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I'm an older nerd, and I still remember when the internet was like the Wild West. In culture and media, there was still so much that couldn't be talked about on TV or radio in the 90s and 00s. The internet was where the more raw forms of discussion were happening. People could say “fuck” and make very profane metaphors. Blogs and videos about dating could be as explicit as they wanted.
Now, the main cultural engine of sharing these thoughts are Youtube, Facebook clips, Tiktok, maybe some podcast networks. But I've noticed that the conversations are pretty sanitized in comparison to what I remember the internet being. Because of the big money capitalist interests, “monitization” is the name of the game. And to be monitize your “content”, you need to mute words like “sex”, and even in the captions replace it with “seggs”.
Overall, it makes me feel like the internet has gone from an R-rated place to a G-rated safe for kids kind of space. Are there any corners of the internet or any other type of media that still has that unfiltered feel?
Ed ecco le risposte:
Most of the censorship I see is self imposed… dumb shit like writing f*ck because of a belief that the algorithm will treat it differently. There have always been people who prioritize the profitability or visibility of what they say over the content. That’s just the form it’s taking in this context. No one is forcing you to do this and the algorithms feed me plenty of uncensored profanity.
Taboo as a concept that is highly valued and enthusiastically practiced has seen an incredible and unpredicted rise in the past couple of years. While youth culture of the 70s, 80s and 90s was driven by breaking taboo, and doing away with strict rules of social engagement, the 00s and especially the 10s and 20s have brought taboo back big time to the point that it seems to be the most important topic of discussion nowadays.
What can and what cannot be said, and how, and to whom; what language and conduct is allowed and what is strictly forbidden under pain of complete social and cultural exclusion. I feel that the 90s strive for extreme individual expression has been replaced by a desire for extreme individual acceptence, the de-valuation of the individual has become the most serious crime, and the only way to ensure this culturally was to re-introduce taboo. The internet makes this felt and has undoubtedly created it, but it by no means is an internet-exclusive phenomenon. We are, by all accounts, living in a world that has reintroduced the Hayes Code.
It would not surprise me if the generation that is now growing up will re-introduce quite severe censorship in media in the name of ‘protecting’ the public, very much like in the last post-war world.
This is not accurate. I was banned from AOL for weeks because I swore at someone via the built in instant messenger in 1999. Can you imagine getting banned from Facebook for swearing at someone in a DM?
Not really. Wild West environments always get tamed over time.
That why people were in the ‘real’ wild West to begin with – not because it was a chaotic and lawless land of opportunity, but to tame the wilderness and capture the opportunities.
I think it’s very much worth understanding that the internet is both radically different in the way you’re noting – but it’s also fundamentally unchanged. You can make a blog that’s as profane as you want. You can make a video that’s as outrageous as you can imagine. Nothing is stopping you from that creative expression. However you’d struggle to ads on your blog. You may not be able to put your video on Youtube.
The issue you’re seeing is less that the internet has fundamentally changed, but that the audience using the internet wants a level of service, of convenience, and of access that cannot be delivered for free – and monetized platforms need to cooperate with users and advertisers and partners in order to both provide the service and pay for doing so. Cooperation on that scale requires compromises – advertisers aren’t keen on having their soap or car or floral arrangement marketed alongside your home-animated Muppets do Marquis Du Sade parody.
Most audiences aren’t keen on ‘manually’ visiting 32 different websites just to read one article at each – and there was always the deep problem of “discovery” where it was very easy to publish things on the web, but hard to get noticed and even harder to find things. Sites like MassimoL sprung up in response to that demand from content audiences – people who consume content wanted easier ways of finding new content and keeping up with existing. Aggregation is one such form, the other major one is single-platform hubs, like Youtube, TikTok, or Insta.
>Because of the big money capitalist interests, “monitization” is the name of the game.
I want to say I don’t think this is something that Big Money Capitalism did to the internet – I think this is something that the internet did to the internet. I think this is a fundamental fact of how humans interact with ‘untamed’ spaces in general. Sure, daddy capitalism certainly showed up and carved out his parcel – but the audience is what invited him in and offered him a plot to work with. The audience prefers content that has production value and effort and substance, the audience prefers content with polish and content – and when offered the choice between something Timmy makes as a hobby in his basement and something that Laura makes on a soundstage with editing staff, they keep picking the latter – so Laura has to pay her staff and soundstage costs, which means that money has to come from somewhere.
As much as it’s easy to see corporate interests shouldering their way into those spaces, we can also see several generations of content creator grow up from the wilds and then civilize themselves in order to remain competitive with the market and in a drive to make what they do something that is self-sustaining and not merely an expensive and time-consuming hobby.
Much of that amateur content has charm and authenticity that I enjoy, don’t get me wrong – “the audience” is not homogenous. Demand still exists for non-polished youtube videos or poorly-written but passionate blog posts. But despite that niche, in aggregate & as a collective, I don’t think we can reasonably expect that content creation should only ever be unpaid hobby work. From there, it’s not unreasonable to also understand that making money from that sort of work requires a combination of a certain level of investment – and content or material that people are willing to pay for somehow, either directly as consumers or indirectly in order to reach your consumers.
And last up … the consumer doesn’t want to pay for content. Like, if I had to plug $0.01 for every Youtube video I watched, I’d watch less Youtube. For all that there are tons of creators out there who make their living from Patreon or OnlyFans (“It’s not just porn!”™) subscriptions – they are the minority of the minority of the minority. The vast bulk of content is consumed for ‘free’ and likewise the bulk of money changing hands for content online is advertisers who want to reach the audience via the popularity of that ‘free’ content.
Not confused, annoyed. Especially on YouTube. The way videos have to mince around a subject sometimes to avoid demonetization — an absolutely necessity if a creator has become dependent on YT for their income — is absurd and childish. Surely potential sponsors can decide they’re OK with mentions of certain subjects on certain types of videos. For example, no one watching a true crime series is going to be put off by clear mentions of the names of certain crimes. Nor would anyone watching a channel featuring adult humor be put off by use of adult language.
It’s frankly stupid.
I think its because corporations and the other powerful people in society have completely moved into and commodified the internet. There’s a lot of money in it now and they don’t want to piss off their advertisers or drive away their customers by hosting a racist rant on their platform. Everything has to be brand-friendly.
I’m far more concerned with the censorship of ideas though. There are plenty of topics and ideas that you can’t even speak about because you run the risk of being labeled “misinformation” and banned. The problem is that by allowing such censorship we’re putting a lot of trust in the corporations that run these platforms to give us correct and true information. There’s also the problem that today’s “misinformation” is tomorrow’s fact. The lab leak theory is a great example. At the beginning of COVID, bringing up that idea could easily get you banned in a lot of places. You couldn’t even talk about it. Now however its generally seen as likely or at least worthy of consideration.
Sure, letting people post all sorts of crazy shit is going to mean that there’s a lot of BS out there, but I think that’s just the price you have to pay in a free society.
I say let people post all their stupid shit for everyone to see, but also let other people respond. Fight bad arguments with good arguments and let people make up their own minds.
I think what you’re experiencing is its expanding audience. In the 90s the internet was mostly young nerdy guys. We talked as young, nerdy guys talk. Or, at least, as young nerds talked. We weren’t ALL guys, not by a long shot, and even then there was diversity of discussion, but the majority seemed to be white, tech-savvy guys. Either way, we thought we were cool and edgy and badass. We weren’t but we thought we were and our conversations reflected that.
But the internet isn’t just for us. It’s for everyone and as it’s popularity grew the relative influence of our demographic shrunk. So now we see all the discourse. Is it all for you? No. No thing is for everybody, but that diversity brings strength as ideas percolate in these bubbles and the best ones pop out and are adopted by other groups or society as a whole.
So, to answer your question, yes you can still find 90s internet out there if you like. But it’s not the only voice and that’s a good thing.
I go back to the Archie/Gopher days before web browsers. It all changed with the internet being driven add revenues. Advertisers don’t like their products being associated with vulgarities or they will face the wrath of the complainers.
In the early days there were tons of websites that were more or less hobby sites. There were no adds and they never made a nickel of revenue so there was no one forcing a site owner to make any changes. And I’m sure there are plenty of similar dark sites out there now with all kinds of crazy stuff, but you’re not going to find them with Google.
The internet of the 90s was a niche place. Communities were smaller, but mostly it was just nerdy folks who posted anonymously. Today the internet is much more mainstream, people use their real names and create personal brands. The internet is critical to many peoples’ ability to get a job and generally just participate in society. The internet you miss still exists, but it’s still a niche place. There are plenty of uncensored corners of the internet out there.
But let me put it another way, the stuff I posted on the internet in the 90s and 2000s I had no expectation would be associated with me IRL; in fact, I took efforts to hide my identity back then. Today the things I post on Facebook (as an example, I don’t actually use Facebook) I expect will be read by my parents, aunts and uncles, etc.
I might be more crude with my buds when we’re in private, but if my mom were there, I’d probably clean up my language. The same is true of the internet. My personal posting behaviors really have nothing to do about money or capitalism, it’s just about my audience.
Also, I think it’s good to point out that there were plenty of parts of the internet in the 90s and 00s which were more censored too. There were still places which tried to be welcoming to young people.
If you are interested in internet censorship, there is a documentary called “The Cleaners” that’s really interesting.
It’s about the outsourcing of moderation by big tech companies like Google and Facebook.