What we used to do online in the olden days

[Gamma Ray]

The Internet was exciting in 1999, with people's websites looking unique and having fun content. Now it's really dull with everybody has homogenous Facebook profiles and using it like a basic utility. The excitement is gone, despite it offering us all of the free movies, TV shows, books and music we could ever want.

Indeed, sites used to look a lot more like Jaron Lanier's still does today. You'd probably be interested in his book You Are Not A Gadget.

[I accept the terms of the]

You're right. I've already bought it, but I haven't started reading it yet. I'm almost scared to, as I'm trying to use social networking a bit so I don't become a luddite hermit, but I am also essentially opposed to most of it. I get to choose between principles and love, I suppose.

The sarcastic "things were better when they were shit" tag is interesting to me. I don't understand how anybody could think that things like identical Facebook profiles vs original content is an improvement.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I think the net's the best it's ever been right now, though it seems like I'm the only one in this thread. I love that I can download any film / tv show / album / game within minutes, and there's still a lot of general all round weirdness on the net - it's just now it's folk's blogs rather than a shittily made geocities site. Youtube is packed with lots of fantastically rare clips that load in a second, and okay, it's frustrating that some get taken down due to copyright reasons but the amount of content on there which is worth watching is pretty amazing. Now if I want to remember some old theme tune or kids tv button, it's there instantly, which is something which just wasn't possible a decade back. Or if it was, it took an forever to download.

Back when I was first online in about 98 it'd take a fucking age for even one picture to download on our slow connection, and whilst some forums were fun, most were over-trolled and really frustrating to stick with. And I even like Facebook, it's helped me regain contact with some long lost friends, and though I hide about 60% of my friends statuses, sometimes it's fun to hear what folks have been up too. So I feel this is the golden age right now, though can't imagine it lasting, sadly.

[I accept the terms of the]

A lot of what you said is about consuming, and in that sense it is better than ever. Blogs are a positive, but so many of them are weak excuses to post soundbites of other people's work or to self-promote. It feels rarer and rarer to find engaging new content, and apart from YouTube the good content I do find seems firmly seated in the Web 1.0 mindset: content over form.

[Famous Mortimer]

apart from YouTube the good content I do find seems firmly seated in the Web 1.0 mindset: content over form.

What sort of forms would you like to see nowadays?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I think the net's the best it's ever been right now, though it seems like I'm the only one in this thread.

I'll happily make myself the second. The internet is getting ever more brilliant.

Two inventions alone- wikipedia and google streetview have completely transformed people's sense of curiosity. As I said in the previous thread- if you want to find something out, you now have the tools to discover it very quickly- this is empowering and encourages exploration, not laziness.
Also it's 90% responsible for my music tastes, and 90% responsible for the music I make myself.

The only thing I miss is having my teenage years neatly dovetail with it taking off, and the only thing I'm scared of is governments shutting off areas of the internet for arbitrary 'security reasons'. But it will remain a hotbed of creativity and creative genius, and while that continues to produce things that entertain and delight I hope that it will also act as a buffer between it and the forces holding the plug.

[sirhenry]

The sarcastic "things were better when they were shit" tag is interesting to me. I don't understand how anybody could think that things like identical Facebook profiles vs original content is an improvement.

I think it's the sense of wonder that people keep expressing in this thread that they felt when they first discovered that there was a whole hidden world of stuff they'd never imagined before, rather than the content itself. Now there's very little that's truly new, more just variations on the already successful and we all know how and where to get whatever we want. When it took 25 minutes to download a single picture of a model with her top off the overriding feeling was one of anticipation, rather than frustration.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

When it took 25 minutes to download a single picture of a model with her top off the overriding feeling was one of anticipation, rather than frustration.

Speak for yourself, I'd have been wanting far more skin than that.

[sirhenry]

I was thinking of 1987; I take it you were monstrously precocious.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

That's just how brilliant our internet connection was.

[doppelkorn]

I'll third the notion that the internet is better now compared to when I started using it in 97 or 98.

It's faster, Wikipedia exists and the organisation and reliability of knowledge is mure assured. Searching is easier. Even Google's "guess what you're searching for" thing is a HUGE step in the right direction because you can type in "man who played Don in Third Rock From the Sun" and it'll know what you mean.

You can listen to pretty much any song ever recorded and watch pretty much anything that's ever been on TV whereas before you needed to wait half an hour to download a 10 second clip of someone breakdancing.

I remember going on IRC and it was full of humourless knobs as well.

I literally can't think of anything that's worse now that before. The sense of wonder thing only gets better doesn't it?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

The reduction of the novelty value is adequately compensated for by the size and speed of the improvements. And very occasionally you get the nice feeling coursing through you that what you were doing, that one minute ago, was taking something absolutely amazing for granted.

Wireless internet; downloading something from one thing to another through the air, in particular, is a thing of unreasoning genius.

[I accept the terms of the]

What sort of forms would you like to see nowadays?

Is that a joke question?

[sirhenry]

The reduction of the novelty value is adequately compensated for by the size and speed of the improvements. And very occasionally you get the nice feeling coursing through you that what you were doing, that one minute ago, was taking something absolutely amazing for granted.

Absolutely.[nb]Never thought I'd get to see it again, but thanks to the internet it's not only out on DVD, but available for download too![/nb]

[Famous Mortimer]

Is that a joke question?

Not at all. You said it was all content over form, in a bad way, so I asked what form you'd like to see. I was trying to be nice.

[I accept the terms of the]

It just seems like a funny question, because I was just saying that the form isn't important.

As I said, it's an undeniable fact that today's Internet is vastly superior for consuming content. I just think that the spirit of independent original content production (where just about everybody would have a unique personal website, no matter how shit) is being crushed, and most people would rather consume, ride the coattails of other people's achievements or just have a Facebook page full of party photos. I think that people are beginning to find stilted social networking conversations far too normal (when they're barely social at all) and are becoming more interested in sharing fragments of other people's content and broadcasting repeated phrases and memes like shibboleths to test for like-minded people. It's becoming too easy to avoid the difficult but necessary parts of social interaction; it's not better to only get what you want.

[Treguard of Dunshelm]

That ^ sounds to me an awful lot like the criticisms the internet got in the 90's, like "It's just for geeks who can't communicate!"

[23 Daves]

Believe it or not, I don't really miss peope's personal web pages.  I miss the feeling of surprise they generated in the mid-nineties, the sense of "Wow, I'm getting to see inside somebody's life and they live in Anchorage!", but the novelty wore off quite quickly.  What some would argue was "unique content" I'd actually argue was mostly some dodgy animated gifs and pointless pictures of people's children and pets.  Oh, and "Hampsterdance".

What I do miss is that hardly anybody - or at least hardly anyone I know - does personal blogs these days.  The Internet is awash with fascinating themed blogs, but the self-indulgent ones where people would muse and pontificate across 800-1,000 words on some personal or political issue were often actually great, and there were so many well-written examples around.  If you were are a part of a Livejournal community, for example, there was a period in the mid-noughties where it felt like a fascinating place to be.  Back then, I spent more time on LJ than this site (although the contributors to this forum were also a bit hostile and cliquey back then, so that may not be saying much).

Blog communities are pretty much a thing of the past thanks to more pithy forms of social networking, which encourage brief and not especially revealing updates.  I don't really have any faith there will ever be a traditional blogging revival, which seems a huge shame - there's still a place for that sort of thing.  It's not as if it's been superseded by new technology, and I refuse to believe that people have less time to either read or express themselves now than they did in 2005. 

[I accept the terms of the]

That ^ sounds to me an awful lot like the criticisms the internet got in the 90's, like "It's just for geeks who can't communicate!"

No, that's just want me to be saying. This has nothing to do with social incompetents using the Internet as a refuge from real life, and more to do with healthy human interaction being replaced by a infantile, commercialised, unfulfilling system where people can block out what they think isn't necessary (along with other worrying shortcuts and filters). You've really missed the point here by reducing it to the geeky outcast example when this is about everybody, particular the generations growing up with it all.

23 Daves puts it all better than me[nb]and sticks to the subject matter by talking about the quality of the web rather than getting into societal issues[/nb]by skipping over the contentious personal webpages example and explaining that "pithy forms of social networking" are eroding people's desire to produce more thoughtful, personal content.

[massive bereavement]

The first on-line webcam went live in 1991 from Cambridge University. The final image, uploaded a decade later, is still available, though it's difficult to make out what it is you're actually looking at....



I'm surprised more hasn't been made of public webcams, I'd have expected many city-cams similar in quality to the Abbey Road crossing http://www.abbeyroad.com/visit/ to be available by now or cameras stuck on the front of public transport so you could take a virtual live bus journey.

[Treguard of Dunshelm]

No, that's just want me to be saying. This has nothing to do with social incompetents using the Internet as a refuge from real life, and more to do with healthy human interaction being replaced by a infantile, commercialised, unfulfilling system where people can block out what they think isn't necessary (along with other worrying shortcuts and filters). You've really missed the point here by reducing it to the geeky outcast example when this is about everybody, particular the generations growing up with it all.

23 Daves puts it all better than me[nb]and sticks to the subject matter by talking about the quality of the web rather than getting into societal issues[/nb]by skipping over the contentious personal webpages example and explaining that "pithy forms of social networking" are eroding people's desire to produce more thoughtful, personal content.

What I was trying to get across, in an admittedly cackhanded way, was asking if it isn't it just a matter of perception? There's no objective metric of internet worthiness. One man's[nb]sexist[/nb] "more thoughtful, personal content" is another man's mental masturbation. Neither viewpoint is "right", it's merely personal preference. I rather like the pithiness, myself. I've never liked the majority of blogs and always hated (what I perceived to be) the self indulgence of most shitty personal websites.

[I accept the terms of the]

I would agree with you if the problem was contained within the web, but it isn't anymore. I think that most people like the pithiness too, but that's the problem, isn't it? We're all getting steak for dinner every night, but we need some carrots too.

[23 Daves]

This is an old argument we've definitely had on CaB before, except I think the last time we had it was probably in 2005/2006!

You're right re personal perception, but if you're part of a blog circle or blog community, it's no more or less self-indulgent than a bunch of people on an internet forum opining in great depth about British comedy and what mad thoughts they've recently had.  This thread, for example, is extraordinarily self-indulgent, from my opening post about my personal experiences online, to many of the other memories contained within it.  Does that make it less interesting?  Possibly, but we'd have to put it to the vote.

I think personal blogs have a terrible image problem - they're perceived to be nerdish, self-indulgent and masturbatory, and people don't tend to look far beyond those stereotypes.  I've never been too sure why they're so toxic, especially as the mainstream media has been spewing out one-sided self-indulgence in the form of over-paid columnists for years.  Except in the case of a latter, it's not so easy to open up dialogue with the writer, even now (your online comments will usually be ignored by the Burchills of this world). 

[Neil]

Following on from the above, I was never into the blog scene, but forums like this - and indeed this one specifically - are now dying out thanks to the wonders of social networking.  Which I can't see as any kind of an advance, but you can blame it on vested interest, and you'd probably be partly right.  Just looked at my Twitter timeline now, and it's the same kind of dick-soup as always; people spending all day trying to communicate with celebrities, and getting ignored, or the odd terse, one-word reply back - because, amazingly, celebs don't give a shit about you.  People unthinkingly acting like little street-teamers, mindlessly flooding other people's timelines with corporate shit.  People going on and fucking on about how many RT's they've had, which topics they get more RT's from, occasionally even posting screenshots to show it.  People wanking over how many followers they have, or have lost etc.  So much of that world of communication is intensely ego-driven, that it colours almost everything anyone says on it, because they're always sat manically analysing their follower number and the 'your tweets retweeted' list.

I find it really cliquey, too.  People on there find two or three folks they know, and then just mostly talk to them.  If you're not a celeb, or don't have a lot of followers, you mostly sit talking to yourself, with little to no response.  It's like farting into a mirror.  It's not like on forums, where you were always forced to coexist beside some people you couldn't fucking stand, ensuring healthy debate, and fun spats.  Instead, now, you just block people and/or unfolllow them - I even did this myself recently, as it's just too easy not to have to put up with the inane negativity. 

While we're told that brevity is great, that's balls when it comes to indepth discussions of art.  And those are things which just barely seem to exist now, outside of the odd blog or whatever.  But facebook and Twitter are streamlining internet discourse, and changing it forever.  In a really, really, tiresomely ego-driven way, where everyone expects to have thumbs up/+1's/RT's etc, and so hardly ever says anything that will cause them to lose (or upset) some of their "audience." 

So, yeah, I liked the internet when places like this just took the piss out of the idea of internet status, and people weren't completely invested in their internet personas - which now come adorned with a new carefully-posed picture of them every five minutes, and usually use (or are tied to) their real names, once more massively restricting what it is they can actually express online. 

[I accept the terms of the]

In a really, really, tiresomely ego-driven way, where everyone expects to have thumbs up/+1's/RT's etc, and so hardly ever says anything that will cause them to lose (or upset) some of their "audience."

Hm, that's a very good point too. Social discourse should never have been turned into a game (it's clearly not moderation, it just encourages popularity contests and echo chambers; some important comments are the ones with the most thumb downs). Again, that's fine if it's contained within the confines of the web, but the web is influential now, and the line between this and real life is getting blurrier by the minute.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I heard that it was social networking that was dying out due to it becoming chore-like and invasive to many people. This may just be the result of a handful of VIPs closing their accounts, but the idea seems to have been around lately. I also read that newspapers bandwagon jumping by referring to Twitter in almost every article has alienated a lot of its readers and is excessively unpopular. Not because the audience aren't in on it, but because when you are in on it you don't feel like you've gained anything.

Forums on the other hand are havens for specific interests and therefore are just as interesting to read as to participate in. I refuse to believe they will die out, because their presentation has longevity and makes sense, and probably won't change. There's also a more permanent sense that if you ask someone something on a forum, 90% of the time you'll get a decent answer, whereas communicating on social media runs the perpetual risk of encountering morons at all times. That has to be attritional on the soul over a long period.

Personally I don't mind forums becoming quieter- I'd rather have that than be overrun with people making inane points or writing one sentence replies- or even worse, people being obnoxious and infantile in ways I don't like, the bastards.

You have to draw the conclusion that there's space for all of this to carry on, as it is doing so at the moment. If the forum is dying out, I must say I've seen it mentioned elsewhere more times in recent years than ever before. Whatever shit is in vogue at the moment ought to be outlasted by somewhere like here.

[I accept the terms of the]

I heard that it was social networking that was dying out due to it becoming chore-like and invasive to many people. This may just be the result of a handful of VIPs closing their accounts, but the idea seems to have been around lately.

I only seem to hear that from techie people and the VIPs you mention though. It doesn't mean anything until my mum says it.

Personally I don't mind forums becoming quieter- I'd rather have that than be overrun with people making inane points or writing one sentence replies- or even worse, people being obnoxious and infantile in ways I don't like, the bastards.

I can't agree with that, because you're essentially saying "I don't mind forums dying out because of social networking, because they used to be so facile [like social networking]". I obviously added the bit in square brackets, but isn't it the truth, and doesn't it spoil your point a bit?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Well, my mum said it, and I use her as the unimpeachable ear-to-the-ground when it comes to received opinion from broadsheet columnists.

As for forums, I don't want them to die out, but in my view what would diminish this place more than it becoming quieter would be for it to change character in a way I don't like. And yes, that is being selfish, but seeing as it's my personal preference I think I'm allowed.

[Neil]

Forums become quieter to the point where they're simply not worth looking in on anymore, as mailing lists did before them.  I've seen it happen, and it's grim, and it's started to happen on CaB.  It doesn't get backlinks, even from people who have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on it, it doesn't have enough new content to get new people in, it was removed from wikipedia, it has no advertising, and, yes, it is 'becoming quieter.'  Forums are archaic now, and social networking is far from on the wane.  Something like Four Lions would have inspred much discussion in the past, whereas now, people write quick, 140-character 'that was good lol' messages on the way out from the cinema, and leave it there.  There's no impetus to seek out niche communities anymore, because you can simply become your own one.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

It's difficult to use wiki/advertising as a marker point isn't it, because 6/7 years ago it didn't have any of that anyway.

I refuse to believe the nature of enthusiasts have changed in any real sense, or will be changed by the instant nature of social networking. If someone is satisfied that their cultural contribution to Four Lions will be 140 characters long, then I don't count that someone as a potential loss- not in a critical way to them personally, but that is the amount they have chosen, so would be quite unlikely to want to make a greater contribution than that.

Someone with an active passion for comedy, online radio, creativity would be unmoved by twitter or facebook because they don't provide a strong enough or a colourful, characterful enough community. Their appetite is hardly likely to be satisfied.

It's your forum, but for the site to get people in, I'd suggest these as areas for improvement:

-A stronger Chris Morris/Peter Cook museumy type element, as it used to have- make it more visible and have goodies (the downloadable type, not the ones you might mention if you were from Northampton).

-Development of CaB Radio to reach out beyond the 20 or so that it currently does. The idea that the site only has the potential to do a radio show that so few people listen to is unfathomably unambitious, and 90% of these listeners were the ones it gained when it first started. For some reason the idea has got into people's heads that CaB Radio isn't meant to be for them- it has to have, otherwise the situation is inexplicable.

-Podcasts that don't go over old ground repeatedly with the same people, but pro-actively invite guest speakers and include rare clips and comedy material each week.

-Use of the site, particularly General Bullshit for audio-cut ups, photoshops and creative threads rather than them being partitioned off and left to stagnate, once again, to the same core of people.

All of the things I've mentioned above make CaB a unique place to visit, and provide things you couldn't get through twitter. The site began and grew through the effort of enthusiasts and if it changes its tack even slightly to become a forum that just chases hits while glumly pontificating on its own supposedly doomed future then it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.