@allebachBriefHistoryInternet2020
[!info] - Cite Key: @allebachBriefHistoryInternet2020 - Link: Allebach - 2020 - A Brief History of Internet Culture and How Everyt.pdf - Abstract: There is no way to fully explain Internet culture because there is no singular culture. No matter what, someone will say the explanation… - Bibliography: Allebach, N. 2020 A Brief History of Internet Culture and How Everything Became Absurd. The Startup. Available at https://medium.com/swlh/a-brief-history-of-internet-culture-and-how-everything-became-absurd-6af862e71c94 [Last accessed 6 April 2023].
Annotations¶
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Imported on 2023-04-10 12:10 pm¶
Definitions / concepts¶
[!quote|#2ea8e5] Highlight The Palace was released, which was a program that allowed users to interact with one another on a graphical chat room server.
I love the ways the early internet used physical analogs to describe software like moving to different graphical rooms. Software now has the same root words but the visuals have been abstracted today to make a boring starile envirnment
Page 4 [[2023-04-09#3:09 pm]]
[!quote|#2ea8e5] Highlight The rise of 4chan, Reddit, DeviantART, and Tumblr became centralized for nerds.
Interesting how the first two are relatively right wing (reddit leans right but is more nuetral) and the other two generally lean left
Page 6 [[2023-04-09#3:17 pm]]
[!quote|#2ea8e5] Highlight Porn went from being a magazine that you needed to be 18 to consume, to being accessible with the click of a button.
The history of porn on the internet and how its used to regulate the internet often in negative ways is interesting
Page 6 [[2023-04-09#3:20 pm]]
[!quote|#2ea8e5] Highlight Many regard Kony 2012 as the most viral video in history to that point with 100,000,000 views in 6 days, until Gangnam Style was released a few months later surpassing it with 3,000,000,000 views in 5 months and staying the most viewed YouTube video until Despacito reached 5,600,000,000 views in 2017
it is CRAZY that that can be measured in percent of the world's population and be very high like if that's true Despacito has been viewed by over half the population (assuming no rewatching which of course there where)
Page 11 [[2023-04-09#3:36 pm]]
[!quote|#2ea8e5] Highlight In 2011 Reddit was becoming everything 4chan despised. In their view, it was politically correct, over-moderated, and becoming littered with normies.
Interesting how factionalism centered around platform and platform ideology formed so quickly
Page 20 [[2023-04-10#11:59 am]]
[!quote|#2ea8e5] Highlight This ramped up the outrage cycle of reporting political tweets.
The way media uses outrage and the circle it creates online is so toxic and horrible for everyone involved. If only there where better ways to monitize news that didn't involve baiting headlines
Page 22 [[2023-04-10#12:00 pm]]
[!quote|#2ea8e5] Highlight Wendy’s, Denny’s, Hamburger Helper, Taco Bell, and many other primarily food brands had begun mimicking cultural trends to build brands. This started all new strange conversations online about blurring the lines between brands and humans.
The personification of brands and trying to invoke a para-social sort of feeling in their customers is extremely uncomfortable. And of course if they fail then that failure is published by news outlets and they've gotten another form of marketing
Page 22 [[2023-04-10#12:02 pm]]
Agree¶
[!quote|#5fb236] Highlight In those early days, the majority of people who navigated these sites were gamers, programmers, web developers, and other tech-oriented (usually young) people. Nerds. And the Internet centralized culture for them to pour 280
Page 5 [[2023-04-09#3:12 pm]]
[!quote|#5fb236] Highlight 4/9/23, 3:05 PM A Brief History of Internet Culture and How Everything Became Absurd | by Nathan Allebach | The Startup | Medium https://medium.com/swlh/a-brief-history-of-internet-culture-and-how-everything-became-absurd-6af862e71c94 6/25 all their weirdness into a melting pot. However, what began as “nerd culture” was about to be skyrocketed into the mainstream. Harry Potter, Marvel, Lord of the Rings, anime, cosplay, sci-fi, gaming, you name it.
I definately agree traditionally nerdy hobbies definately became mainstream because of the internet. and its very interesting to imagine a world where that didn't occur
Page 6 [[2023-04-09#3:13 pm]]
[!quote|#5fb236] Highlight We have the best and the worst of human potential seen through a magnifying glass each moment of the day.
Page 6 [[2023-04-09#3:15 pm]]
[!quote|#5fb236] Highlight instantaneously there was a generational gap created between most older and younger people in how this new technology was understood and utilized, and we’re still seeing that ongoing effect in 2018.
As someone who doesn't use TikTok I can say even being from this generation my understanding and consomption of the internet is dramatically different than my friends. I can't imagine adding a generational gap to that understanding
Page 6 [[2023-04-09#3:21 pm]]
[!quote|#5fb236] Highlight Much of these changes coincided with the accessibility of computers and even more importantly, smartphones.
Again imagining a world without smartphones is facinating. A world where the internet can only be accessed via a desktop or laptop would change how the world works greatly
Page 6 [[2023-04-09#3:23 pm]]
[!quote|#5fb236] Highlight The people who grew up producing and consuming this content were now working for media companies, which were fueled on finding and exploiting it for clicks.
This is what I personally think of as the downfall of the internet when it became monopolized and corporatized. I wish for the days of self-hosting and playful tinkering
Page 7 [[2023-04-09#3:26 pm]]
[!quote|#5fb236] Highlight This has been observed through the hipster wave that arguably started socially in 2008,
Gosh remember when "oversharing" on instagram was a hipster and weird thing to do not just a common part of life? How things have changed
Page 8 [[2023-04-09#3:30 pm]]
[!quote|#5fb236] Highlight We had voices to process the chaos. There were major sociological, economic, and geopolitical conversations around the world involving events like Y2K, 9/11 and The War On Terror, the new atheist movement, global warming, the Financial Crisis of 2007–2008, globalization, the tech explosion and competition between Apple and Microsoft, and way too much more to list. Much of Internet culture itself was created in reaction to these complex events happening around the world.
Good to mention the current socio-political factors that caused the current internet culture. It makes me wonder what a hypothetical internet centred around other historical political issues would be like
Page 9 [[2023-04-09#3:32 pm]]
[!quote|#5fb236] Highlight you might note some pop culture memes from early in 2018 that already feel like a lifetime ago. The pace constantly increases.
This is very true of internet culture, the ability to spread it at this rate also makes it last much less time. This fits in with the final episode of connections which talks about the "break neck pace of technology"
Page 15 [[2023-04-10#11:47 am]]
[!quote|#5fb236] Highlight Terms like “redpilled,” “triggered,” “virtue signal,” and “cuck” became common in right wing circles and spread like wildfire.
It is very uncomfortable hearing this kind of language from mainstream culture. I hear it a lot in programming circles which makes sense but is scary
Page 18 [[2023-04-10#11:52 am]]
Questions / confusion¶
[!quote|#ffd400] Highlight Richard Dawkins coined the term “meme” in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene
Wait was meme really coined by Richard Dawkins?
Page 11 [[2023-04-09#3:37 pm]]
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