BF2S Forums EE Chats 2142

april fools used to not be a huge deal, even on the internet. a website might have changed to comic sans or some obnoxious color scheme, or an mmo might have joke patchnotes or implement a feature that would elicit a chuckle or two. now, it's a holiday for fake news and winking corporate social media accounts.

isn't musk complaining about being cyberbullied these days? quite the 180 from clownishly supervillainous "empathy is weakness."

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

april fools used to not be a huge deal, even on the internet. a website might have changed to comic sans or some obnoxious color scheme, or an mmo might have joke patchnotes or implement a feature that would elicit a chuckle or two. now, it's a holiday for fake news and winking corporate social media accounts.

isn't musk complaining about being cyberbullied these days? quite the 180 from clownishly supervillainous "empathy is weakness."

google and the tech giants used to do goofy shit for april fools. it was when the internet still had a bit of a vibe of being ran by a bunch of dorks. of course, that whole 'don't do evil' era of google now just looks as cynical as any other slick ad campaign or soulless corporate jargon ... but it had an innocence for a while. or maybe we were just all young and naive.

the internet felt so qualitatively different even 10 years ago that it blows my mind.

the vibe has changed. the affect has changed. the tone has changed.

the content and form are objectively worse. search engines suck. AI slop fills everything to overflowing. forums and real communities, ground-up ones, even with their cranky maladjusted moderator stasis, are no longer possible.

the amount of activity, expertise, bond-building, etc. now that is taking place on apps like discord (which i don't use), effectively sealed off from search indexing or archiving forever, is an immense loss. an entire generation of zoomers just pouring 10,000s of hours down a memory hole. bad, actually!

Last edited by uziq (2025-04-01 16:27:38)

that’s all downstream of the development of ‘platform capitalism’.

the fact 95% of all activity on the internet now takes place on these vast acreages of private virtual estate now means we are at the mercy of the whims and policies of their overlords.

there’s so little grassroots stuff online thesedays. and as i said, what ones exist aren’t being indexed by the search engines. they may as well not exist. it’s like trying to find the details to call into a telnet chat or an early IRC warez lobby or something.

Last edited by uziq (2025-04-02 00:29:11)

i haven't logged into facebook once in probably 10 years. i didn't even have a 'cold turkey' moment, i just ... stopped using it. it didn't affect my social life in the slightest, and that's coming from the 'peak facebook' cohort who relied on it like an extra appendage throughout college/university. that site was literally designed for us. have no idea what happens on there now but i know it can't be good. sounds like a dump full of AI slop and barely concealed propaganda. burn it all down.

i 'lost touch' with about 1000 acquaintances from university and a bunch of randomers met, probably while high on something, in a club smoking area or bathroom. no great loss to the rich tapestry that is my social life.

almost all my friends migrated organically to whatsapp without any 'i'm quitting!' theatrics. which is also, of course, now owned by meta too. cucked by zuck. platform peons.