[webtv]

I think the earliest memory of me using the internet was going on the site new grounds and playing the game Dad And Me for the first time (and was probably the first flash game I ever played, besides Interactive Buddy), and being absolutely horrified at the violence and blood for my little boy brain, even though the contents were just basic violence and comic mischief, but nonetheless, it had left a pretty decent scar on me until my brain was fully developed. Pretty sick game ngl.

On the topic of weird shit, I'll say two of the most recent things I've discovered, Alfred's Playhouse, and trauma core.

The internet is the modern day language, a new language of love to replace Latin, or any other language. We're swapping letters with 1s and 0s, because who want's to keep using outdated shit when the internet constantly keeps us up to date with everything going on in the planet as I'm typing this and you reading this?

In my personal opinion, the internet is a psychedelic that we take, just like how you get booted up into the Matrix. Healthy? Probably not. Addictive? Fuck yes indeed.

Algorithms fuck me up, and I'd say the rest of the world using an app or search engine. I was digging deep into the premise and ideals of algorithms, and it's kinda scary. It's a well known fact that algorithms are created to keep you interested in the topics you're interested in, whether it's jock straps or bible verses. However, algorithms will NEVER give you the other side of a certain topic or story, such as an argument or a world war. It's like Diet Pepsi propaganda in a way to keep people enticed, but also making sure that they keep looking at the same shit. Dangerous game.

It's a whole new world of shit, and I'm loving every second of it.

oh man. I love the Diet Pepsi allusion. In so many ways the increasing sense of ever-increasing choices is really just the over-designing of the inside of a cage that is getting smaller and smaller, or like a VR visor presenting literally the entire universe in front of you, whilst you're on a treadmill. I had a convo the other day with a friend about how the algo is basically paranoia/solipsism/synchronicity artificially realized. like, back in the day, people thought god/the universe was giving them a sign, but had to have faith that's what it was. now, literally everything is a sign (ostensibly) directly meant for you and only you. because it's not just the sign (like one recommendation), but the whole pattern or rhythm of signs themselves. in what ways specifically do you feel it's personally or socially dangerous?

love your other points, but just to focus in--yeah, what's the deal with traumacore? I just discovered it recently too, and am stunned by how fascinating it is from a folk/anthropological perspective: genuinely feels like meme art intensified to such a state that it's actually, and pretty organically, a medium of catharsis and solace for (what I take to often be) kids or young adults. there's absolutely something uncanny about it though, how the spaces chosen for the photos used feel like a kind of mental landscape, or projection of the feeling into a space, which seems to usually be a corrupting presence over the cute/innocent objects/toys in the room. still processing it, really. also makes me feel a lot of the same way that Nicole Dollanganger's music does.