#millenial bitching

[yonahsienna]

This Was Supposed to Be Fun

Or: WTF happened to the online Commons, and where do we go now?

Let me start by saying that I don't want to be a "content creator" or “online influencer”. I don't want to "optimize engagement" or “build an agile social strategy”. I don’t even particularly want to Start a Blog or Podcast. I just want to f#¢&!ng hang out with my friends and community online, and I feel like we should have The Technology to just do that by now.

Of course (infuriatingly) we did have that technology! I first connected to the World Wide Web in 2001 when I was ten years old. Back then, the whole family shared one computer, which I mostly used to play Age of Empires, Bugdom, and Oregon Trail. Connecting to the Internet meant that nobody could use the phone, so we would log on quickly (accompanied by a symphony of discordant whistles and beeps), check emails and/or MSN messages, and then pass the computer to the next person.

As our access to the Internet grew through my teens, so did the diversity of content we consumed, shared, and bonded over. eBaum’s World and Newgrounds hosted a plethora of simple, free webgames we'd play once we got bored with the handful my parents were willing to buy, as well as the first viral videos like Numa Numa and Star Wars Kid. We also connected in new ways with a growing “social web” — profiles on sites like Myspace and Livejournal and eventually the early Facebook were a way that anyone could have their own site on the web, a little virtual locker that you could decorate and fill up to your liking, and have your friends stuff with virtual notes.

In my late teens and early twenties, the Internet was mostly for research and keeping up with student government and clubs via long weekly emails stuffed with hyperlinks and attachments. It wasn't until I was well into my twenties that I got my first smartphone. At university, the only way to connect to the Internet “on the go” was to tweet my on-the-go thoughts by sending an SMS text message to Twitter at 21212. I also hardly used the social web anyways, other than for a quick dopamine distraction or break from long study sessions in the library. I had even deleted my Facebook account that I'd had since high school, since the campus coffee shop and bar served as more than enough of a hub for socializing, philosophical and political debates, and important announcements posted on cork boards or delivered by intercom.

I know I probably sound like a stereotypical Millennial, whining about the “good ole days”, but I wanted to spend this time on memory lane for a reason. I think that no matter when you grew up, this feeling is probably close to universal: from the early 2000s to early 2020s, the Internet and social web seemed to just work. There were a lot of things wrong with the world, but the Internet was where we went to complain about other problems, not a source of them. But of course, even back then we were living on borrowed money and time. The virtual Commons we had grown comfortable in never actually belonged to us, the users. From the moment they incorporated, the big sites belonged to venture capital, who sold them out to the oligarchs, who sold them out to the fascists. We were never the customer, always the product.

Flash forward to 2025. The “big four” North American social media outlets (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok) have all been captured by the Trump administration. Smaller sites, like Reddit, Telegram, and Substack have long been a hotbed for bigotry and hate speech. Searches on Apple, Google, Microsoft, and even Pinterest are serving up LLM “AI” slop before authentic and unique human creations. Ads, suggestions, sponsored posts, and cookie pop-ups take up far more space than the content I came for. And if I ever want my family, friends, and community to actually see my updates, I either need to send them to each person directly, or market my posts not to them, but to an algorithm optimized not for users or even businesses, but shareholder profit. On top of all of this, there is a pervasive sense of how uncomfortably public, permanent, and surveilled it all is. (In parallel to all this: efforts to gather in person are cut at the knees by a lack of coherent and safe public health policies, the dismantling of Third Spaces and affordable public transportation, and the militarization of the police.)

It is horrifying that exactly when the biggest thing we need for survival is to build and strengthen community, that the only accessible tools to do so, are hostile to our very existence.

Obviously this isn’t a coincidence. Every time we, the people, can talk to each other directly, we start getting dangerous ideas about the fact that the ultra-wealthy and hyper-elite are so few, and the rest of us are so many. Pamphlets facilitated the French and American revolutions, the telegraph and radio hastened the collapse of the Russian and German Empires, and Twitter fanned the flames of the Arab Spring. And here in America, The Powers That Be, Red and Blue alike, overwhelmingly want the American government in strict control over where and how we can communicate with each other.

And here I am, just hoping for a single F#¢&!NG site on the whole World Wide Web where I can just hang out with family, friends, and community that isn't owned and operated by literal fascists, kept behind a paywall, or too technical for our Elders to use. A comfy virtual coffee shop with announcement boards, conversations, the occasional performance, and a locker nearby for collecting memories and passing notes.

I don’t really know what the Takeaway/Call to Action is here. Yes, I’m already on Tumblr, Mastadon, and Bluesky, and would love it if we all continued to grow these kind of alternatives while divesting from profit-driven social "platforms". I’m still on Discord, Snapchat, and Signal and even have accounts on Loops, Pixelfed, and Xiaohongshu, in case the center of gravity ever moves over to those places. All of them still feel very "under construction" though, so I don't even know which (if any) I feel comfortable asking friends and family to "switch over" to. In the meantime, I'm just feeling lost, sad, lonely, and adrift; and wanted to share these musings with y’all. Just in case anyone has any advice you want to share, or are feeling the same way and want to commiserate.

xposted to Facebook, Tumblr, Medium, and WriteAs. God, I hate the Internet right now >:(

[y2kculture]

25 years ago today, Britney Spears released her sophomore album “Oops!…I Did It Again” ‧ ˚ ༘ 📀⋆.˚

[chronologically-challenged]

Thinking about Danny Phantom/ISAT crossover again. Mainly Danny being Loop's little guy that they want to protect. I'd imagine this being after Danny got kidnapped by one of the ghosts, and Loop (after going absolutely destroying some ghosts) bringing him back home safe and sound.

@moonshere the them~

[rpfisfine]

Hey that’s the name of the youtube channel

[starrynyx]

theres people on this website typing sermons against the moral impurity of characters in a show that is literally a dark comedy about demons in hell. satire isnt dead but its fighting for its life

[reyolfx]

my own father just posted on facebook about finding an old mixtape full of love songs he made for my mom before they got married

and you're telling me the mixtape scene wasn't romantic.............

[shinozaki-ayumi]

having an issue where the more i discover games/books/movies that completely nail what i like, the pickier i become with stuff that doesn't reach those heights. starting to feel like i have to dig extremely deep to find the "good stuff" and my tolerance for things i find "meh" is practically nonexistent :(

(mostly with books actually. movies i've always been picky about so nothing's changed there, and video games keep hitting home runs for me.)

[mitochondriaandbunnies]

For The Medical System is Bullshit reasons, I am off my ADHD meds (quite possibly for the long term) and Dan and I have been playing a fun game called "how often does Hannah walk into the wall now" (answer: like 10 times a day)

Also I woke up this morning to discover I fell asleep with a mechanical pencil under the covers with me

I would tell you how I'm driving but ha ha ha that part is less funny

[knife-red]

yall realize the oldest gen z are nearing 30 atp right

[eibongrey]

happy pride

[leolovesthings]

so I now have the proper hair length for a worn out but hanging in there man bun.

and a little beard that needs regular maintenance.

and chronic anxiety that makes me go neglect my basic needs sometimes as a reaction to stress until I fall apart.

yay for a very visual representation for a mess that my mental health is.

[feralthembo]

The only people who make 2000s nostalgia content are fucking high school mean girls in this essay i will bite someone

[televisionsavedme-blog]

3 A.M. Brainrot

All ✨️Babygirls✨️ are 🌸Pookie🌸 but not all 🌸Pookies🌸 are ✨️Babygirl✨️

[stelashe]

There's something so unbelievably broken and vaste between me and gen z I swear like a whole giant moon canyon and tbh I'm glad we can't reach each others

[renkyrie]

Being married as a young millennial means sometimes spouse communication is just gifs

Like a long chain of gifs sent back and forth

[xxxairheadedangelxxx]

What is it about cis white gay men that give them the level of audacity they have to just be cunts?

The amount of bullshit they constantly have to complain about all the time is wild to me. Last night I snapped on one whiny child bc he went on a whole rant that started w "pleeeeeeeeease don't call me a hater~ but Big preschool home decor is so ugly and I hate it and it's so immature and it needs to go away" in that cute little overly flamboyant tone that apparently makes them immune to all reproach?

I won't lie I called him a boring and hobbyless sad man who needs to keep his insecurities to himself. To which he was shocked??? And upset??? At the idea of someone being soooo aggressive about a "not serious" joke

Ah yes the so obviously joking tone you have now that I'm not the only person also tired of hearing people like you sqwuak the same mindless crude oil bullshit about everything you find unacceptable. I get it u think ur quirky bc you have a literal piece of trash pinned to your head board (not a joke he had it in the video). but the thought of people actually being weird and alternative and whacky and whatever is so genuinely threatening to your milquetoast paper thin facade of cool. I'm done being kind to bitches for being like this.

I'm gonna be mean and rude and aggressive bc there are people(myself included) who get fucking bullied AS ADULTS for being genuinely alternative who are too kind to call fellow weirdos out for being cocks. I'm fucking tired of this weird protected class of cuntbaggery that's just allowed from white gay men bc I dunno misogyny is still alive and well and the only thing these droll pieces of crumbled Styrofoam ever seem to have issue w/ is things that are very popular w women and fems.

Crazy how that one works. Wild. Who woulda thought.