I Miss the Old Weird Internet

I don't want to sound like an old man shouting at the clouds, though that is kind of what I feel like here. I've talked about this a bit on some past blogs about how Social media has changed things so much.

I will admit, I always kind of loved social media. As someone who has been self employed from home for the better part of 12 years or so, the internet and social media has been my window to the world. Or was it?

See, before social media there was this fun thing called message boards. The internet used to be a place filled with things and creations. If you were into say the X-files, as I was in the late 90s and early 00's, you'd create an angelfire page dedicated to X-files with pictures of Gillian Anderson doing various smart things, gifs of aliens, a visitor counter and some cheesy background music.

If you were really online a lot, you could find a message board for whatever topic or fandom you were into. I remember a Yahoo board called X-Philers. I made a lot of friends on there back then and we'd do group watches of episodes every week. In between I'd visit a website called the Black Vault and read declassified government docs about UFOs and such. I worked second shift back then so thats how I would decompress after I got home from work until 3am.

First it was Myspace, and I held off a long time on going on Myspace, at the time I was in Bible college (yes I know, long story). And had a blog I'd post bible studies. But after awhile all my friends deleted their blogs and joined Myspace. So that's where I went.

I started a ministry page there where I would post blogs and Bible studies. I had good feedback and good discussions on that page back then. Myspace was a sort of hybrid social media/webpage. You could customize it and code it a bunch of ways to make it look unique with music, colors, themes, etc.

What was really fun about Myspace was you could rank your friends by listing your top 4 or top 8 friends and if you really wanted drama, move them around or take someone off your top list. Good times in the old wild west of the internet.

Then came Facebook and I'm not sure what happened, I just remember all of my Myspace pals going to Facebook which I didn't get because it felt so bland and boring. Over the years it got better and I was addicted for a time to a Facebook game called Mobsters. Mobsters and Farmville was a whole new level of chaos and drama, but also fun. I made a lot of friends on those games and I'm still Facebook friends with a couple people from back then. I also still have a handful of myspace pals still on Facebook.

But soon Facebook started to squash the rest of the internet. They would buy any competitors. Companies big and small would rely on social media to promote products and services on Facebook and soon publishers built their whole businesses around Facebook. Except Facebook was still bland and plain looking. Sure they added cool new features. But the internet once was a space of places where everyone had their own individual corner all personalized that set them apart. Now we all have facebook profiles that look the same and there is nothing special about anyone's pages.

Then the algorithms came. We stopped seeing our friends' posts and over time we see posts by things and companies we have no interest in. Then came monetization and branding. Everything is now a brand and people with monetized pages post rage bait just to get clicks and quarters. People get thousands of likes and views for the most ridiculous takes, things like "Drinking milk is cultural appropriation" to "reading is ableist." And it only gets dumber from there. Facebook figured out along the way people who are angry are going to stay on a page longer and click on more ads. So they feed it like a ravenous monster than is never satisfied.

Social media has flattened everything out. What used to be a thriving fun place of unique voices and learning has become a dry place of ads, monetization and rage bait. You have corporate and police department accounts who try to be comedians and most celebrities have quit social media because so many fans are parasocial and insufferable.

Of course, the old internet was kind of like the wild west. There were places like rotten.com where you could see all sorts of manner of dead bodies. But over all the internet was decentralized and open. Now its run by a handful of billionaires and corporations. Facebook's latest thing is now it going to start charing to post links, something that helps small businesses grow outside of social media will now be pay to play. The tiers range from 14.99 to 499.00 a month. I don't know what you get with each of them but it all sounds like way too much.

In backlash with costs of streaming music and TV going so high and artists not being paid, more and more people are buying physical media. Artists and creators get better compensated with a DVD or CD purchase and you own it for life. No streamer can take it away or fill it with ads.

I think personal blogs are kind of like physical media for the internet. No, you can't hold a blog in your hands, but a blog is a decentralized place you can use your own voice. personalize your page and not be subject to the whims and rising costs of a massive corporation.

I kick myself some days for not working on this blog project and building it up much sooner. I fear I made things harder for myself by starting when I did, but its worth making a run for it. I try to encourage others to do the same, especially with Facebook eating itself, so I hope folks follow through.

I blog on Ghost.org which is an open source and decentralized platform. Its very much like old internet blogs and has good SEO built in. All you have to do is pick a theme and publish and the rest is under the hood. There is always wordpress which I tried but it was just too much work for me. But if you like web building and such it could be a good choice.

Whatever you do, using social media be it Facebook, X, Substack or Instagram is rented space. Your audience is not yours, your content is not yours. Their AI moderators could nuke your account at any day with no appeal and all you built is now gone.

Your own site, yes there is some cost and more work to build and let people know about, but its worth the peace of mind knowing it can't be yanked away from you.

If you're a creator or small business of any kind, I strongly encourage you start working on this now as the Social Media sites are only going to enshitify themselves more and more as time goes on. That's the model of tech companies. Disrupt an industry, offer a free product, get everyone relying on it ,then sell back to you the thing you just gave up at higher cost than you were paying previously. Wash, rinse, repeat. We saw it with Amazon, Uber, Streaming and now social media. It is up to us to break the cycle. The internet is still ours. Claim your corner of it while you can.

If this blog resonated with you and you want to break free of algorithms and rage bait, please subscribe below. There is a free tier and a paid tier if you're feeling extra generous and want to help me keep this page going!