article you can think of on the farms, multiply that by 100, then picture an entire comment thread of nothing but people doing that to the OP and eachother and you still wouldn't have the full level of retardation you can witness on there.

 

[WelperHelper99]

There's a disconnect between us. All I know about you is information you've divulged about yourself that I've come across on here and vice versa. Neither of us has any real personal stake in anything other than the conversation at hand. The farms is also designed to effectively facilitate communication. Replying to eachother is quick and easy with multiple ways to quote replies. Even replying to multiple people in a single post is easy. Text can be formatted in a ton of ways and character limits per post are quite high to allow for a good range of expression. It's easy to keep track of people and conversations and pretty much anything you're interested jn and return to them if need be. Even the much maligned sticker system allows for a decent range of non-verbal expression allowing posts to be kept more on track and conversational. Essentially, the opposite of modern social media in pretty much every way.

That makes sense. It explains why social media feels so sterile. It's chopped down from what came before. Replying alone is a hassle on a lot of these sites. On the farms it's seamless. Because it isn't built for maximizing engagement and views, but communication. I guess this is what feels off.

Youtube comments look like works of literature compared to facebook comments on public posts. There's obviously some shitposting comments but no I'm talking about real comments and arguments people get into. I'm talking comments on the algorithm driven posts facebook shows you. The stuff with hundreds or thousands of comments from random people. The type of posts where normie memes and shit come from. People are so brain dead retarded I don't even understand how they've become functioning adults without inadvertently killing themselves in some retarded way.

Like picture the most brain dead retarded, clearly lacks reading comprehension and misinterpreted everything in the article post on an A&N article you can think of on the farms, multiply that by 100, then picture an entire comment thread of nothing but people doing that to the OP and eachother and you still wouldn't have the full level of retardation you can witness on there.

I think that comes with Facebook's userbase, though I don't know. That sounds awful. In need of actual moderation and not just bots.

 

[Grub]

I think that comes with Facebook's userbase, though I don't know. That sounds awful. In need of actual moderation and not just bots.

Facebook's userbase is 'the average person'.

 

[WelperHelper99]

Facebook's useebase is 'the average person'.

Facebook really was a DARPA project then if it brings out this much retardation, lol.

 

[William F. Clinton]

At this point I sincerely believe that the proliferation of the word "we" when talking about state actors is nothing but a successful communist language manipulation ploy (too many such cases) to make it harder to identify and attack bad actors

I'd say it's less complex than that. People just don't have as much spine as they used to, and saying "we" gives them the chance to feel more comfort when they fall in line with the orthodoxy of their peers, yet equally able to disappear into the safety of a crowd if the going gets rough.

 

[Brabbit Narp]

I cannot speak for anyone else but myself, but I find little reason or opportunity to be individualistic out on the wider web. Beyond the rare occasions where I comment on the Farms or in smaller conversations, I find my voice is more likely to be lost in a sea of noise than anything else. Whatever thoughtful posts or the like are buried on places like YouTube. In other instances, I find whatever thoughts I have are already articulated by someone else.

Beyond that, there's little incentive to give out much of an opinion on anything without running into the risk of violating some ToS with some of the most even innocuous comments retroactively. When you post to public places like YouTube, that stands as a permanent record for whatever advertiser, glowie, or the website owner to potentially use against you. To be blunt, the tallest nail gets hammered first. Hard.

To be an individual on the modern web is a dicey proposition. Something that more likely than not may come back to haunt you in some way, shape or form. That isn't to say I am completely removed from participating in my chosen spaces of choice like the Farms, or even feel much in danger of doing so with how milquetoast my own rhetoric is when compared to places like in Deep Thoughts. But it is worth keeping in mind as we go further and further into our digital dystopia.

To echo and reiterate some what has been already by others here, commentary and interactions on websites like YouTube are at best pointless due to being lost in a sea of others voices and/or censored right off the bat, and at worst liable to put a target on your back for just stating an opinion. It might not come today, it might not even come ten years from now. But the skitzo in me says we're heading down a Social Credit hell where there will be further consequences for what you in even the most random shitpost. Look no further than the hell that is Twitter/X or whatever the hell they will call it in the future.

All that being said though, there are still places and a time to be an individual. You by posting here are one of those individuals. Smaller though it may be, your voice here gains more traction by the sheer dint of being in a closer "community" than whatever farce they call it out on social media. It is enough to start a conversation, enough to share among like minded individuals to say if nothing else that you are not alone in your views, or at least share some form of discussions to broaden one's horizons. I don't agree with everyone or everything that held as common consensus here, but you are afforded an opportunity to stand out for good or ill.

So for whatever it is worth, OP, you made more of a contribution in my life and those that participate in this thread than it would have being lost out in the ether. Just keep that up, and you'll find individuals that are like minded or otherwise to talk to in some fashion. Hell, go a bit further and post some creative works. The Art thread could use a few more posts of some sort, so if you have something that won't dox you, go wild.