I was going down memory lane, I graduated in 96. But Internet culture of the mid 2000s to mid 2015. Seemed like there was always some stand out video or event ranging from chocolate rain video, nyan cat, amazing horse, I like turtles, why does the Internet seem so stale lately? I just realized a lot of this fun stuff stopped around 2014 or became less prevalent the closer we get to events that started dividing us, like gamergate, Trump canidancy in 2015. God this last decade has just sucked and it just keeps getting worse. How did we go to so much hope and promise to where we are now? Even reddit sucks now
My issue is those “smaller communities” for my niches withered away, lost in the depths of SEO and attention machines.
I’m not innocent there. I stopped participating in many in lieu of Discord and Reddit which, in hindsight, I feel sick about. But the draw of phone pings and algorithms and critical mass is very powerful, and that temptation didn’t exist a long time ago.