It's not "the internet". It is "this internet".

Back in the 90s early 00s the internet made us mesh together because each one of us there was a specific person. We had forum signatures and every single post was clearly made by a person, for a person.

Then social media took over and relegated every single person into a tiny unidentifiable avatar next to a non-prominent name, not unlike NPCs in CRPGs.

In turn this has been exploited by the powers that be to ensure the social glue gets even weaker: a society barely held together won't revolt. There's only one thing left to do: productivity, productivity, productivity.

The political opponent is no longer a person. Just a nameless, faceless NPC (personifying everything that's wrong) spawned there to be defeated and collect their social loot tokens.

But I might just be an old fart rambling about the good, old days.

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squigz 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Maybe the issue is this perception that "the Internet" consists mainly of the big 4 social media sites.

Go on Discord. People have usernames, avatars. Discord Profile Bios are just as unique as forum signatures.

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kaoD 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I am on Discord and the balkanization+homogeneization is still as prominent there as everywhere else.

Server admins are just NPCs providing @everyone announcements from time to time, to keep the player engaged (spoiler: the average Joe is just irritated by those). Sometimes you get a quest from them.

Also: 99% won't read profile bios (and you have to pay for actual customization, don't you?) while forum signatures were front-and-center.

I have to say I'm surprised to see Discord mentioned as an opposite to social media instead of... just yet another iteration of the same ploy.

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squigz 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> Server admins are just NPCs providing @everyone announcements from time to time, to keep the player engaged. Sometimes you get a quest from them.

Maybe you should join better servers. I'll also add that this was common back in the forum days too. Most admins would just... admin the site.

> Also: 99% won't read profile bios (and you have to pay for actual customization, don't you?) while forum signatures were front-and-center.

Wrong on both counts.

> I have to say I'm surprised to see Discord mentioned as an opposite to social media instead of... just yet another iteration of the same.

I did not present it as an "opposite to social media" - I presented it as a counter to the idea that we've lost the personality GP is talking about

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BeFlatXIII 3 hours ago | parent [-]

You're one of the 1% who reads profile bios.

	▲	squigz 9 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Of course, because the alternative - that they're wrong, and more people actually do read bios - couldn't possibly be true. In any case, I see no reason to believe any higher % of people paid any particular attention to forum signatures back in the day.

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iammjm 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Fuck discord. Another big for-profit platform that is swallowing big chunks of the internet. before discord there were lots of self-organized forums with their own communities and rules. Now I need to register with some big overlord and download their shitty app just to read what has before been just an URL away?

	▲	lanyard-textile an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Nah. Right in the browser works great: discord.com/app You’re going to keep running into a wall thinking of discord like a forum replacement; It’s designed to be an IRC replacement. The invitation system intentionally creates some privacy so you can build a sense of enclosed community around them, and so you have some control over who sees what. Not having your conversations on full automatic blast to the public is a feature.
	▲	kaoD 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		But you can enjoy it before enshittification arrives! All praise our VC overlords.

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Aldipower 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Discord also is a centralized piece of proprietary totalitarianism. No thanks.