The Megablock #

Our internet has changed so much. It’s riddled with a predatory algorithm, engagement bait, and noise. The latter has always been there, but its been amplified by the former.

To me, It’s been feeling like a cyberpunk dystopia everyday. The average person’s feed is filled with content meant to steal your attention, outrage to capture your thinking capability, and casual misinformation to skew and solidify your bias. It doesn’t help that there’s a billion dollar algorithm that’s engineered to keep you addicted and consuming this slop.

There are some people that understand the game or get unknowingly groomed into understanding. They’re corrupt “Medias.”¹ They contribute and reap real rewards from the system, at the cost of negatively affecting someone and sometimes themselves. Honestly, all the power to you if you’re a Media of any sorts. Game is game.

With the rise of AI, the noise is getting scary. Older people and young children with no sense of cognitive security are consuming AI content, further blurring the line of reality. Content is now easily generated with and without AI, and posted for some sort of return.

There’s a lot of fucked up shit going on, samurai². People are playing the game, people get culled for not knowing of the game. There’s a lot of lost souls roaming a noisy landscape and get corrupted unknowingly and turn hollow.³

Honestly, this could all be ignored if you just surf alone.

Surfing Alone #

There’s some stigma to being alone in real life. Dining at a restaurant with party of one and travelling by yourself could seem weird or scary some people. It’s really fun! You get to do, eat, and go wherever you want without having to think of others in general. It’s the same thing with the internet.

To preface, If you think about it, today’s algorithms aren’t personalized for you. Although, they might present themselves as a “For You Page”. They’re meant to keep you connected to your category of content that other similar accounts have engaged with. Nothing you do or consume is really yours. It’s as if you let your waiter choose your food based on how you look. They serve you a discombobulated chunk of a burger with obvious bite patterns all around it. On the side, fries that are pre-dipped in ranch sauce (you hate ranch).

It’s not really yours, and you obviously didn’t enjoy the food alone.

Being alone on the internet is the act of searching for yourself and becoming your own algorithm. It’s the rejection of being served that weird burger and fries and the act of cooking your own cravings.

The stigma is that being alone like this prevents you from connecting with others on the web. Everyone is on Twitter, where the latest gender discourse is happening. The funniest and most popular memes your friends bring up are on TikTok. And the controversial man is being controversial on Youtube and you must know about it!

But does it really matter to you? Do you even care about any of this? Do you like it? Once you answer these questions and others like it, being alone is not scary at all.

You’ll become someone decoupled from others, although you’re literally connected to them online. Your interests are yours, despite how many people share the same ones. The thoughts you have are unique, even though you exist in history.

Surfing alone gives a special ability to navigate this noisy and dangerous landscape. It’s honestly a privilege because to achieve this, a lot of patience is needed. It’s also a sad thing, because you realize a lot of people suck at using the Internet and therefore, hollow. No longer the algorithms control you, communities with awesome people are easier to find and live in, and the knowledge that you always wanted suddenly spawns in front of your eyes as if it has always been there.

It’s awesome.