return to internet sincerity
I’m old enough to have been on the internet for almost 30 years now. I remember my first email account at Sydney Uni in 1996 and having absolutely no idea what to do with it. During that time I feel like there have been a few Ages of Internet, broad themes that capture the essence of the internet and how we use it. In this post I’ll lay out those Ages, and finish with a call to return to the Old Internet, when it was good.
The First Age - Sincerity
When the Internet was new and none of us knew what to do with it. For me this period was marked by mIRC, forums and blog posts. The internet then felt like a place where people were trying to put forward their authentic selves, to share their arcane knowledge and find their people. I was mountain biking and bird watching at the time and their online communities organised pretty quickly. Everything was slapdash, the interfaces were clunky, but there were real people on the other end, and that was exciting.
The Second Age - Can We Make Money
As internet use grew, businesses started to wonder if they could make money from this thing. Amazon, PayPal, eBay and banner ads typify this period, as the first online business models started to emerge. But at this point they’re separate; you can make money on the internet, through your online shop or advertising, but there’s still a completely non-commercial internet working in parallel. Reddit, Twitter is starting to grow, Facebook towards the end of it. Early ideas on new business models, but they’re not successful yet.
The Third Age - Rampant Corporatisation
Once it was established that you could actually make money, Corporations stormed onto the internet like it was the New World. This period is marked by Corporate Twitter accounts, Brands arguing on social media, viral marketing and an increasing need for your online presence to match your employer’s presence. I hated this part. The idea that my Twitter profile, which I had before I was employed at your business, is yours in some way now, really stuck in my metaphorical-craw. My tweets have to be aligned politically with my employer? Yuck. By this point humans are almost completely abstracted out of the process. Public facing accounts are staffed by multiple people and read from a style guide. Sincerity is frowned upon. Though I think notably the really successful Brand Engagements were sincere, and involved real people being real.
The Fourth Age - Slop
Don’t get me wrong, AI has some incredible uses, but one thing it’s awful at is generating content. It’s never been easier to produce more content than anyone can consume in a lifetime. “Write me a 200,000 word essay on the ages of the internet” and you'd get one. This period marks an almost complete breakdown in trust. It’s no longer possible to tell who wrote something or if it was even a person. Is this a real view held by a person or marketing bullshit generated by a corporation? There’s more content than ever, and less ability to verify its authenticity.
The Fifth Age - A Return to Sincerity
I concede, this might be hopeful, but I think the reaction to all of this will be a return to sincerity. When anyone can have any opinion and argue it with no background, people with genuine passion or expertise really stand out. Bring me your blog posts, niche interests and enthusiasms. Tell me about your sandwich! Be a real person in a sea of beige non-people.
To some degree, I’ve been living this in my work life for a few years. I’m deliberately weird and personable at work. I ask people what they did on the weekend before a meeting kicks off, or announce to the Standup that I just had a chicken kebab that changed my life. I tell stories about things that have happened. My hope is that by offering something human from myself I’ll get the same back and so we will improve our understanding of each other and work better in future.
It’s not without risks! Some people really don’t want work to be like that, and this approach has been hated in the past as “unprofessional” (Hi Andrew!). But I would argue that if you’re not presenting enough of yourself to potentially be hated, then you’re just engaging with another form of slop, generating a corporate persona that you think will be acceptable. No one hates white bread do they?
I’ll wrap this up with a call to arms: be the weird internet you want to see in the world. Post photos of your sandwich on the company Slack. Ask your suppliers how junior football went on the weekend. Write lovingly crafted blog posts about niche subjects that get 5 views. If like me you hate this age of bland, corporatised, personality-free content, do the opposite of that. Lean into your weird, and you might find others want to lean into it too.
EB