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Deleted member 27204
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Even looking at videos from 2012 or 2013 show that most comments were more left-libertarian or libertarian in nature, people were able to distinguish trolling from serious conversations (now what is typed on the internet is unironically considered to be tied to real life by a sizable portion), emoticons (precursors to emojis) were not used as excessively, popular youtube videos didn't have as many bait-like titles and thumbnails, and memes were in what is now considered the boomer meme format.
All of these things, especially the predominance of left-libertarian and libertarian politics, was a feature of the early Internet but now is looked upon as fringe by most people using the internet today just like it always was IRL.
While changing political opinions could be responsible for some of this, it could also be taken as a bellwether for when normies started to participate more heavily on online discussions and the general sentiment shifted toward what is expressed IRL.
Many people notice this even for social media sites like reddit where post 2016 it has become more neoliberal dominated. Neoliberal opinions and shows of strength are much more popular IRL than live and let live libertarianism, lending more evidence that the internet has become more widely used by normies recently.
So when do you think things changed so that the internet became much more likely to be used by many more people and resembles what is seen today?
Possible times where this transition started seem to be around when Gamergate was occurring in 2014 (attracted more conservative/rightwing opinions into the fray and meme culture as a whole) and the year leading up to and after the 2016 US presidential election (same thing but with a commensurate rise in neoliberal ideology expressed online too), but could even be when emojis on smartphones became mainstream and more heavily used (starting around mid 2017) and normies felt more compelled to post (brutal emojipill).
Which time do you think best marks when this transition was beginning?
All of these things, especially the predominance of left-libertarian and libertarian politics, was a feature of the early Internet but now is looked upon as fringe by most people using the internet today just like it always was IRL.
While changing political opinions could be responsible for some of this, it could also be taken as a bellwether for when normies started to participate more heavily on online discussions and the general sentiment shifted toward what is expressed IRL.
Many people notice this even for social media sites like reddit where post 2016 it has become more neoliberal dominated. Neoliberal opinions and shows of strength are much more popular IRL than live and let live libertarianism, lending more evidence that the internet has become more widely used by normies recently.
So when do you think things changed so that the internet became much more likely to be used by many more people and resembles what is seen today?
Possible times where this transition started seem to be around when Gamergate was occurring in 2014 (attracted more conservative/rightwing opinions into the fray and meme culture as a whole) and the year leading up to and after the 2016 US presidential election (same thing but with a commensurate rise in neoliberal ideology expressed online too), but could even be when emojis on smartphones became mainstream and more heavily used (starting around mid 2017) and normies felt more compelled to post (brutal emojipill).
Which time do you think best marks when this transition was beginning?