It is your duty to make the internet weird
It is your duty to make the internet weird.
We used to be very weird before the internet was a thing, but now people feel like they need to be perfect in their day to day lives because that's what they see online.
You see perfect vacations, perfect pictures, and now with AI filters, there isn't any space for imperfections to shine through.
But shine through they must. People born after the internet need to understand that most of existing is just being you without perfect awareness of how you are coming off to other people.
That perfect awareness diminishes you, it puts you in a box, you no longer find those rare imperfections in curated experiences as you did when the only way to hear music was either live or through a vinyl player.
Watch this video, it's of a shoe salesman in 1983, pay attention to how unpolished some of his interactions are, unburdened of how he is going to come off to millions of people online:
Look at how intense he is, but not intense for most of what is deemed important in chronic online discourse. Notice how everyone walking around barely even noticed the camera, and you can see how even though TV was already an established thing, people still walk around less aware of mass media than today.
Today you can get fired for something you write online, or even through someone recording you doing something that can be interpreted as bad. Back then there simply wasn't enough technology to support a mass surveilance state over everyone all of the time.
After waves of cancellation and cyberbullying we've created a society where everyone is walking on eggshells all of the time. It's not their fault, it's not yours either, but unfortunately it is our problem to solve.
And the best way I've found to fix it in my corner of the internet is to be weird and show it. Show people there's a way for them to be their weird selves, record bad videos and post online, singing badly, making bad drawings, writing weird novels and shitposting.
That way you carve more space online for authentic human experiences vs the extremelly curated things influencers and "content creators" are putting out.
I do have hope, I've been already seeing videos like these come up more:
Videos of people being weird, unpolished and just letting their passion for the topic come through.
It is a start, and it shows you there's a way to turn this around.
So go ahead and make the internet weird again.
Bonus points if you post something weird and tag me on twitter or on a comment under this post.
