"what people got excited about with the internet originally was relatively unmediated access to regular people. In his talk at Internet! Retrospective, “free-range archivist” Jason Scott described the disbelief and excitement he felt early on to see words appearing on his screen that weren’t his. Someone else was typing. We got excited about talking to other people, especially people far away; now Target is talking to us, via a 16 year old girl in her living room...
Even now, in 2016, it still seems like all anyone has ever wanted from the internet was the same thing they’ve wanted all along: a connection to other people. Crucially, “people” here means actual people, acting and expressing themselves according to their own volition — not an actor, not Lonelygirl15, not a spokesperson, not an aspiring internet celebrity. What I’m trying to describe is some kind of ur-human urge, outside of follower count or personal branding, to throw a “hello” out into the void and maybe hear one back...
In the context of my talk, the story was supposed to be an illustration of the importance and difficulty of talking to strangers. I was arguing for more dining cars on the internet... My suggestion leaves out misogynist trolls (who, more than anyone, *love* talking to strangers) and racist subreddits (which gymnast Kerri Strug most definitely would not have enjoyed). It makes a lot of assumptions about the types of connections you can make, and the shared reality those connections would necessarily be based in."
This is making me think about assumptions we make about the internet, based on how it was marketed in the 90s. There was and is this assumption that the internet is supposed to "bring us together", "bridge divides"; give us infinite opportunities for human connection. But... I guess, yeah, but it can also do a lot of other things. It's a tool that humans use to communicate and gather information. We're probably going to communicate and gather information about basically the same things we'd want to without the internet. It shouldn't be that surprising that it didn't solve all of our problems. Why are we feeling so betrayed?
Related: This author also wrote a beautiful essay called "how to do nothing"; at least one other on the internet and what it's for... I should make a section for these essays
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