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>the Internet is a shopping mall. There are two big anchor stores, Facebook and Google, at either end. There’s an Apple store in the middle, along with a Sharper Image where they are trying to sell us the Internet of Things. A couple of punk kids hang out in the food court, but they don't really make trouble. This mall is well-policed and has security cameras everywhere. And you guys are the bookmobile in the parking lot, put there to try to make it classy. It's already been mentioned, but this guy needs to get out a bit more. The internet is a city. There's the specialist shops (HN), the bustling malls (Reddit, YT), the shady back alleys (4chan, 8chan etc.), the historical districts (Usenet, Archive.org), the cafes (IRC, ICQ, Slack, etc.). To their credit, the author is more knowledgeable than most, however. I see so many dismiss the internet as just Facebook, or YouTube, discuss trolling as if it's a single phenomenon, and it's a recent thing, associated with Social Media. So many think that there's an internet culture: there isn't: there's a set of almost infinite numbers of overlapping, interlinked cultures. I can even map out the origins and historical influences of a few. There are even a few who think that social media sites are good forums of discussion. The poor sods: the Usenet was a better discussion forum than Facebook ever was, and the Usenet's not that great. If you really want to see what the internet is like (that isn't advice for the author: I'm pretty sure the mall analogy doesn't encompass his internet experience, and is merely an analogue I find odd), explore. See it all, in all of its weird, wacky, zany, jokey, serious, offensive, manic, smart, stupid, brilliant, insane glory. I promise you, you won't be dissapointed. People ask me why I'm not on social media. It's because social media is boring. Unlike Reddit, 4chan, and the rest, not much interesting happens. Unlike HN, I'm not likely to be intellectually stimulated, or learn something new. Unlike static sites, I don't get to see that kind of wild creativeness that personal webspace tends to invite in hackers, nerds, and others who know what makes the web tick. I don't want to see what you ate, I don't want to see your cat, I don't want to hear banal details about your everyday life. I want to hear something intersting, new, and original. I want to hear the next Ze Frank, or Tom Ridgewell, or Simon Travaglia, or Steve Yegge, or RMS, or PG, or Ryan Dahl, and you can bet I won't on a site with a signal:noise ratio that high. People also ask why I'm fascinated with the internet. My response is, why wouldn't I be? It's a catalogue of decades of human creativity and interaction. It's open mike night at the largest club in the world, which is also a discussion forum, and a shady back alley, and a convention. It is - to borrow and butcher Sir Terry's words - like being blindfolded and drunk at several different parties at once. But, in what it rapidly becoming the sign-off on my incoherent, long-winded ramblings that are really only tangentially connected to the topic at hand, maybe I'm just totally mad. EDIT: tried to clarify that I wasn't trying to insult the author. Not my intent, but it seemed to come off that way. It still does, but less so, and I prefer not to edit my old content too much. Also, I just checked out pinboard. Pinboard is amazing, and I am impressed. Basically, don't take this as anything more than a tangential, incoherent ramble started by an analogy the author used which I found unrepresentative. Because that's what it is. |