In my industry we talk a lot about the "internet of things," which refers to the way the web has worked itself into the fabric of our lives.
I work in digital strategy, which means I’m literally always on the Internet. I also naturally think in phrases. Lately I can’t stop thinking about this phrase:
“The Internet Of People.”
The internet of people. Not knowing whether or not I’d just invented this thing or someone had already trademarked it, I Googled the phrase — and, of course, it’s a cryptocurrency.
Next I found a peer-reviewed scholarly research article with the exact phrase — the Internet of People. It was…a little out of my pay grade.
There might be more out there, but I didn’t scroll past the first page of Google because, well, people don’t do that.
Trust me, I’ve looked at the numbers.
I’m 23 years old, which means that I’ve never really lived in a world without the Internet. I mean, I’ve been through all of it: Formspring. /b/. Livejournal. Finstas. Even Reddit’s Random Acts of Amazon, where you can make friends with total strangers and mail them things on Amazon for no reason.
When I was in elementary school, I’d log on to my grandparents’ desktop every weekend. Once, I got kicked out of an KOL chatroom and had to hack into my mom’s email to delete the message from the moderator.
Whoops, I think I just told her that for the first time. Sorry, @gatorlynne!
Turns out, you can’t curse in KOL chatrooms — even if you do it in Wingdings.
(Since when do Wingdings include landscapes?)
In middle school, though, the Internet got crazy. In middle school, we had MySpace.
MySpace. The most beautiful playground of human creativity. Everything about MySpace was created for human expression. You make music? Upload it. You like glitter? Here’s a code to make glitter rain from your page while you scroll. You’re pretentious and don’t want anyone to know what Say Anything song you’ve embedded into your profile? Here’s a code to hide your music player.
Image via Free MySpace Layouts
But MySpace didn’t just change our self-expression, it changed the way we interacted with the people around us. You could have one relationship with someone IRL, and a totally different relationship online.
Now, I watch as my 13-year-old sister lives her entire life online. She's been taking selfies since she was born. She speaks in memes.
And right now, on Al Gore’s Internet, I can write this blog with no editorial guidelines or approval, upload it to a network with less than 50 followers, and still share this thing I was thinking about on my couch with the world.
That’s incredible.
What we’re doing on the Internet feels, to me, like an active archival of our lives -- and, by result, our society.
I don’t know if anybody else thinks about it as much as I do, but I think about it all the time. I think it’s really beautiful that I’ve created tiny, microscopic universes for myself my entire life.
I believe in a perfectly human, anecdotal Internet, where jokes that you tweet out into total void can eventually land you a TV show. I believe in Vine stars getting married, and I think it’s a really incredible thing to be exactly as old as I am now. I love the Internet so much it literally drives me crazy.
So, two takeaways here.
It’s worth thinking about how much data we willingly hand off to this giant, undefinable cloud-thing.
Net neutrality is necessary to maintaining our modern way of life. Without totally transparency about who controls the Internet (hint: it has to belong to us), our way of life (and my career) could be totally lost.
There was a third thing I found on the first page of Google — this article from 2015, written by Jenny Judge and Julia Powles.
"The internet has become such an ubiquitous part of our lives that we tend to forget that it is in its infancy. It’s still just a crude prototype of what it could be. The internet of the future doesn’t have to be like the internet of today: flat, monopolised and dangerously opaque. Its form, contours and feel are still, quite literally, up for grabs.”
This quote reminds me so much of what I see happening here on Steemit. I'm so glad there are people out there as interested in redefining the Internet as I am, people who love the Internet enough to know that it can be better than what's being offered to us right now.
The internet is the people.
Don’t let bots convince you otherwise.
Cover image via Smashing Lists
P.S. I originally wrote this as a video script...should I record it? Comment below and let me know what you think! :)
It's amazing to me how a little bit of age difference makes a difference in what we feel nostalgia for re: the internet. For me, it's Livejournal. That was the place. It was where creativity and community collided perfectly. I really don't know why people left it, to be honest. I mean, I do. I remember the exodus first to MySpace and then to Tumblr, but I didn't understand then (and don't know either) what those platforms brought that Livejournal didn't. Both of them seemed to bring so much LESS to me. Anyway, Steemit is the closest thing to Livejournal I've seen. And you can make money with it. I'm digging it. (Though I do wonder how Steemit can best leverage fandom. I think if they can get fandom over here, it would go gangbusters. But profit and fandom has always been a pretty dangerous combo, so maybe it's not possible.)
Oh I loved Livejournal. I always used it as such a pure extension of myself — a true diary really, so less community than you’re describing. I agree that it reminds me a lot of Steemit. I agree re: Fandom since Tumblr has left everyone largely in Yahoo’s dust. When Taylor Swift opened her own app I was literally like dang, that was one of the biggest brand-safe audiences Tumblr had left!
I think if we consider Steemit similar to Patreon fandom creators could do quite well here. It is, after all, so community based — fans always have an incredible way of creating community.
You may have been told in a comment up there - but just as people do not move from the first page of Google, I doubt many will read the other comments before commenting - you have a fascinating ability to write and it seems like I'm really talking with you right now. Awesome. Greetings.
That is such an awesome compliment @vierira, thank you. I really appreciate it. Hope you're having a great day!!
Hello this was a prettydecent post, so I resteemed it. I hope you find some supportive followers!
@whatsup
Ahhh you are the best! Thank you @whatsup, I really appreciate the support.
This was such an interesting read. It's super insightful and really entertaining. normally i cant read through articles like this without getting bored. but you wrote it with such... feeling?... that it felt like someone was telling it to me rather than me reading it. lots of nostalgia in here too. great read. and I totally think you should make this a video! its perfect for that imo. link your DTube and upload it here too. its connected to Steemit.
Thank you so much, @joltcentral! That really means a lot to me. I definitely want to give it some more character through editing and speaking directly to the camera. I'm hoping to start making videos for DTube in the next week or so :)
Word. I'm sure it will be crisp! looking forward to it :)
Very high quality article. I'm curious to see how VR and maybe VR based locomotion based systems (treadmills that allow you to move around) will further deepen the Internet, changing chatrooms into real living places you can walk around - and allowing for the impossible to exist.
My personal hope is that someone will make a full 3D rendering of Hogwarts, and people can congregate around and meet people in.
It'll be curious to see how it evolves. Technology always reflects the user in the end, like a mirror to the heart - hopefully as things grow - we will see more positive aspects of life reflected.
Good read. Keep up the articles, it's high quality.
I DEEPLY feel you on the Harry Potter thing. I was just thinking about that — I feel like I grew with the Internet and Harry Potter at such synchronized times that they’re very intertwined for me. I vividly remember playing my Harry Potter CD-ROM and tracing the spell with my mouse and thinking, “Wow! Magic!”
There is definitely a post there. I’m interested to read more from you about this IRL chat room thing. I think i remember Facebook flopping at a similar concept? Thank you for the kind words!!
Yeah, Facebook made something - but it served as a massive lesson in the uncanny valley. There other VR chatrooms I've been in, but they feel odd. You can feel someone there, but not quite. It'll take time to make that less weird and more normal - I feel like social VR is still the pre-pre-MySpace stage, if that is a denoting term I can use, haha.
This one is semi-popular:
https://altvr.com/
I will say that talking to people in VR is better than saying online chatrooms, and playing VR videogames with other people - theres this game called Onward
Onwardhttp://www.downpourinteractive.com/#onward
and this is a much more - tense style of communication as your not talking about random stuff your frantically calling enemy locations and orders. It's intense, but fun.
aNYWAYS, whoops - anyways - the VR chatrooms (to me at least) are a early sign of what we should be seeing soon which is VR ecosystems being an extension of the internet - so optimistically speaking you'd be able to put on a VR headset and talk to your friend in Japan, while riding around on broomsticks. Optimistically.
There's so many variables - adoptions - computer power - investors - so we'll see - but I'm optimistic.
Also now that I'm on a roll it made me think of this -
it has nothing to do with VR but reminded me of the online chatroom stuff.
If you want to investigate VR I'd say go for it, but I have to warn you - it's a very interesting (and potentially disturbing) rabbit hole to fall down.
WOW okay so you really feel me. We are friends now. That video was incredible, never seen that — I have plans to start a similar series here on Steemit actually, which is what’s crazy. I want to keep an archive of times I see the web in films and TV shows. So that is awesome :)
I love the idea of VR, but it does scare me. I think I watched that movie Surrogate at a dreadfully formative age and have also always had a fear that we are all just little brains hooked up to a machine :p That’s to say, if they come out with a new Google Glasses x Warby Parker collab...
Haha, all those videos are golden to me - you can watch any single one of them and learn something.
I feel the same about VR, like all technology before it - it has awesome potential to create and destroy.
I've wondered about the brain a jar thing myself, but often think of the holographic universe - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle
thanks drugs.
We'll have to see - personally I'd want color changing eye contacts that can turn any room into an instant rave - but that's just me.
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Wow. Amazing recap of the last 20 years of internet. I would love to see the video recreation! You've got to capture that scratchy wifi login sound from AOL with "You've got mail!" as a sound effect. Oh, I miss the days! Great post!! <3
Ooooo good idea!! Thank you, and sorry about the KOL thing! :p
@sndbox if you are looking for posts for your next post roundup, I would love to be considered :)
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Your post made me nostalgic. Even if I'm probably the last generation to remember life before the Internet, I miss the days of AOL thing:)
Nostalgia is the whole brand! Hahaha. I miss the old Internet so much!
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May I ask how you got the quotes to look like this? Loving the vibe of that look.
Yes! You just put these little guys (don't know what they're called, to the left of the 1) around it: `
For exampleI think I got it!!You rock. Thanks :)Thank you!!