i might be writing an essay about the internet
i’m tired of career internet users posting thinkpieces like “the internet used to be good! now it’s bad! we can make it good again!”
no, you can’t, an essay in three parts :—
• you say the internet was good? what made it good? more importantly, WHO?
• what happened to those people?
• what is stopping that from happening to those people again?
no, career internet user, the people who made the internet good are not you
the people who made the internet good are not here anymore, and you can not bring them back
do you really think you and the people who read your bland {career internet user}⹀level takes are a workable substitute?
it was your apathy that got us in this situation, and now you think you can save us from it? you, who can’t even properly name what was lost
the thing is, i mean, the other thing, is if you really think that the tools and technologies which made the web great never left us, why do you speak about the death of the web as primarily a technological phenomenon? if we have the tools, but have all collectively decided to stop using them, surely there is something else going on? something important?
« “I used to joke that the same student might be able to burn down a Bank of America branch in 1970 and still successfully sign on as an executive trainee at Bank of America in 1971,” said Rick Perlstein, a historian who has chronicled midcentury American politics.
“Today, anxiety about achieving economic security after graduation is far more pressing,” he added. “The consequences for identification and arrest are, simply, much greater.” »