The internet has always been my salvation.
As a socially underdeveloped kid, I’d spend my lunch hours in the high school library on those public desktop computers, reading fandom sites about my favorite video games. Computers always made sense to me. I even owe my entire career to them.
But the internet today feels wrong. Whatever the fuck kind of psychological warfare is happening right now with this Epstein stuff is too much for my mind to handle. I can’t do it anymore.
I will love. I will vote. I will support my community and continue to oppose this fucking nightmarish system we all find ourselves in. But I need to sign off.
Imagine the door closing sound effect when logging out of AIM.
I always viewed the Internet as a kind of alternate reality growing up. But, then that started to change once “social networks” started taking off and all the normies (as some people refer to it now) started using it. Then it kind of started becoming almost “realer” than IRL, with algos optimized to manipulate people, and sophisticated propaganda campaigns. About 5 years ago, I noticed politicians started using language taken from the “gamergate” discourse. Now, the US admin is transparently trying to control discourse on the largest platforms, and official government institutions are poorly shit-posting.
So, yeah, it’s kinda disheartening how one of the greatest communication tools has turned into a tool for control. Though, in hindsight, I guess I should’ve seen this coming, even from fiction created a century ago. I think I remember some person saying that the Nazi regime wouldn’t have been possible without the invention of the radio.