I'll say, I was arguing on the Internet since the 90s.
But it was just arguing. Afterwards everyone went their separate ways.
Politics were in there, but they were sorta this random smattering of stuff until 2003 when the war in Iraq had people picking sides. At that point it was "you're either with us or against us" and a lot of people picked sides.
But even then, it was just arguing. More polarized for sure, but afterwards everyone went their separate ways. It was sorta considered bad form to take it any further.
2008 and the election of Barack Obama I think was a major milestone in breaking the Internet. A lot of his success was using astroturf (or maybe it was real grassroot support, but I have my doubts) on the Internet, and suddenly something that was sort of a side hustle for politicians became a primary focus. At the time it seemed like a good thing because the Internet was getting attention, but in reality politicans are scumbuckets (even the ones we like) so they started pouring millions of dollars into breaking discourse and found some really dark corners of the Internet to help.
The frog in the water analogy fits the situation where the hate slowly got turned up. The water was getting warmer in the early 2010s, but even by 2015 it was still not totally the end of the world, but 2016 definitely broke a lot of people. Not just a little, either. There are creators who were consistently creating good stuff in 2015 and in 2016 they stopped and never started again.
What changed is it went from "I disagree with you" to "I'm going to find you and destroy your life". That's the result of the total war that is the culture wars post-Trump.
It's like a bunch of morons forgot the zeroth rule of the Internet, that is "The Internet is not real life".
The consequences are starting to play out, and it isn't pretty. It won't be good for anyone of any political persuasion.
But it was just arguing. Afterwards everyone went their separate ways.
Politics were in there, but they were sorta this random smattering of stuff until 2003 when the war in Iraq had people picking sides. At that point it was "you're either with us or against us" and a lot of people picked sides.
But even then, it was just arguing. More polarized for sure, but afterwards everyone went their separate ways. It was sorta considered bad form to take it any further.
2008 and the election of Barack Obama I think was a major milestone in breaking the Internet. A lot of his success was using astroturf (or maybe it was real grassroot support, but I have my doubts) on the Internet, and suddenly something that was sort of a side hustle for politicians became a primary focus. At the time it seemed like a good thing because the Internet was getting attention, but in reality politicans are scumbuckets (even the ones we like) so they started pouring millions of dollars into breaking discourse and found some really dark corners of the Internet to help.
The frog in the water analogy fits the situation where the hate slowly got turned up. The water was getting warmer in the early 2010s, but even by 2015 it was still not totally the end of the world, but 2016 definitely broke a lot of people. Not just a little, either. There are creators who were consistently creating good stuff in 2015 and in 2016 they stopped and never started again.
What changed is it went from "I disagree with you" to "I'm going to find you and destroy your life". That's the result of the total war that is the culture wars post-Trump.
It's like a bunch of morons forgot the zeroth rule of the Internet, that is "The Internet is not real life".
The consequences are starting to play out, and it isn't pretty. It won't be good for anyone of any political persuasion.
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