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
In the past, say, dozen years, the way in which we consume media has become niche, and corridored straight to us.
Back in 1996, you graduated in a year when everyone would have seen the same yada-yada bit on Seinfeld and then talked about it the next day.
In 2026, what we see are our own narrowed corridors of media, brought to us twofold by the algorithm and the ease with which we can navigate to exactly what interests us.
Sometimes it feels good to find your place until…until you realize it’s isolating.