I remember a time when the internet was a different place. (All good grumpy men posts start like this… “Back in my day!”)
Bitcoin was just taking off. People downloaded music on Napster — along with a Trojan horse. MySpace was a thing, and ordering DVDs through the mail on Love film meant you were finally a grown-up, as you paid for things with your lowly McDonald’s wage. Then you’d go and spend a few hours on WoW with your mates, tanking Naxxramas for hours before ultimately wiping on the third boss and calling it a night.
As a wrestling fan back in the day, I’d watch as fans called in to shows after the TV production went off air, and somehow the staff didn’t anticipate that prepubescent boys would seize the chance to impress their friends — swearing or making immature jokes Bart Simpson style on what you could still call a live broadcast of sorts.
We’ll never get those unpolished days back — a bit like how satellites changed the television industry in the ’80s, ushering in 24-hour non-stop worldwide news channels that continue to this day. It was just evolution.
This is where I think TV evolved and got thousands of channels — so many that some set-top boxes would advertise that they could record four channels at the same time, and you could watch a fifth channel.
The corporate internet, on the other hand, funnels us into a few sites, harvesting our data, either to sell us something or to sell something about us.
Everybody you know hangs out on a handful of sites or services (Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, TikTok, Instagram, Discord, Reddit, YouTube). I threw a few in for the gamers, too, but you get the gist.
Doomscrolling, I think they call it, and I’ve had enough of it. (Not you doomscrolling, you do you.)
This is not the vast, open outback of the internet that was promised to us.
That’s what I’ve started this website for — to try and curate and look for the little guys again.
The one-man bands (shout-out to the guitarists!)
If you know of any cool websites, please get in touch via email — link at the bottom of the page in the footer.
Let the search begin.
Thanks,
Marty