August 2025

I was there. I came of age on the old web. I remember the panels, the tiling, the glitter cursor trails, the embedded midi players with no off switch, the embedded chat rooms, the webrings. The chaos. I camped by the Angelfires. I dwelt in the Geocities. I used Yahoo before it was a joke. I asked Jeeves. I was OnLine in America.

And then the rot set in. The corpos showed up. They colonized, they sanitized, they standardized. Google decided to quietly erase "don't be evil" from their business model. And that said it all with out saying a thing.

LSC tries to flatten the human race. "Social" media doesn't facilitate connection or expression. It anesthetizes. It bombards. It is designed to keep you "engaged" and enraged and scrambling to keep ahead of the FOMO. It's a "one size fits no one" and an "if you don't like it take my downvote" pool of gamified corporate sludge.

Speak a big truth and get silenced. Not because you're wrong or you're out to hurt anyone or you're promoting radicalism (the radicals are the ones in charge so...). Because you spoke against the profit margins. Heresy! Blasphemer! TOS violator! Banned in the name of "protecting" the "community".

Let me be very clear (and very subversive), there is NO COMMUNITY in the corporate strip mall that is the current internet.

• Not on Facebook (a "community" of AI bots spamming Jesus pictures that look like something that would happen if Salvador Dali had the worst acid trip in history and was a talentless hack to boot).
• Not on Twitter (fascism does not create community - it destroys community in the name of enforcing consensus).
• Not on Tumblr (I woke up one day and my feed was nothing but porn. Before that it was nothing but self-righteous, reactionary back biting...and Supernatural gifs).
• Not on Reddit (where your right to speak is determined by how well you tell people what they want to hear).

If you have something real to say, forget it.

• We need to talk about Taylor Swift's new album and buy an entire wardrobe in A12 orange.
• We need to engage in "hot take" discourse about that new triple A video game that everyone hates but is still playing (for $100 per license - don't kid yourself, you don't own the game).
• We need to doomscroll so we stay "informed" (what's the latest propaganda Fox? MSNBC? NPR?) about how the Earth is roasting and our rulers leaders are declaring (not) martial law to see if they can get away with it (they can).

Can't do anything about it but spin your wheels and burn out. Which is the point.
So long as you're powerless and burnt out you're docile. Too tired to even cook dinner (but lucky for you, there's a subscription service for that). Full of opinions, full of rage, and doing nothing but pointing fingers and screaming at other people who are just as scared and powerless as yourself.

I run a search for information (hp envy te01-0014 gpu casing dimensions).

• I get 15 pages of ads (Amazon first, as always) to buy a new HP ENVY.
• I get generated AI answers that tell me about the shitty native GPU (not what I asked). And this even after I put the word FUCK in there to shut it up (since I can't turn it off). Sadly Google has caught on to that trick.
• I get 17 Youtube tutorials/reviews on how to update my GPU (not what I asked) that are just "affiliate link" shills. All with a thumbnail of someone doing a POGGERS face like some kind of cartoon version of a person.
• I get page after page of "Best [product] in 2025" articles that are all just listings for Amazon.
• I change the search terms. I quote wrap. I use every trick I know. I get the same useless results.

SE so optimized that I can no longer find any real information.

My browser is spying on me.
My phone is spying on me.
My X Box is spying on me.
My employer is spying on me.
They all want to know what makes me tick. What makes me tock. What makes me buy. What do I want?

• I want an email address that doesn't require me to dox myself. (atomicmail.io, btw)
• I want to open Facebook and see my friends' posts - in chronological order. (my Facebook was older than some of you Neocities developers - I deleted it in February).
• I want to be able to have an intelligent conversation with intelligent people whose entire existence isn't defined by their enculturated worldview.
• I want to know that there are people out there courageous enough to question and (if deemed necessary) reject their enculturated worldview.
• I want to belong to something better than a demographic.
• I want to point to the elephant in the room and name it without being looked at like I murdered someone, pissed in their mouth, ripped out their still hot liver and started eating it raw.
• I want to be able to say these things, venomous as they are, without being banned because some censor-bot doesn't understand metaphor (while it allows other people to post calls for violence against marginalized groups without batting a byte).

Silenced by algorithms. Profiled by algorithms. Led around on a leash by algorithms. Lives curated by algorithms. The internet is no longer human or even for humans. And my head hurts.

And then here you are. In your new cities.
Building little bubbles of silly, crazy, unironic, joyful "cringe". Woot.
This is why we came to the internet in the first place.
Disconnected, outcast weirdos who wouldn't toe the party line. Who didn't "fit in". A bunch of lonely kids screaming into the void and hearing it echo back (with flashing banners asking us to sign the guestbook).

This shit isn't a revival. It's a rebellion. And I am here for it.

The Web is dead. Long live the Web.