The internet has always been my salvation.
As a socially underdeveloped kid, I’d spend my lunch hours in the high school library on those public desktop computers, reading fandom sites about my favorite video games. Computers always made sense to me. I even owe my entire career to them.
But the internet today feels wrong. Whatever the fuck kind of psychological warfare is happening right now with this Epstein stuff is too much for my mind to handle. I can’t do it anymore.
I will love. I will vote. I will support my community and continue to oppose this fucking nightmarish system we all find ourselves in. But I need to sign off.
Imagine the door closing sound effect when logging out of AIM.
I viciously “edit” the internet as much as I can. I block toxic social networks and have deleted any accounts I had on them. There’s a Firefox plugin that lets you individually block sites in search results so you reduce scraper garbage SEO sites in your results. PiHole, uBlock, and whatever else that is available to block ads, tracking, etc. “-ai” when searching. Use SearXNG or non-big data search tools when able.
News comes from places like AP or Reuters. Not perfect, but better than half-true at best MSM clickbait.
It sucks. It takes work to enjoy what used to be better a decade ago, but let’s face it it’s been steadily downhill since ‘10 or so. I truly miss the “old” web. Yeah, it had its own problems, but it was far, far better and more egalitarian than this war zone of monetization and manipulation we have today.