...and this one is just wonderful! - as Richard Metzger of the fabulously bizarre Dangerous Minds [informing its regular readers - of which I am one - of a forthcoming new direction for the site] tells it like it is:
The glory days of the internet are long over. It had a good run, but it’s done.
I’d compare this sorry state of affairs to the history of widespread cocaine use in America, it’s almost the exact same story. (Okay, okay, it’s not even a remotely similar narrative, but don’t harsh my analogy!) At first, it was all fun and games. Pure and undiluted nose candy for the masses. The 1970s must’ve been incredible! But then the Devil’s dandruff starts getting stepped on. Unscrupulous dealers began cutting their Peruvian marching powder with baby laxatives and veterinary dewormers. Ultimately it becomes more of a situation where the dealers were cutting their baby laxative with cocaine and not the other way around. Now it’s all just garbage.
And that what’s happened with Internet content, too. When everyone got online in the mid-90s, it was fun and wild and fascinating. New and novel experiences awaited. Fast forward to today and the World Wide Web is sadly akin to a selfie and meme-filled version of WALL-E’s junkyard planet or an ocean full of plastic bottles and other human-created detritus. A friend of mine once described what we did at Dangerous Minds as “panning for Internet gold” but I told him I thought it was more like spelunking in a dank cave, standing in a river of shit wearing hip-high waders and a gas mask.
Today’s internet is by and large a highly toxic HAZMAT site. Assholes are everywhere you turn. You can’t escape them. But on top of that, all the creativity has vanished. What started as a massive outpouring of cross-cultural communication, international information exchange and just plain HIGH WEIRDNESS has turned into a filtered, Facetuned selfie-infested septic tank of “LOOK AT ME” frivolity, knucklehead narcissism and abject idiocy. The rise of the TikTok “expert” dolling out their supposed wisdom in 45-second increments seems to me an especially pernicious development. These people are seldom experts on anything other than hashtags and yet they all apparently have an audience 10X that of CNN’s.
With the AI apocalypse rapidly encroaching upon us it’s about to get even worse. I knew it when I first saw that Star Wars if it had been directed by Wes Anderson video. “Hmmm, that’s kinda clever” immediately gave way to “Okay I get this and I can’t be bothered to even watch it to the end.” It was a watershed moment for me and when I realised THIS SHIT IS THE FUTURE......So we’re going to do something different. Something that’s not been filtered or Facetuned or to be found anywhere in this cultural wasteland full of regurgitated garbage. Something with actual experts who know what they’re talking about and can speak intelligently for longer than a minute. Something that will make you smarter.
Wow!
Read the whole thing at the Dangerous Minds site.
Except for our little corner of the internet, I think he's on to something.
ReplyDeleteIndeed - step outside the Blogosphere, and "here be dragons"..! Jx
DeleteI tend to agree with him and you two. I love the little corner of the blogosphere we have, but my, is my blog list dwindling quick. I think I'm down to only reading 30 some blogs. And most of those don't blog daily.
ReplyDeleteQuality over quantity, sweetie! Jx
DeleteSpeaking of the current Internet shit show, someone posted a headline from some British tabloid which read "Plumber shoves 17 sausage rolls up his bum ... and his name is Gregg!" I don't understand the reference, could you please explain it?
ReplyDeleteGreggs is a UK institution famed for its pastry goods, especially sausage rolls. They are pretty yuk.
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Sounds like the Sunday Sport MrP, it's up there with 'Sarah Milican masturbates with broccoli', 'Sex dwarf found dead in badger sett' and I stuck 9 creme eggs up my bum, Easter world record'. I was invited to tea (northern word meaning dinner) at a friend's house and was served a Gregg's cheese and onion pastie, mashed potato and Super noodles, followed by jam sponge and custard, followed by a handful of cascara tablets when I got home.
DeleteOh, The Sunday Sport! I loved their headlines! - see more here.
DeleteGreggs, on the other hand, is truly awful... The Daily Mash quite rightly referred to them as purveyors of "baked turds"! Jx
PS That tea sounds - erm - lovely, Mitzi. Is your friend a chav, perchance?
I think Mr Metzger is absolutely spot on. Where once I used to roller-skate from site to site with my pig-tails flying behind me, I now tip-toe on stepping stones through the shit, hoping I won't need to disinfect my shoes.
ReplyDeleteI stay on blogs I know, and peek at calligraphy on Instagram, I visit well known shops, and websites, apart from that, the internet is dead to me.
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P.S AI is something that I once would have ridiculed and dismissed. These days I'll ridicule it, but I also accept the inevitable danger of it.
DeleteSx
Why can't it do hands? There are millions of pictures of hands!
DeleteIsobel - nobody can do hands! Only Leonardo Da Vinci can do hands.
DeleteSx
I tread carefully through the morass of the interwebs, too, Ms Scarlet! One needs to be a careful curator these days and keep the "Favourites" list well-stocked to avoid going down dangerous rabbit-holes... Jx
DeletePS AI is something that I have carefully avoided. We don't have an "Alexa" or any of her sisters - and if I find a website has one of those useless "can I help you" bots, I generally tell it is is a waste of my time and energy (to which it generally says something like "I do not understand the question"). Then I'm off on Google to find someone who has posted a real "customer services" email address out there. It generally gets things sorted quicker, as most companies aren't expecting you to email them direct these days!
I can't NOT see that abbreviation as the universal one for artificial insemination!
DeleteNext step, perhaps, in its evolution? Jx
DeleteVery true and very well put.
ReplyDeleteIt's a bloody good read - and one I just had to share. Jx
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