Hey look, it’s my first piece for Rolling Stone! (Thanks @noahshachtman) And I meant every word — I believe we’re seeing the renaissance of the weird, human internet. It couldn’t come a moment too soon. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/internet-future-about-to-get-weird-1234938403/
@anildash @noahshachtman I sure hope you're right. My dismay about the direction genAI has taken is that it can create an internet that perpetually chases its own tail. But from your lips to Fate's ears...
I miss the BBS days of people role-playing as oysters.
@anildash love to see mastodon mentioned in rolling stone, we’ve truly made it
@anildash @noahshachtman my only quibble is calling Musk a “nerd”…doing a disservice to nerds everywhere.
@anildash I’m not sure I love the Xanga/LiveJournal analogy.
It’s more like AOL and CompuServe were to the open web as Twitter and Bluesky are to ActivityPub.
I don’t see Mastodon as “the choice for nerds” any more than the open web had a specific audience.
The promise of Mastodon and ActivityPub is that these different audiences and communities will be able to interact on the same terms.
@anildash @noahshachtman Sadly, the new weird internet (same as the old weird internet) isn't here yet. I had to interact with three different adtech popups, the unpredictable motions of which caused me to "accidentally" open at least one unwelcome new tab, before I could get enough of the target page to draw to determine that the actual essay is unavailable behind a paywall.
It's been 21 years since the first time I linked to an Anil Dash URL. That one just worked! http://www.erosblog.com/2002/10/04/because-then-she-wont-use-it/
@anildash thank you for writing this! I wrote a sort of similar thing in 2015, and have since gotten a little jaded that a big meaningful reset of power dynamics is likely to happen, because everything seems so entrenched. But your post reminded me we have to keep building the future we want ❤️
https://jonas.do/writing/2015-09-25-a-rallying-cry-for-the-weird-wild-web/
@anildash @noahshachtman Anil, this is fantastic. Congrats! And thank you! 💜
@anildash @noahshachtman Love it Anil. And I hope so too. I lol'd at "its own set of Dungeons and Dragons rules" Keep on keeping on!
@anildash @noahshachtman has to happen. Next people working out moving from one walled garden to another isn't the solution either.
@anildash @noahshachtman good piece, and I do hope you're right. Mas I'm not very optimistic -- I see a lot (and I do mean a LOT) of inertia from people stuck on the enshitified corporate experience.
@anildash @noahshachtman Thank you, Anil! A fantastic post – just like your talk at Oh the Humanity! 😊 It’s on all of us to make that happen! ✊✨
@anildash Loved your piece! I have missed the weird and human internet.
@anildash @noahshachtman @mammoth Congrats! It’s awesome. Hope to see more and ABSOLUTELY hope to see the weird, human internet come back. I like the term “the rewilding of the internet” — has a nice ring to it.
@anildash @noahshachtman I really enjoyed everything about this article
@anildash @noahshachtman Congratulations - it’s time for the weird wide web to visit us again. (It probably has come and gone with some regularity that only 20 year olds or next level AI can ascertain. 😙)
@anildash @noahshachtman this article was so good, I've been sharing it far and wide (to my limited reach).
@anildash @noahshachtman
I know so little about how any of this works- and still, your piece makes me feel hopeful. Thank you.
As someone that grew up on the Internet of the late 90s and early 2000s: sign me up!
@anildash @noahshachtman Great piece, Anil! Thanks for writing that!
This reminds me of something...
@anildash @darius @stefan @netabomani School for Poetic Computation looks wonderful. Signed up.
@anildash Great write-up, and thank you for the shout-out!