I was going down memory lane, I graduated in 96. But Internet culture of the mid 2000s to mid 2015. Seemed like there was always some stand out video or event ranging from chocolate rain video, nyan cat, amazing horse, I like turtles, why does the Internet seem so stale lately? I just realized a lot of this fun stuff stopped around 2014 or became less prevalent the closer we get to events that started dividing us, like gamergate, Trump canidancy in 2015. God this last decade has just sucked and it just keeps getting worse. How did we go to so much hope and promise to where we are now? Even reddit sucks now
Access and inundation. In the burgeoning days, not everyone could use an image editor or video editor. Animating was not simple.
Now, everyone has an AI helper and wants attention.
Add to it that there are more and more professionals making content for profit, a decade before AI reached this stage. Memes and viral videos became marketing opportunities.