Im starting to feel very worried about our planets Internet. Was it always this pit of endless hate? Was it like this even four years ago? It seems to me that the trolls are getting worse, that the average tone of comments keeps getting darker and darker, that theres a downward spiral of hate and I wonder what it will be like by 2024. Maybe my memory is rose-colored, maybe a wider audience has *heard* about me now and thats why Im exposed to more of it. And yet it really seems to me that things are getting very grim. I imagine children trying to build an online presence on this Internet, and I imagine that by the time theyre 15 theyre living in a mental world where everyone online hates them for everything they do, all the time; while the people they knew in real life were still smiling... if any of their fellow 15-year-olds can still smile by then, if the culture of 4chans worst parts hasnt already taken over the hallways of public schools and the Internets actual successor to 4chan is even worse. People see themselves surrounded by hate, and it shifts the Overton window for what counts as being nice, and meanwhile theres...10%? 25%? a growing percentage? that tries to outdo the other haters in order to get noticed. I dont know. I dont feel like I have a good grasp on whats happening. Maybe Im turning into an old fogey yelling at the kids to get off my lawn. But to me it seems like theres a downward spiral and its spiraling very fast.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 05:40:32 +0000
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