The web sucks now. As soon as a playground fueled by experimentation and freedom and connection, it’s a flimsy husk of what it was, all merriment and serendipity leached from our screens by vile capitalist forces. Every thing is just too commercialized. We commodified the self, then we commodified robots to impersonate the self, and now they’re taking our rattling jobs. We reside in diminished and degrading occasions. I miss when memes had been humorous. I miss Vine. I miss Gawker. I miss outdated Twitter. Blogs—these had been the times!
Cease me if these gripes sound acquainted. In 2023, the concept that the web isn’t enjoyable anymore is standard knowledge. This yr, after Elon Musk renamed Twitter “X” and instituted a collection of berserk adjustments that made it considerably much less practical, complaints concerning the demise of the nice web popped up like mushrooms sprouting in grime tossed over a contemporary grave. Some individuals even complained on the very platforms they had been mourning. Kind “web sucks now” into X’s search bar, you’ll see.
The New Yorker revealed an essay by author Kyle Chayka on the topic, calling the decline of X a “bellwether for a brand new period of the Web that merely feels much less enjoyable than it was once.” Individuals beloved it. (Pattern feedback from X: “Relatable.” “Precisely proper.”) Chayka claims that it’s now tougher to search out new memes, web sites, and browser video games than it was a decade in the past. He additionally argues that the rising crop of platforms in style with younger individuals—Twitch, TikTok—are inferior, enjoyment-wise, to the social net of the 2010s.
Each of those arguments are baffling. Memes brisker up to now? Sure, it’s tiresome to see Tim Robinson in a sizzling canine costume for the five hundredth time, however c’mon. Within the early 2010s—the years Chayka longs for—the web was all doge and doggos. It was the period of response GIF Tumblrs, the Harlem Shake, the Ice Bucket Problem. Give me actually any nonetheless from I Suppose You Ought to Go away over “You Had One Job” epic fail picture macros. Solely glasses of the rosiest tint might recast the 2013 web as a shitposting paradise misplaced.
The argument that the 2010s social net was superior amusement to the platforms now in style with Gen Z is even stranger. TikTok has main points, however being unfun is not certainly one of them. It’s been a springboard for some genuinely proficient individuals, from comedian Brian Jordan Alvarez to author Rayne Fisher-Quann to chef Tabitha Brown. Binging Twitch streams definitely isn’t my factor, however individuals aren’t being held at gunpoint and compelled to look at seven straight hours of Pokimane. They prefer it! They’re having enjoyable! And the way can one say with a straight face that gaming obtained worse? Roblox alone is a gleeful world unto itself; to fake it doesn’t exist and isn’t a vibrant digital hangout is goofy and obtuse.
Corrosion of particular platforms on the web—X, to pluck the obvious instance—is an observable phenomenon. (I, too, mourn outdated Twitter.) Musk’s adjustments to how X operates have made it tougher to floor and confirm data; his antics have pushed away each advertisers and energy customers and allowed the cryptogrifter class to spam inboxes with invites to NFT drops and meme cash, leading to a digital area that feels deserted and crowded without delay. Different platforms, although, are flourishing.
Have a look at Discord, for example. Its siloed construction is a throwback to the pre-Fb web period, when socializing on-line typically meant logging on to particular boards. The disintegration of the Large Tech-dominated 2010s web is making a extra balkanized social net expertise, what Kickstarter cofounder Yancey Strickler calls the “darkish forest” principle, the place individuals flip away from large, open mega-platforms in favor of extra non-public or area of interest digital areas, from nonpublic Slack channels to invite-only WeChat teams or special-interest podcasts. Whereas some individuals would possibly discover that boring and laborious to navigate, it’s not universally boring, or inherently tough to navigate.
There are critical issues with the web proper now. Platform decay—“enshittification”—is actual, and it’s not restricted to X. Search is in shambles. Plus, the flood of AI spam has simply begun. However there have been critical issues with the web 10 years in the past too. Arguing that the decline of sure corners of a earlier model of the web signifies that the whole web isn’t entertaining anymore is a preposterous leap.
