ThoreauIsCool

I also joined cause of the domain name. Silly just like the early 2000s internet. The admin and everyone on here seems really laid-back and cool.

Right? It's way calmer here. I felt hesitant about that at first, but it's only because we've gotten so used to an endless stream of (often inconsequential and low-effort) content. More isn't always necessary or better.

Kid-me used to have days off and he'd hop onto Warcraft 3 or various message boards only to realize no one was online because everyone had jobs or was at school. It had a rhythm to it which was really cool. It wouldn't surprise me if the "always-on" content spam of the modern internet has given people unhealthy ideas about what life is supposed to feel like.

It certainly feels nostalgic to me being on here. I miss the days of webrings and message boards and just crawling ever forward into unknown new places. I was a kid then though, so I thought it was just me becoming wiser/more tech-savvy. Now I realize how freaky all the consolidation is. Even some video game modding communities now have more of a presence on reddit than anywhere else. It's convenient but so weird.

I agree with u/Pelicanen that it feels like the uncertain times of the early internet where things were hosted by individuals and their really small websites. I don't know to what extent it will catch on (although Discord is huge with milleninals/Gen Z, no?) but it's interesting to imagine a world where the internet is primarily large consumer/business-facing websites and then highly decentralized communities.