So recently I've been doing a lot of internet archaeology (which obviously resulted in this forum, most notably the archive), and one thing I've noticed is how much less humor-centric online discussions were prior to some point in time that began what I call the "meme era". (We are still in the meme era, in case that isn't obvious.)

Not only did discussions become humor-centric all of a sudden, but the quality of the humor became very cliquey and inside-jokey. Memes quickly evolved to emphasize callback-humor, where simply saying "i c wat u did thar" was a joke in and of itself, simply because so many people had repeated variations on that phrase. The joke only works in a specific time and place. Break into some obscure Japanese message board, and it's unlikely that anyone will get the joke. Post it in 2022, and no one will get the joke. They'll just think you're uneducated and/or slow.

I also think that memes came hand-in-hand with an increase in political involvement by average people. Suddenly, posting a funny meme about a politician is a way for people to participate in this great world democracy (without actually doing any voting or protesting). Slacktivism, they eventually named it. But I don't think people realize how much of internet humor became politics-based. This ties into the inside-jokeyness (jokes that only a select audience understands) of memes in general. People seem to get delight from sharing and receiving memes that are highly focused on them in some way. If a meme somehow pokes fun at the other side of the political aisle (in as much as there are truly only two sides, something I don't believe in, but am willing to make believe for the purposes of this argument), that sets up an immediate in-group dynamic, and makes the meme more appealing.

Okay I got a bit off-track there. Point is, memes took over everything, and that changed the internet fundamentally. I think this is part of why forums have died (certainly not a primary reason, of which there are several, but a lesser reason). Forums are not good vehicles for memes. In fact they're almost perfectly AWFUL vehicles for memes. There's no voting system, so funny things cannot rise to the top, they're left in sort order with everything else, to be discovered only if you take the time to read every page. The fact of the matter is, 90% of memes are stupid and even the average person won't like to be subjected to a thread full of them. Only through crowdsourced curation of some kind (of which a voting system is the simplest form) can memes work. Also, forums have no threading, so discussions cannot easily fragment into well-trod paths. To explain what I mean by that, imagine a thread about low water levels in the American western states. Eventually someone will bring up how it's so-and-so politician's fault that we don't have enough water. In a normal forum, people will get annoyed that the discussion has (once again) turned to petty politics. But in a threaded system (such as reddit, hacker news, etc.), these discussions are easily ignored. But there is where memes thrive. By derailing to a common topic of discussion, mass-produced memes can be used.

I, for one, greatly miss the old internet. My original goal for bringing back Chrono Shock was to re-live some nostalgic memories and reconnect with some old personalities I missed talking to. But I'm realizing that what I really want to do is try to move the dial back away from the memeization of the internet, and foster deeper discussions in general. Everyone is trying to make a difference in the world, and try as I might to ignore the world, I find myself following the siren's call of world betterment myself at times. It's fun to delude yourself into thinking you CAN make a difference, and I'm honestly letting that feeling get the better of me, and seeing where it leads. At the very least, I'll have a lot of posts like this to read in my old age, and I can laugh at how stupid I was.