teig's Internet Manifesto

Intro

So, to kick things off, this is my current state of thinking about the internet, as of today, 26 February 2025. I've noticed that a lot of people on the indieweb like to write their own little manifestos and such if they feel led to. And honestly, I do feel led to.

I've been disillusioned with the mainstream internet for a long time, and you can totally tell by my interest in vaporwave, FA, the late 00s/early 10s and how technology in general has affected us as a society. Especially with communication. So this is my attempt to put all of that into an essay or something like that. Casually. As we do. So the topics I'm gonna be hitting on (or at least planning to) are:

1. Information Discovery
2. Connecting with Others
3. How We Build Networks
4. Self-Expression
5. Why Messy Is Good
6. The Purpose of the Internet
7. Social Implications; Manipulation

I'll probably approach this as a stream of consciousness style of writing, and I'll probably add and remove sections as I continue to think about more and read more from others. I'm by no means an expert, but I want to make sure my views are complete and address all the pain points I have. So let's kick it off!

Information Discovery

The internet today is notoriously silo'd. If you've ever heard of someone mentioning "echo chambers", this is exactly what they mean. Information dissemination is usually tailored and picked for small groups, often times with the information having different interpretations or meanings as necessary. While we're gonna get more into this later, the main issue for this section is that people don't have avenues in which they can easily find and discover information from reliable sources. Now, the indieweb at Neocities isn't going to address this. However, what it WILL do is help people learn how to navigate the internet and discovery information, and due to the vast amount of information out there they will also need to learn how to determine what is factual and what isn't. While information these days is weaponized, many people fall for misinformation hook line and sinker due to their inability to source other "believable" origins of information.

The comment here is more about freedom to browse. The internet was started as an almost anarchistic source of every little piece of information you could ever want, and there were hubs for each possible niche topic. I could find dedicated websites for Dance Dance Revolution stepcharts, tournaments, songs, release information, and machine location. I could find dedicated websites about Kingdom Hearts II lore, facts, Japanese version differences, etc. Each of these websites also had something else that general fandom wiki's don't: community. I think an argument could be made about wikis being home to all this information (and this is true, I do think they do a great job of organizing and managing large amounts of information) but this often comes at the risk of having no community or relationship building between fans in these communities. Yep, I'm talking about forums.

I remember in college (about 2007-2008?) where I was a regular on a forum for UK Hardcore/Happy Hardcore producers to all meet, share tunes, talk production, plugins, patches, new releases, you name it. It was a HAVEN! A treasure trove of information. I remember "TranceAddict" also being a huge forum for regional rave organization and party planning. People knew each other by screennames! They had forums for EVERYTHING! I remember dedicated forums for hard dance production too that were invaluable! And the best part of this was the terms of how you engaged in these discussions. In the era of Discord, you're almost required to be constantly plugged into a channel due to the volume of messages. It's easy to lose information. Forums had a great system for organizing this information, and no one really makes Wikis for how to make music, how to throw raves, images of parties in the past, etc. In this mindset, I think it's important to distiguish between applied information (how to do something) and encyclopedic information (what IS something). One could make the argument that YouTube replaces this, but in the age of "Smash that like and subscribe," or view mongering and AI slop, YouTube has increasingly become less of a reliable source of original, challenging, or provoking information.

All of this is to say that while information management has become centralized, we've lost the human element of community which enables a new level of information dispersion that's difficult to emulate in the modern Wiki format. It's also difficult to get quality information due to the trending influence of government intervention into "what is real and what is not." Scientific literacy in this sense suffers the most.

Connecting with Others

We touched on this in the last section breifly, but one of the largest changes I've seen over the growth of the internet is the way social dynamics on the internet have changed. Before the age of social media, most online interactions were done in chat rooms, message boards, and in forums. These allowed a large degree of anonymity while also providing specific spaces for certain conversation topics. A user who hates talking about politics can simply choose to not partake in certain sections of a forum or certain channels of a message board. This allows the user to determine the content they would like to see, regardless of who's posting it. One of the common pitfalls with social media I see now is the ability for undesirable topics to come up on social media simply because your unhinged high school friend (or deranged parent) is posting about it consistently. The internet wasn't designed to be a funnel that slams content directly into your head at its own discretion.

This kind of lends itself to another observation related to online connections: the existence of optional online spaces. Here's what I mean by this: as interacting online or through social media has become more and more popular, there has been a merging of real life and online life. Actions in one directly influence the other in ways that previously didn't exist. Being online IS being in real life, while previously there was a space or wall there. There would be an online social life and an IRL social life, which were separated, and this separation actually allowed for the ability to engage with the internet on the user's own terms. By blending the two together, there is no ability to unplug from the online experience, which is exasperated by the accessibility (and necessity) of smartphones.

Connecting with others online shouldn't be a forced experience. I shouldn't feel obligated to add friends or expand my network for that sweet, sweet dopamine of likes and comments. I should have a social space while still having the ability to engage with that social space how I want. This is where webrings in the indieweb come in, or even just "pages I like" or links or whatever. I can choose when to interact with other users without having every thought of theirs forced into my head. Again, it's socializing on my terms with my own agency.

One final thought here is also the speed at which people respond and the level of input others have into conversation. Of course, there will always be trolls and bait and other such content, but in general one will find that web forums used to focus on intentional responses and were built to allow constructive conversation. The people who would use these avenues to communicate would follow the "rules" of the forum to ensure there's calm, rational debate even in the case of disagreements. In today's quick draw social media comments, this isn't really something that's practiced often. The Reddit quip of "TLDR" is, unfortunately, a symptom of this (as funny as it can be sometimes). When people choose not to engage in long format discussion, the discussion is diminished, detail and nuance are lost, and it can quickly devolve to insults. Indeed, form and function are interconnected, and the method of communication with others online will drive the WAY that people communicate online.

How We Build Networks

I don't mean computer networks here. Maybe it would've been better to say "communities" instead. I think this section will be brief because I'm touching on a lot of interconnecting points all throughout this text. Basically, consider how you build a community of individuals, and what choices and decisions go into that. The old internet did kind of operate that same way. Communities were built of similar individuals with common interests due to the individual's willingness to find said community. I think that this has changed over the past ten years, based on a few observations. First, it seems that the value of specialty spaces has gone down. Hell, the "Homestar Runner" page on Facebook that I follow just posts Nazi-bait these days. The "Arrested Development" group is just political jabs to both sides of the aisle. It's awful. You cannot escape it. Consider also that the algorithm will show you posts from pages you don't even subscribe to with inflammatory (or "engaging") content to entice you to also take part in this.

This is not a community. This is not a social network. This is just social manipulation. It's throwing an entire country into the same public swimming pool, and half the adults are drunk and trying to fight people. Why would I choose to spend time in that environment when I could choose to participate in a community of my choosing with my values with my interests? Why participate in flame wars with people underneath AI generated birthday pictures when I could be enriching myself with new information or ideas from a group of people who, in good faith, hold discussions about serious topics which appreciate the nuance and difficulty of navigating today's world? I think of a community like Agora Road, which accurately reflects some of the ideas I've been promoting in this text. People disagree there all the time, and sure there's some inflammatory language sometimes, but generally there is an air of respect and understanding between the members. There's a code of conduct on AR, and the members follow it.

This brings me to another point: online behavior in networks. This is intrinsically intertwined with the concept of a social contract. To participate in a society, there are either explicit or implied rules that a person must follow. If you want to make use of fire fighters, you gotta pay taxes. If you want to drive a car, you must pass a state test. If you want to buy a house, you must uphold it to a certain standard (if you're in a HoA kinda situation). Similarly, if you want to participate in online environments (especially decentralized ones like forums or message boards) you usually have to behave a certain way. One is simply not going to be able to get away with being a raging asshole and picking fights without eventually getting banned. I've seen conversations about this related to "gatekeeping", and while yeah, gatekeeping can be REALLY harmful and detrimental to growth, success, learning, and more, I do think that enforcing rulesets or limiting the types of personalities on a website can go a long way. My alt-science right-wing brother certainly is not going to be welcome on an LGBTQ+ forum. It simply will not happen. Likewise, I bet he wouldn't even want to be there. Similarly, I had to become "approved" to become part of a well-known gaming piracy website that has a VERY limited approval rate. And even after being approved, I had a certain level of seeding or performance to conform to in order to maintain my membership. I low-key think that these kinds of rules help communities maintain their integrity, their safety, their reputation, and ultimately their viability.

Self-Expression

Alright, I'm not gonna go ham here on this one. It's a common sentiment and everyone on the indieweb kind of agrees here: when you grow up in the era of MySpace, today's Facebook is a boring, soulless, and empty husk. There is no personality. We are all the same. We are all data. There is no individuality. Hell, the memes of Gen Xers having the same profile picture? That speaks volumes itself, because that's literally the ONLY WAY a user can differentiate their profile in the sea of sludge. You see what I'm getting at?

Anyway, yeah, that's another really strong argument for the indieweb: take back the internet for the people. It's a space for the people first, not corporations. And Facebook's layout sucks anyway.

Why Messy Is Good

There's something so human about mistakes, isn't there? Things feel more authentic when they have a typo, or inconsistent margins, or colors that don't QUITE fit well together. It's definitely easy in today's day and age to over-engineer almost everything. Perfect, sterile apps, pure white hospital hallways, cookie cutter fonts over monochromatic color schemes. It's all the same. That's kind of why having things designed by humans, by hand, is so valuable. It still shows a trace of humanity and authenticity in the content you engage with. AI slop has increasingly become popular and common, and while its not per se perfect, it IS sterile and prolific. The critique against AI artwork is abudant and, honestly, agreeable. Between shitty rehashed art that makes no sense, terrible clickbait, and "movies" where nothing happens, AI has increasingly become synonymous with "soulless".

This is important to realize: Human made content on the internet will continue to decline, and as such we will be exposed more and more to advertising, consumerist propaganda, and more things aligned with "profit" in mind than humans. The imperfections that drive our species forward and keep us humble will give way to machinations of manipulation in such a way where it becomes unclear what is a normal way to engage with the internet.

In a completely separate aside, another aspect of "messiness" that I think we will begin to miss will be the diversity of user interfaces and website navigation in general. Over the past ten years, websites have begun to converge into similar structures, interfaces, icons, and even features. Everyone's got a TikTok replacement (short form media), and it's marked by a box with a play button. Everyone has a "feed" in their app, driven by suggested posts (but you can turn on just your following if you want). The homogenization of the way we interact with the internet has begun to simplify it, and I argue that this is a bad thing - if all interfaces are the same, then any deviation from the conventions will be impossible to navigate because, it's possible that, people haven't learned how to abstractly interact with the unfamiliar in a way that will get them the results they want. Of course there's expections to this, but we see how the simplification of information management and interfaces has begun to affect humans. For example, GPS apps have a noticeable impact in the ability for people to understand their surroundings and navigating their surroundings. The fear of "getting lost" can be so overwhelming that it triggers panic attacks or stress; no longer can people cope with not knowing where they're going. This same mentality can be stretched towards social media or other apps. It's easier for apps to catch on when users don't need to learn how to use it.

Overall, the quest for optimization, perfection, and homogenization has negatively impacted the unique attributes of the internet that once made it shine. Only through independently developed content or people daring enough to challenge the norm can we begin to break away. In boutique web design, this issue isn't as prevelant. It's only so strong in forums meant for mass consumption of information (both good and bad). This aspect should be studied more carefully as we touch towards the very last item in this list.

The Purpose of the Internet

Let's be very clear hear: the internet was invented as a decentralized network of information. It was meant to communicate in a local environment and to share information in said local environment. With this in mind, what has the internet become? Truly? We're starting to blend all these points together, and for good reason: they're all connected. The internet has somehow moved from a place with random information everywhere (user sites) which is either useful info or not; it was up to you to decide. While information now generally tends to be more centrally controlled (a la Wikipedia) and this is good for information verification and quality, it does remove some of the "indie" factor of individual contributors towards non-specific information.

I realize my point may not be very clear, so let's use an example. I want to learn about how to modify my custom DDR Pad to be more true to arcade level sensitivity. In today's internet, I have a few options: A) I can try to find a website like WikiHow, which may or may not be written by AI or someone whose knowledgebase I don't trust, B) I can try to find a small community on Facebook or Instagram or similar, which may result in trolls or general unhelpfulness, C) I can try to find a more personal community like on Discord (which may or may not have the answers I need, if anyone pays attention to me in the first place), or finally, D) I can try to find a specialty forum for discussion where people investigate different modification methods and how they feel about them in real time (imo, this is the best solution). Option D allows me to look back on a history of discussion related to the issue of custom modification of DDR pads, look into different methods, and also read major scene contributors' opinions on how well the mod turned out. However, these kinds of communication forums simply don't readily exist in many contexts now. From my own personal experience, this level of information and research is difficult to find these days. And don't get me started when it comes to other kinds of information. Most public forums for discussion involve fighting, flame wars, accusations, shallow discussion, and are generally unproductive. Seriously, just look at the dumpster fire that is Facebook.

All-in-all, these decentralized forums of communication allow for, in my opinion, a more open and honest discussion with information cataloguing and research. Using sources as Wikipedia to verify scientific information or other "hard science" reference is great, but they don't really have a page for "getting the compression just right on a drum bus for a UK Hardcore tune." You know? When information and social interactions all take the format of Facebook, IG, and Twitter, then we have a very obvious observation about what that means for Americans in general:

Social Implications; Manipulation

That's right. When you have a public social forum like Facebook or Twitter (or any of the variants of these forums) as the main source for information, it is my opinion that you actively harm yourself by limiting your world view and reality to what is presented to you via algorithm. This is the crux of the American political landscape since 2014 or so when misinformation, propaganda, manipulation, etc all become more prominant. The cherry on top was the the Cambridge Analytica scandal in the 2016 election, which curtailed political movements that continue to hurt America to this day. Don't be fooled: this behavior is STILL HAPPENING, and is in some cases MUCH WORSE.

I understand how people would want to think about how "free-thinking" they are by consuming "independent media", but it's even been shown now how some major social media personalities a la Tim Pool were paid by foreign adversaries to be misinformation assets. Who else is involved in this? Who else is telling me things to purposefully mislead me and control me? And yes, I'm fully aware that this level of paranoia is also by design. That's just how powerful it is to control the flow of information and the bias of said information (or misinformation). As the past few years have shown, people have become more unhinged, more misled, more psychotic, and generally just more prone to cognitive decline. In my opinion, it's because of this observed phenomenon, and the inability for the common person to address it, be aware of it, rationalize it, and critically think about it.

There's a whole host of implications from this, and there's a whole bunch of psychology going on here in terms of "what is reality" and "world view" and "fear and control" and so, so much more. This is no longer "Our Internet," this is "Their Internet," savvy?

Is this what we wanted the Internet to be? Another medium of control? I say no. It has only evolved that way with the rise of mainstream social media and the centralized avenues by which we consume information, content, and media. No one is immune to propaganda and we would be wise to remember that. So let's destroy their system of control. Let's free ourselves from the avenues which mean to manipulate our thoughts, opinions, fears, and money. Let's find ourselves again in an Internet that felt more like the Wild West. Even with all the shitposting (which btw, everyone should learn how to determine what is shitposting...we dearly need that).

Final Thoughts

Yeah this was probably a lot to read, to be honest. I actually had a hard time making myself type so long without sounding repetitive, but I hope I'm helping paint a picture of why I think we should all do ourselves a favor and take a break from apps, and enjoy The Internet instead. I'll probably ramble and rant about more of this stuff in my blog when I get it set up, or maybe even in the Interests page. For now though, I think I'll take this moment to be grateful for my relationships and friends, and to spend more time with them. To go touch grass, and to use the internet as a tool and fun exploration hobby; not as a dopamine IV. "Like, Comment, Subscribe" lmao