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Today we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Internet becoming available to the general public, and what a 25 years it has been. What started as a means of communicating via email and obtaining useful information has transformed into something people never could have imagined in 1991. In the beginning, there were email servers and search engines. This was followed by Napster and AIM. Finally, the Internet reached its peak at downloadable porn on Limewire (getting viruses on the family computer), MySpace, Amazon, and Facebook. Now the Internet is a black hole of sloth gifs, clickbait, Farrah Abraham sex tapes, and World Star Hip Hop Vines. But anything I write is good Internet, obviously.
The dad cliche about television bingeing was calling the TV the “idiot box.” Little did 90s dads know, television couldn’t even compare to the Internet in terms of being an “idiot box.” Sloppy journalism is all over the Internet, so people can justify their political opinions with Huffington Post articles. Normal people become far too exposed to the trashier parts of society with the Internet, more specifically social media. I don’t care about your Twitter rant regarding your bedroom antics. I just don’t. And your street fight video isn’t appealing all. It’s not “savage.” Your lack of even halfway decent grammar appalls me.
Sure, you can block this garbage, but it’s so common on Twitter, and the Internet in general, that eventually another piece of garbage shows up somewhere. It reminds me a lot of the Chappelle Show skit on if the Internet was a shopping mall. In the early days of the Internet, we didn’t have to be exposed to the trashier part of society — we stayed sheltered in our little bubbles, and that was fine. If we wanted to really push the envelope, we’d just have suggestive conversations with our high school girlfriend (or boyfriend) over AIM. Long before Snapchat dick pics, we were also much more careful about what we exposed to the world…now no one cares what material they attach to their face. I’ve already ranted several times about how dating apps have ruined dating and are one of the primary reasons we’re having less sex than previous generations. You’d think with the Internet giving us access to so many people it would be the opposite. Well, maybe it is for lonely housewives, but who wants a shotgun in their face?
I’m not saying everything on the Internet is awful. We still use email and other services for work. We stream video. Some social media is entertaining if you don’t overdo it and limit with whom you interact. Tracking your finances is a million times easier. There may even be, ahem, SOME sites worth reading. High porn availability probably pleases one or two people. In the words of Dr. Cox from “Scrubs,” if they took all the porn off the Internet there would only be one website left called “Bring Back the Porn.” However, I will say that, generally speaking, since it first became available to the public the Internet has simply become a place where people share their uninteresting crap with other people. Crap videos, crap opinions, crap faux journalism, and crap pics of, well, crap.
It’s the World Wide Wastebasket, and it’s only going to get worse as more people get access to it. Happy 25th birthday, Internet. Thanks for bringing out the worst in humanity. .
Respond
@5OClockShadow_
Thank you so much for describing what I think on a daily basis.
This article could be best summarized as:
Being older than the Internet. PGP.
“I spend so much time on the Internet… I feel like I’m a million pages into the worst book ever and I’m never going to stop reading”- Aziz Ansari
I hope nobody on this site needed clarification that Dr. Cox was from “Scrubs”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.