Hexbear is the last fun place on the internet
this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
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chapotraphouse
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The web has been monopolized into a handful of big tech sites that trap everyone inside. The enshittification runs deep.
The chilling thing is that it doesn't have to be this way. There are still plenty of niche communities online. You can find web comics and blogs and hobby forums. But these all require some means of funneling people into them.
Where are the AlbinoBlackSheeps and ICanHazCheeseburgers and YDMNDs of yesteryear? They're on TikTok and YouTube, rather than their own boutique platforms, because there's no really good way to get people from Main Public Forum into your niche community.
One of the silver linings of Lemmy has been a nascent renaissance of this kind of community. Even then its predicated on creative folks contributing and participating and feeding on one another, like the goons over at Something Awful did. I kinda see that sort of thing with podcasts like E1 and Hello From The Magic Tavern. It feels harder to find but not impossible.
To be fair the method that existed before tiktok youtube and the like was either word of mouth via discussion boards or google itself.
I think the bigger problem here is actually that everyone is chasing money in some form, which means people aren't creating content for fun. They're chasing mass market. The problem with chasing mass market is that it reduces the quality of niche content that is designed solely and specifically to only appeal to fans of that niche. This content is only created by people doing it for fun, and it achieves the highest level of quality within its respective niche (but not for mass audience).
If you like a bunch of niche things while finding mass stuff terminally boring, this becomes a problem when all the niche things no longer have creators.
The other side of this is that people do still want to do it for fun, but don't want to do it for fun on a platform for someone else to profit from. The platforms being for-profit deters people from using or contributing work to them, because why contribute your labour to someone else's profit? Fuck them. (Fandom being an obvious example of this).
Everyone was happier on the internet when everyone was just kinda doing stuff.
I mean, idk. I don't think the E1 guys are exactly targeted to the heart of consumerism. And I periodically do see things in the hobby space pop up that I marvel weren't introduced earlier. Virtual Table Tops, for instance, are a thing that really hit their stride in the last five years. Maybe its just my corner, but I never fail to marvel at all the stuff that gets churned out that you'll simply never see spoken of mainstream. Discord has been really good about keeping me in the loop on these hobbies. Reddit has too, to a lesser extent.
I agree you do really need to be in the loop to find the heart of the hobby, but that's not exactly new. Its always a challenge in a niche community.
I think they still are. The mainstream stuff is just a lot louder now, so finding the "cool kids doing their thing" signal in the "BUY ME! BUY ME! BUY ME!" noise is harder. But once you cut past it, you can tune all that other stuff out and just have fun with your friends.
it was real hit or miss, but it kinda makes me miss stumbleupon