<story><title>Why isn&apos;t the internet more fun and weird?</title><url>https://jarredsumner.com/codeblog/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>beezischillin</author><text>A lot of online communities today are unbearable tho as everything&amp;#x27;s become so politicised. It started really wildly happening around 2013-2014 where no community was to remain a zone without some minority of users politicising it for attention. It was probably something that also happened before that but it somehow became really prevalent, at least. And often that took the fun out of it. I kind of think fondly of those times. Now of course this is just anecdotal, but that&amp;#x27;s what I&amp;#x27;ve experienced in most communities I used to frequent and perhaps lots of other people here did too.&lt;p&gt;In fact, it&amp;#x27;s something I really appreciate here on HN, the tone of discussions is rather pleasant and on topic and it&amp;#x27;s very rare to see people intentionally driving it into the ground, although in contrast to something like a Facebook group it&amp;#x27;s a lot less personal.</text></item><item><author>cal5k</author><text>Jarred was probably young when the internet was first taking shape, and every generation shares the feeling that things were better in their youth (aka the Golden Age Fallacy).&lt;p&gt;The internet was a lot smaller and inhabited by curious nerds - to find similar fun and weirdness, just find a community today that shares those properties. Packet radio, infosec, crypto, gaming, music production, etc. - there&amp;#x27;s plenty of weird and fun to be found if you look for it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tenpies</author><text>I distinctly remember a discussion about Something Awful&amp;#x27;s slogan (&amp;quot;the internet makes you stupid&amp;quot;) and how it was actually a keen observation about the internet.  Pre-internet you would have people with really bad ideas.  These people were so obvious to any normal person that bad thinkers generally shut up because sharing their bad ideas meant being socially ostracized or at least getting shunned.&lt;p&gt;But then you add the internet, and all these radically bad thinkers find each other and their ideas almost seem normal amongst their type. They not only normalize bad thinking, but they also push for even more radically bad thinking in an effort to out-do each other.  End result, you end up with a vociferous contingent of town idiots who don&amp;#x27;t realize they are town idiots because they only listen to fellow town idiots.  Add advertising companies who function on a metrics-first approach, and those town idiots dictate how companies act.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why isn&apos;t the internet more fun and weird?</title><url>https://jarredsumner.com/codeblog/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>beezischillin</author><text>A lot of online communities today are unbearable tho as everything&amp;#x27;s become so politicised. It started really wildly happening around 2013-2014 where no community was to remain a zone without some minority of users politicising it for attention. It was probably something that also happened before that but it somehow became really prevalent, at least. And often that took the fun out of it. I kind of think fondly of those times. Now of course this is just anecdotal, but that&amp;#x27;s what I&amp;#x27;ve experienced in most communities I used to frequent and perhaps lots of other people here did too.&lt;p&gt;In fact, it&amp;#x27;s something I really appreciate here on HN, the tone of discussions is rather pleasant and on topic and it&amp;#x27;s very rare to see people intentionally driving it into the ground, although in contrast to something like a Facebook group it&amp;#x27;s a lot less personal.</text></item><item><author>cal5k</author><text>Jarred was probably young when the internet was first taking shape, and every generation shares the feeling that things were better in their youth (aka the Golden Age Fallacy).&lt;p&gt;The internet was a lot smaller and inhabited by curious nerds - to find similar fun and weirdness, just find a community today that shares those properties. Packet radio, infosec, crypto, gaming, music production, etc. - there&amp;#x27;s plenty of weird and fun to be found if you look for it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>weinzierl</author><text>&amp;gt;It started really wildly happening around 2013-2014 where no community was to remain a zone without some minority of users politicising it for attention.&lt;p&gt;It was actually in September 2013 when it started ... or was it September 1993 ...? Uh, oh, how time flies, never mind.</text></comment>