Can the internet ever be fun again?

Or is it just doomed to the vapidity of sterile commercialization?

It feels like everything is serious these days... and 'humor' is only of the commercial variety. Joke communities and circlejerk communities are considered 'hate groups' now. Mods will ban you for sarcastic comments on 'serious' topics, and even on non serious ones, and everything is politicized either by trolls, bots, or whackjobs.

It's boring when you can't joke anymore. I miss my internet communities of 5-10 years ago when you could joke around, and even people of different beliefs and persuasions could laugh at themselves.

Now everything is so deadly serious. It's a complete bummer. And any sort of 'edge' or sarcasm or sardonic remarks are ban-worthy.

I guess it's just poe's law run amok? I feel like mods could tell the difference 10 years ago and the non-jokey psychos were just ignored.

airrow ,

there's the indieweb movement, smaller sites trying to have fun, like neocities

Alice ,
@Alice@hilariouschaos.com avatar

Love this post

https://hilariouschaos.com/pictrs/image/db24e06c-df58-4e1d-92db-edecf19f930a.webp

Drummyralf , (edited )

My feeling is that this is temporary. Currently there is a big fight about what is offensive and what is not. It is only logical that, when that public debate is still ongoing, people will have less tolerance towards offensiveness: we haven't reached a consensus yet on what we should tolerate in our online language. We as a species are not used to the responsibility of anonymous communication and the repercussions it has on how we act and perceive that communication.

Also, movements and changes most of the time go to the other extreme first, before landing in the middle somewhere. That's just how change often (not always) works.

That, or you're getting old and you're doing the "back in my day" thing. Could be that too. The world changes, language changes, jokes change. It's just part of life man.

Edit: welp, this apparantly is a hot take, when I thought it was quite neutral. I'm not saying we shouldn't stand up against offensive behaviour (my view is the opposite). It's that coming to a sensible consensus about certain topics as a society takes time. It takes time to convince people to change their ways, but it also takes time to not fight for extremes when you're having new talking points. Everything is balance. But in my attempt to keep it short I apparantly didn't convey much of that message.

otp ,

I always find it weird when someone says they can't joke on the internet. I joke on the internet all the time, and I've been banned from 0 forums, Discord servers, or other social media groups. 1 subreddit, but that was appealed, and I wasn't even joking when I got that ban, lol

I've never seen the internet as some stuffy place where I can't joke around, or where I have to watch my tongue, and I've been using the internet for over 20 years.

I'm not going to accuse anyone of anything, though I do know that some people and communities have "old boys' clubs" or whatever they're called where their sense of humour tends to be saying things that shouldn't be said in polite company...things like racist or sexist jokes, rape jokes, etc.

The whole world isn't one big "old boys' club", and not everyone wants to see that crap. A big part of comedy is knowing your audience.

TL;DR, The internet is still fun. If it's not fun for you, then it might be your perspective that needs adjustment.

fmstrat , (edited )

Volume. A long time ago, ten replies was huge, not a thousand.

Join the communities, follow the people, and start conversations where the world is still small, you'll find what you are looking for.

The filter is your friend, social sites are not the only sites (federated ones included), and there are many destinations to participate as long as you dont hunt for exposure to the masses.

Edit: Friendly reminder that IRC, web comics, and niche forums still exist.

HenriVolney ,

Yet another example of the general enshittification of the Internet. I don't see it getting better anytime soon

droning_in_my_ears ,

Some pockets here and there are still fun. It's just hard to find them.

intensely_human ,

https://y.yarn.co/c75eadfc-52eb-497f-ad7b-dc774195903a_text.gif

Today ,

Maybe the things you think are jokes are offensive to other people? Watch a movie from 20, 30, 40 years ago and see how those jokes held up - lots of racist, homophobic, sexist stuff. I'm not saying that's what you're looking for, but just that some jokes don't age well. When you know better, do better.

intensely_human ,

I do know better. I know about diversity and acceptance, and taking it easy, and living and letting live, and to each his own, and being a traveler, and having an open mind, and ribbing, and separating the important stuff from the unimportant stuff.

I know things that are so much better than getting offended over more and more things each year. I know better, so I do better.

I don’t get offended over jokes because I have contempt for that behavior.

mozz , (edited )
@mozz@mbin.grits.dev avatar

Give it time

The old school internet was fun because we were in charge. No one would put Peanut Butter Jelly Time or Look at My Horse on TV and let it play in its entirety. No one would print rotten.com on paper and sell it at the corner. For the first time ever in a lot of people's experience, you could publish and say whatever you wanted. Then the reality of hosting costs set in, and the government learned that the internet existed and decided what it needed was outlawed encryption, and long story short there was a long self selection process where only the assholes wound up in charge again.

But now it's coming back. I think everyone's a little bit shell shocked back to the Facebook way (e.g. screaming about the mods and how unfair, instead of starting their own instances / communities, e.g. bickering about what "the rules" need to be and when to put content warnings and whatnot). I think it'll equalize as the realpolitik of people generally running their own servers replaces the realpolitik of it being just a bunch of assholes running the servers and us being helpless and no escape from them.

I don't know exactly what culture it will equalize to, but I definitely feel like it will be a big step back towards the old internet. We just haven't gotten there yet.

mister_monster ,

You're on a network where the majority has strict limits on the topics you're allowed to poke fun at. Commercialization may have started the trend, but an eternal September of humorless cunts are keeping it going far and wide.

sharkfucker420 ,
@sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml avatar

Yes it can be fun again but it will never be fun in the way you remember. My experience with the internet and the ways in which it was fun to me are likely different from the way it was fun for you.

I think a seperation from algorithms and corporate ownership of internet spaces will be a huge step towards making the internet more fun. As usual capitalism ruins the experience lol.

PhlubbaDubba ,

Blame the algorithms.

They intentionally defy normal human social behavior to pit you against people you're more likely to disagree with in a major irreconcilable way, prompting people to polarize as potential middle grounders are pushed in one direction or the other through constantly being fed the absolute most aggressive examples of "the other side" that are currently active.

It's like video game matchmaking but the slurs actually rank you up.

In normal human interaction you'd be able to just write the crazies off and stop talking to them, social media is your boundary hating aunt who refuses to accept you have a right to go NC over irreconcilable differences and keeps trying to force reconciliation at every family event despite neither of you having any want for communicating with the other, then acts shocked and horrified when actually succeeding in forcing a conversation just leads to another blow up because some people are just better off not speaking.

intensely_human ,

Also there are bots going around posing as human users with ridiculous opinions. And there are so many of them, those ridiculous opinions can get upvoted and look popular.

hal_5700X ,
@hal_5700X@sh.itjust.works avatar

Corporations, governments and very political users has sterilize the Internet. You can’t be edgy/tell edgy jokes without being called racist, sexist and so on. Also the Internet is being walled garden by said parties. Due them closing down sites. By removing the ways the sites can keep themselves going, like cutting off payment processing companies. If the mob cries or/and screams hard enough. They can remove you and web sites from the net. Look what happened to Kiwi Farms. Cloudflare had Kiwi Farms back. But the mob cried, so Cloudflare dropped Kiwi Farms.

Can the Internet ever be fun again? Will, it's going to be hard to go back to the old Internet. Look at who we are fight against. Can it be done? Yes, but it's going extremely hard.

PhlubbaDubba ,

Bro the statement you link literally points out that the site's users started conspiring to do crimes against the people running the pressure campaign.

hal_5700X , (edited )
@hal_5700X@sh.itjust.works avatar

Where's the proof?

EDIT So people are for an company who removed DDoS protection for a web site without proof of wrong doing. Just because a mob of people cried and screamed about said site. Really? That's just sad.

Nemo ,

You can be edgy and not be called racist. What you can't be is racist and not be called racist, and I think that's a good thing.

Boozilla , (edited )
@Boozilla@lemmy.world avatar

There's a hypothetical phenomenon called the "asshole filter" that some have proposed. Basically, the idea is: hostile, humorless and trolling type people chase away the more pleasant people over time. The end result being, the concentration of assholes is always going up on social media and anonymous online forums, etc.

I don't think it's very scientific. How could you accurately measure such a thing. But I have felt like it was happening as various corners of the internet have grown in popularity.

One way I try to deal with it on here is I aggressively block people. Why let my energy get drained when there's any easy way to never see the jerks again.

I don't know if this tactic will work long term. There are potentially friendlier instances to migrate to, also. Lemmy is an interesting ongoing experiment.

Hope you hang in. Completely understand if you don't want to.

lvxferre ,
@lvxferre@mander.xyz avatar

I've been thinking about social mechanics in online environments for a few years, and this arsehole filter definitively sounds true for me. I think that it has a twofold mechanism:

  • it's easier to endure arseholes if you're one
  • your behaviour sets up the example for newbies

So arseholes have a higher re-incidence and proliferation than nice people.

I also think that this applies to assumptive/dumb/disingenuous vs. smart, and entitled/whiny vs. contributive people. If that's correct then the phenomenon is likely wider, and we could actually measure it for something else. It wouldn't prove that the arsehole filter is true, but it would strengthen the hypothesis.

otp ,

Yup. There were some Reddit communities I left because of the population of assholes or "griefers". There seemed to be a disproportionate amount in certain gaming communities that lead me to believe age is a factor.

Thankfully, there were usually enough people leaving to create an alternate subreddit! Lol

shinigamiookamiryuu ,

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