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I am utterly speechless.
(hexbear.net)
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this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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Slop.
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For posting all the anonymous reactionary bullshit that you can't post anywhere else.
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I was extremely online in the 90s, but there was a real feeling the internet was "somewhere else". Because you had to find a desktop and shut down the house phone to get on it, it took effort and planning, almost as much as walking down to the local shops. And because it was "Somewhere else" you had to weigh up being there over doing other things, in other places.
I'd say the smartphone, and really, proper 3g and substantial data allowances killed real life.
Additionally, at the same time there was the slow monetisation of the commons. Libraries shut down, squares and pavements lost public seating and became places for outdoor cafes that weren't the type that let a kid sip a coffee for 5 hours with friends because they knew they'd be back as cashed up adults. Quiet local dive pubs became either overly loud clubs or sports bars, or shockingly expensive gastros. So not only did the internet go from "somewhere else" to "Right here, all the time" but all the other "somewhere else"'s disappeared.
For a very long time, the Internet was seen as a place for cranks that fortunately didn't spill into real life. It's still the place for cranks but now real life is online as well.
This is at least partially because the old places became uneconomical with the internet taking people away.
Social activity is a zero sum game.
I partly blame those TouchTune jukeboxes (which themselves are a consequence of the Internet) for the decline of the bar atmosphere.
Before them, each bar had their own eclectic collection of songs, which either slapped, sucked or were somewhere in between, but they were all unique and reflected the atmosphere of the place they were in. Now every place has the same flashy RGB Internet connected screen kiosk that theoretically has hundreds of thousands of songs to pick from, but almost everybody in every bar picks the same pop, country or dad-rock slop.
Even the quiet bars that adopted those jukeboxes became loud clubs not long after.