Are Doing the Internets Wrong?
one of my favorite things about facebook is that it has successfully recreated the state of the internet circa 1995, when there were two distinct classes of internet users: those on AOL, and everyone else. those on AOL (now Facebook) believed firmly that AOL “was the internet” and used the terms interchangeably. everyone else was exasperated by this, but also grateful that grammy and pep-pep couldn’t escape the confines of AOL News frontpage, AIM, AOL chatrooms, and the spam-infested @aol.com email servers.
so many of my acquaintances over the age of about 35, give or take, even people I have known for years and in some cases was, or am, relatively close to, regularly ask me “what i;m doing” and “where i am” because it is inconceivable that anyone see internet that isnt curated by the Facebook entity. that even storied, experienced tech industry people have been suckered into occupying a walled garden with everyone’s racist uncles is an astonishing thing to contemplate in this year of our lord 2014AD.
A year later, and this simply becomes more relevant.