____twoism

I started on the very last page of Twoism's Boards of Canada subforum and just started reading random threads. It was fascinating. The optimism, the encouragement of finding leaks while sussing out fake tracks, genuine excitement over a simple website update, the simplicity of connection and community. It's a beautiful time capsule - the forum threads go back right before TCH was released, and I suggest other members go pick really far back pages of this forum and take a read through them too.

I miss forums. I miss websites. I miss community. I miss curation. One of my favorite things BOC is doing right now is posting fan videos to their social media channels, and in a way, it channels that appreciation and connection I miss so much about 20th century and early 21st century internet. There's even a thread on this forum way back there wherein someone made a video and someone else asked them to share it "so they could view it on a Mac." Such simple times!

In present day, Twoism is still a beacon of this too -- look at how bananas we went for "nobody's home," but it's one of the few places on the internet I can go to to feel this sort of connection, so thank you all for continuing to bring that here.

Algorithms, pay-to-play, internet slop for the sake of money, clout chasing, political influencing, AI, etc, etc, etc it's made the internet so unbearable. This thread is just for whatever. Any old internet content anyone wants to share. Bring us back. Share memories!

Yeah I miss the early days too, I had my first website in 95, not that I had anything to put on it but it was obvious the internet was going to be *something* so I was ready for it. Eventually that was a website for posting MIDIs and getting told off by the webmasters at my uni for suspicious amounts of traffic.

I miss webrings, a community solution for the "problem" of everyone having their own websites not just a page on one of four big ones. When you could start a blog and it was just something to put out there for the joy of it, no algorithms to tailor to, just for finding the one person on the other side of the planet who was into what you were into. When the idea of a blog bringing in money was unheard of, so a blog that didn't make money wasn't pointless.

Being able to put your contact details online without fear of getting stalked.

The internet reminds me of one of those open world games. The early ones were amazing, partly because you felt like you could explore everywhere and occasionally you'd stumble on something brilliant nobody had ever seen. Now it's like the new ones, signposts everywhere pointing you to all the stuff it doesn't want you to miss. There's no point looking behind the waterfall, there's a crate with auto-generated loot you don't need.

I definitely feel this. I was born in 2005 so I got to experience the slow decline of the magic of the internet as I grew up. The internet is both everywhere yet more inconvenient and down right harmful, but at least more people are aware of this now, and better options which embrace the good qualities of the old web (and the current web will) will become more available over time!

Lemme copypasta something I posted somewhere else:

I really fucking hate how corporatized the internet landscape has become. Not just the websites themselves, but how this sociopathic CEO aspirational attitude is pushed on the youth. You're not "expressing yourself" you're a "content creator". If you have fans, you're an "influencer".

I think this is best summed up in an exchange (paraphrased) I read in the comments section of "HAND THING"
"When did we stop getting content creators like this?"
"When you started calling them 'Content Creators'"

Now you can use AI produced sludge or mechanically repost tiktoks by the hundreds per day to YT shorts so that one day your gawdy-ass mullet and pedo-stache (or Cecil Terwilliger cosplay, we don't judge. JK we absolutely fucking do) can shove itself into some hollow, colorless LA mansion because to you, humanity is just a gaggle of babies (both figuratively and literally) to jingle keys in front of.

The lesson here is: Money doesn't buy happiness, it just makes things easier

I just miss the concept of being yourself, not the self that gets the paycheck. A person on the other end of the username, rather than a machine, figuratively and literally. Self expression is now a race to be the big fish in the pond, or krill in the baleen of a whale. Pragmatism not idealism. Concerned, but powerless. No chance of escape. This machine will not communicate these thoughts and the strain I am under. Be a world child, form a circle, before we all go under.

After all, it pays to be an asshole. The world is wider than ever before, yet the one is the smallest it could ever be. I was born in Plato's cave, and I'll die in Plato's cave.

Cool safe space. You all ever wonder if you're part of some hormonal experiment gone wild? I'm uncomfortable but this shit is fascinating

rodox_head wrote:Lemme copypasta something I posted somewhere else:

I really fucking hate how corporatized the internet landscape has become. Not just the websites themselves, but how this sociopathic CEO aspirational attitude is pushed on the youth. You're not "expressing yourself" you're a "content creator". If you have fans, you're an "influencer".

I think this is best summed up in an exchange (paraphrased) I read in the comments section of "HAND THING"
"When did we stop getting content creators like this?"
"When you started calling them 'Content Creators'"

Now you can use AI produced sludge or mechanically repost tiktoks by the hundreds per day to YT shorts so that one day your gawdy-ass mullet and pedo-stache (or Cecil Terwilliger cosplay, we don't judge. JK we absolutely fucking do) can shove itself into some hollow, colorless LA mansion because to you, humanity is just a gaggle of babies (both figuratively and literally) to jingle keys in front of.

The lesson here is: Money doesn't buy happiness, it just makes things easier

I just miss the concept of being yourself, not the self that gets the paycheck. A person on the other end of the username, rather than a machine, figuratively and literally. Self expression is now a race to be the big fish in the pond, or krill in the baleen of a whale. Pragmatism not idealism. Concerned, but powerless. No chance of escape. This machine will not communicate these thoughts and the strain I am under. Be a world child, form a circle, before we all go under.

After all, it pays to be an asshole. The world is wider than ever before, yet the one is the smallest it could ever be. I was born in Plato's cave, and I'll die in Plato's cave.

Wtf does Lain AI (not even a good one) singing Radiohead have to do with anything on the thread. I too want the internet to be less “centered” where we use the same few websites for everything. There have been a few advancements, but nobody cares about those, why would they? Why use mastodon when you can use bluesky (even tho it’s not even decentralized)? Why use Peertube when I can just submit my videos onto YouTube?

I’m aspiring to be an artist or some corny shit like that, it isn’t in my interest to be famous, but to be seen for my art, but the internet market is an extremely competitive one, so, if I don’t get lucky, I’ll never have as much people seeing the art that I make as people viewing ai cat gore slop. Also YouTube is an AI favoritist about the content that gets allowed here, it can permit ai gore, but it’s absolutely irredeemable that someone plays a game (that actually happened around a few days ago).

Concerned, but powerless

ASYMPTOTE wrote:Cool safe space. You all ever wonder if you're part of some hormonal experiment gone wild? I'm uncomfortable but this shit is fascinating

Huh?

I'll always hold a firm opinion that the internet peaked in the late '00s. This was the sweet spot where it was still relatively fast and advanced, without being too invasive.

Maybe it's helpful to keep in mind that all the stuff that we used to have still exists, for the most part. Independently hosted forums, and homemade websites, chat clients like IRC, even mailing lists are still around, they're just not as easy to use and thus not as popular as the Big Tech alternatives that have come along since. As people become more and more disillusioned by an Internet controlled by a handful of giant corporations intent on controlling what we see and do by harvesting data and using algorithms and AI, maybe there will be a resurgence in the use of the old ways of doing stuff. I hope so anyway. The upside is at least we have broadband now. I do not miss using dial-up and DSL!

I hope so too. I've been putting art and music out there slowly over the years cos there never seems to be a good place to do it. Someone will say insta, someone will say SoundCloud, you know, and then next month there's a new hotness people are gravitating to. Trying to research where the "right" place to put things is is just slowing me down.

I might actually just do my own website and put it all on there and point to it from wherever. I've kind of let myself fall into the trap of thinking "why do I need a website, do I think my stuff is that important?" like having your own thing separate from the platforms is a narcissistic urge?

But the other way of looking at it is I don't actually care if someone looks at it or not I just want somewhere to put it, and I tend to make more honest stuff when I'm not thinking about where it's going and if people will like it. What's chasing up votes and follower counts if NOT narcissism?

Negamuse wrote:I hope so too. I've been putting art and music out there slowly over the years cos there never seems to be a good place to do it. Someone will say insta, someone will say SoundCloud, you know, and then next month there's a new hotness people are gravitating to. Trying to research where the "right" place to put things is is just slowing me down.

I might actually just do my own website and put it all on there and point to it from wherever. I've kind of let myself fall into the trap of thinking "why do I need a website, do I think my stuff is that important?" like having your own thing separate from the platforms is a narcissistic urge?

But the other way of looking at it is I don't actually care if someone looks at it or not I just want somewhere to put it, and I tend to make more honest stuff when I'm not thinking about where it's going and if people will like it. What's chasing up votes and follower counts if NOT narcissism?

It's pretty obvious when someone is chasing after validation ("likes") or attempting narcissistic brand building (ick!) versus someone who uses the internet as a place to basically say, "I'm here, this is what I'm into, this is what I've been working on. Have a look, or don't".

I totally think having your own website is a good thing if you have stuff you want to share. Even if you want to post links to it from social media accounts. Being genuine and sincere about yourself and your interests in hopes of finding other like-minded people is really what made the Internet so intriguing in the "old days" and can still be used as such, although today it requires a bit more discernment. In other words, ignore the bullshit and just do you. That's my sleep-deprived two cents.

Right now.
The internet is Evil.

I want to go back to 1995 internet
I hate 1984. Poor reviews across the board.

neocities was a blessing

I miss the old internet
Straight from the gold internet
Connect the GOATs internet
Set on its goals internet

I hate the new internet
The bad mood internet
The always rude internet
Shilling and nudes internet

2020k wrote:I started on the very last page of Twoism's Boards of Canada subforum and just started reading random threads. It was fascinating. The optimism, the encouragement of finding leaks while sussing out fake tracks, genuine excitement over a simple website update, the simplicity of connection and community. It's a beautiful time capsule - the forum threads go back right before TCH was released, and I suggest other members go pick really far back pages of this forum and take a read through them too.

I miss forums. I miss websites. I miss community. I miss curation. One of my favorite things BOC is doing right now is posting fan videos to their social media channels, and in a way, it channels that appreciation and connection I miss so much about 20th century and early 21st century internet. There's even a thread on this forum way back there wherein someone made a video and someone else asked them to share it "so they could view it on a Mac." Such simple times!

In present day, Twoism is still a beacon of this too -- look at how bananas we went for "nobody's home," but it's one of the few places on the internet I can go to to feel this sort of connection, so thank you all for continuing to bring that here.

Algorithms, pay-to-play, internet slop for the sake of money, clout chasing, political influencing, AI, etc, etc, etc it's made the internet so unbearable. This thread is just for whatever. Any old internet content anyone wants to share. Bring us back. Share memories!

HEAR HEAR!! found this exact thread trawling some back pages of this very subforum!! love it. and love this place!