Meadows to Hellscapes

Dive into a thought-provoking exploration of the internet's dramatic transformation over the past few years. What was once a meadow of creativity has turned into a hellscape haunted by attention-hungry monsters.

Hell surrounds us, roasting our brains with fires that grow hotter with each passing second. The relentless barrage of stimuli taxes our minds as we willingly plunge deeper into the depths of the devourer of attention: the internet.

Over the past few years, what was once a meadow of beautiful creation has become a devilish hellscape haunted by monsters that desire nothing but every ounce of our attention. You could blame social media like TikTok or the “algorithms” that govern them, but the truth is we have no one to blame but ourselves. We created this mess. We plunged willingly into oblivion and allowed this ad-ridden, attention-seeking, algorithm-controlled decay to seep into our lives.

We have to live with it. It is what it is.

Or is it? This landscape was once a meadow. Surely what once was can be again. However, transforming hell back into a meadow requires returning to harder times when we sought out content rather than having it fed to us.

To understand what I mean, we have to go back to a time before the algorithms and social media platforms. To a time before Google was called Backrub, and the internet was a frontier of endless possibilities. People ruled the internet, hosting whatever they wanted for anyone to see. Websites were handcrafted with passion and creativity, each one a unique expression of its creator’s vision. There were no algorithms dictating what we should see or pushing us towards an endless scroll of mindless content. Instead, exploration and discovery were at the heart of the online experience.

This is a call to action. Meta shouldn’t host you; you should host you. We need to return to long-form writing and the personal expression of our knowledge in our own ways. Instead of relying on others to host your thoughts and your online identity, we should build and maintain our own websites. I truly believe that every person on the internet should have their own site. Their place for personal expression where they can share their knowledge with the world. The content generated in this environment would be of the highest quality, as everything you write and add to your website would be made with care and it wouldn’t be a throw-away thought.

Now how on earth do we access other content without an algorithm to feed it to us? Well there is a really simple solution to this problem.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a protocol that allows for “subscribing” to the content of websites. RSS is no new kid on the block, its been around since 1999. Any website can host a number of feeds for any number of reasons. One could be for your delicious recipes and another for your thoughts and opinions. The best part is everyone gets a choice in what they subscribe to. One must actively search of new feeds to subscribe to and feeds must be spread by word of mouth or by other feeds.

In order to subscribe to RSS feeds, you need a feed reader. There are plenty of them, just search for one and pick something. Personally on my phone I use Feeeed and for my computer I made my own TUI (Terminal User Interface) called Nuuslees. These are tools for you to curate your internet experience.

In conclusion, as humans we naturally love to share our knowledge but we are doing it wrong. Social media is a waste. Reclaim your digital identity, embrace self-hosting and build our own websites. Curate your content on your own terms by using RSS and creating a feed of content that enriches you instead of feeding on you. Your journey on the new internet starts now.