the dead internet theory

I've talked with other people my age before and we've concluded that older millennials are the last group that really remember life pre-internet. We even remember the time of the baby internet, back before everything was censored and the internet was a free-for-all wild west. I'm sure the dark web had early beginnings, but for most people the world wide web was geocities and angelfire pages filled with free expression. 

In 1993, the internet was released to the public. I was nine years old. I don't think I gave it much thought then. I think it really got a boost in popularity in 1997 when aol instant messenger was released. Then I had a real reason to be online....talking to strangers. A/S/L anyone? You'd get this mini high hearing the little doors open and wondering which of your friends or crushes had just logged on. And those grey squares to accept messages from unknown users could open doors to anywhere. We were given talks on not giving our information to strangers, and warned of the dangers of creeps and pedophiles trying to lure us away. But still, that was something that happened to other people. We wondered who would fall for something like that. 

We only had one phone line. Anytime anyone picked up the phone to make a call, I was instantly disconnected. If I was 97% finished downloading a song on Napster I'd have to start all over again whenever I was able to go back online. I was jealous of my peers that could leave up away messages for hours at a time because they were connected on a second phone line. I can see clearly now that my generation was being primed to freely give away all our info. Where we are going, what we are doing, how we are feeling. This was the beginning of molding a narcissistic 'me' generation. You'd spend way too much time thinking about the perfect song lyrics and color combination, or the right words to make you seem quirky but yet mysterious, We were all being primed for facebook to launch. (Remember when it was so exclusive you actually had to have a college email address to create an account?)

Now the internet has become an endless resource. You can literally learn about anything, at any time you want to. Although most people stay plugged into the same websites, checking them religiously. Do you ever stop and wonder just how much that you're seeing online is manufactured by artificial intelligence? I have experienced highly sophisticated bots on reddit, and I'm sure that's only scratching the surface. Back when I used instagram regularly my account was set to private and I had to approve new followers. I would be flooded with fake accounts requesting to follow me daily. It often made me wonder how many 'real' followers these influencers had. Was anything organic and real anymore? And then shows like Catfish make you wonder if any of the strangers you met online were who they said they were. Just lonely people hiding behind a screen. 

I've thought about the dead internet theory before. Just how much of the internet is real, especially if a majority of people are only plugged into social media accounts and not actually using the internet for research or learning purposes. I watched this video yesterday and it explains how artificial intelligence has taken over social media and that nothing you see on these sites should be taken as truth. It's worth a watch if you've got 30 minutes to kill.