Internet as of Now

30th of March, 2025

As algorithms frolic in the fields of data, scraping all they find and sorting it into neat marketing targets; as an incredibly versatile tool of great potential is used mostly for unimaginative “slop”; as you get yelled at from every corner with nonsense words but also important issues and are expected to treat them all with the same level of emotional involvement, you, dear reader, might find yourself confused and frustrated, while using the Internet.

Hello, it’s me, the cretin with a blog pretending to have nuanced thoughts and informed opinions. And I would like to bravely contribute to the topic of “The Internet kinda blows lately”. Okay, enough with the wannabe witty commentary, I’m not a journalist for an online paper. I am, much like you, a simple web pedestrian.

The web surfing experience has been streamlined more than ever. Now, thanks to the algorithms, death to chronological post appearance and the endless scrollable “for you feeds”, it feels less like surfing and more like losing control of your kayak and being pinballed through a fast flowing river. Social Media loves taking control away from us and making us see whatever it deems we would enjoy most. I don’t personally use any websites or apps that have a scrollable video feed or a for you page, or I erase them from my mind and forget they even exist, so every time I’m confronted by them it leaves me bewildered. This way of presenting “content” (throws up a little) makes searching for anything specific close to impossible. It makes everything fleeting, like you aren’t supposed to retain anything. Blurry snapshots of the shore as you are tumbled mercilessly between rocks. Oh, unless it is an advertisement. That thing needs to be as clear and memorable as the faces of your friends.

Engagement has been incentivized by social media for a long time, but nowadays it has been sought after more than ever. A good way to pull in engagement has been ragebait. Practically since the dawn of time. And while in the past this behavior has been more or less confined to comment trolls, nowadays it’s in places you would never expect before. Many times these past few months I have found myself believing someone is wrong or misinformed and is trying to spread that information, only to realize, half way through complaining to a friend about this, that this is not a genuine belief or an attempt by someone, but a well-crafted bait, that I fell for hook line and sinker. Now while perusing the creations of people online I have to stop and ask myself "Is this a real though being shared, or something that was written with full knowledge that it would make number of comments and impressions go up and nothing else?". Everyone is a troll now because it pays.

To me, this behavior is more annoying than already bothersome habit I’ve developed to scan every picture I see for the signs of Image Generation. Now, I am well aware how oversaturated the AI conversation is, trust me. I’ve actually written a whole post about my thoughts on it that ended up unpublished, because it devolved into pointless semiotics and one-upping of each nuance with and even more nuanced opinion. Which is not only a terrible bore to read, but also simply unproductive. So I will try to do something at least a little different than arguing about the integrity of Art, or what makes us human or whatever nerd shit. I want to ask you to look at Art as a hobby, a fun pastime. Neural Networks, Language Models and all are endlessly fascinating tools. Unfortunately, the types of AI the masses access most are the most caged-in sterile generation engines that create results that make people believe that that is exactly what they wanted, striping all and any authorial intent beyond vague suggestions. Honest opinion on generative AI from me – it is tiring.

I think that generative AI images, especially the misinformation or propaganda types, are in the same 100% win rate situation as good old ragebait. The people that agree with it, love it or don’t realize what it is will shower it with positive attention. And the people that dislike it and are infuriated by it will voice they distain and argue with it. But it’s all the same to the people, or companies, or bots that post these. It’s all numbers. Numbers aren’t good or bad, they just need to go up. This is exhausting. Everything becomes a means to get a number to grow.

The Internet as a whole nowadays feels very angry. And not in a sense that everyone is an asshole, that has been the case since the beginning. It’s common human nature to be awful if you can get away with it. No, now the Internet needs YOU to be angry. You have to be engaging with a stupid post, you need to see this ad, you need to “doomscroll”. You are conditioned to feel negative emotions all the time because it just so happens that anger is the most profitable emotion. Anger is a strange feeling, it is negative and unpleasant yet it is invigorating and energizing. It makes you want to take action and do so with using as little judgment as it can get away with. It’s reactionary and impulsive. So basically perfect for clever marketing.

In her 2012 book ”Calming the Emotional Storm”, Sheri Van Dijk provides Dialectical Behavior Therapy exercises we can use in order to learn how to understand and be able to live with our emotions without them taking control of our life. Many people on the Internet, as well as my personal friends, are expressing this need to disconnect or “detox” from the web. They find themselves needing constant distractions from the uncontrollable thoughts and feelings that are only egged on by algorithms. I feel the same, and in my opinion DBT can be quite helpful in this regard.

I experience difficulty engaging with such exercises, especially the mindfulness one. Unlike the meaningless modern buzzword, here mindfulness means being present in the moment, being aware of your body and surroundings. You have to focus on the experience you are having (walking, eating dinner, playing with your pet, etc.), take note of your feelings, of what’s happening around you and simply observe without passing any judgment. S. Van Dijk refers to this as friendly curiosity, and you have to admit, that sounds nice. Not negative, not forcibly positive, but a neutral and interested attitude towards the world and yourself.

It sounds easy on paper, but in practice I always feel my mind slipping away, be it to the unpleasant past or an imaginary miserable future when, all things considered, the present I’m in is fine. It’s not the catastrophic nightmares my mind conjures. And as the book points out, being stuck in the past or future only brings us extra stress that can be avoided. Do you find your mind wandering to the Internet-specific situations even if you aren’t on your computer or phone? I have to admit, while trying to do this exercise and focus on the process of doing my dishes today, I felt my mind constantly slip, trying to find the words for this very blog post you are reading! Isn’t that a little scary? We really are connected to the Web a little too much. I think what I want to strive for is a certain level of informational hygiene, where I would be able to turn off my computer and not feel threatened by what may or may not be happening on the internet. It’s a tall order, but with some practice and a reasonable amount of discipline I feel it is possible.

I’m not a professional in things like this, so I can’t give you directions on how to make the Internet less soul-sucking and in all fairness I don’t think I should. I hope you will find your own ways of engaging with the World Wide Web that feels good and manageable; I think we all need that. Be it cultivating your media consumption but largely staying in touch, deleting it all and getting lost in the nearest mountains forever or a compromise of these, I wish you luck. Thank you as always for sharing some of your time with me, dear reader.

sorry not sorry for making you think this is an internet hater post and tricking you into reading about DBT lmao gottem

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