The way people talked about the internet in the 2000s was so different from how they talk about it now. There was a bit of novelty and respect to the word, obviously because it was a new and hip thing. Nowadays, though, people talk about the internet with a certain edge of animosity. Maybe that’s just me imagining things, but I feel like social media and the internet have felt stale for some time. We’ve lost the appreciation we had for this magical tool that allows everyone anywhere in the world to connect to each other.

I can’t blame people, though. When the geniuses who made the internet built it, they weren’t thinking about the consequences it would cause. They didn’t know a microblogging website was going to turn into an engagement-farming wasteland. They didn’t know a college student at Harvard was going to make a scandalous data-mining website. They didn’t know how much fake shit was going to spread on the internet some thirty years later. The place has been full of doom and gloom recently. Thinking about that made me miss, maybe not exactly the old internet, but the memories I had with the old internet.

My childhood house was right next to a local computer shop. It was usually the hangout spot for kids who liked logging into y8.com and opening websites that they were definitely not supposed to open while literal nine-year-olds were around (me). They went in often after playing under the sun in the street outside, causing the shop to have a very interesting smell.

In one of these computers, circa 2011, I made my first Facebook account. Of course, Facebook didn’t allow nine-year-olds to make accounts back then, so I lied about my age. I’m not sure how I figured that out. I probably did it with help from another stinky kid in the vicinity. It was surprising to me how young I was when I did this. I did a double take after subtracting the year I posted this edited Plants vs. Zombies poster from my birth year.

I posted around eight to ten images similar to this, crude edits of game characters that probably took me hours to make on pizap.com. I don’t even remember creating any of these; I only remember the feeling I had using the internet in those first few years. It felt good sharing something, even though I probably had around three friends at that time.

I asked myself then: How do I find that feeling again? And also, what exactly did I feel that was good? Was it just because I was young, and it was like playing with a new toy? Was it because I was able to watch “Gangnam Style Minecraft Music Video”? Was it because I was able to play “Sift Heads 3” on several flash-game websites?

I didn’t know, and honestly it was just a thought that popped into my head after finding my old account a few months ago. I started reminiscing about the computer shop and the stinky kid who stole ten pesos from me, taking it out of my pockets while he was teaching me how to spawn ten tanks in the Left 4 Dead server I was in. Afterward, like any bored Gen Z person with nothing to do, I logged onto Twitter.

Nowadays, Twitter is the poster child of the “Dead Internet Theory.” It’s a theory that suggests the internet is no longer primarily composed of human-generated content but is made up largely of bots and A.I. Of course, it’s just a theory, but the way the internet is now, I can’t help but feel that it’s really something that will eventually come true, right? It’s a pretty cliché thing to say, but the internet was made to connect more people together, but currently it feels like it’s doing the exact opposite.

It feels like everything you see on the internet is insincere in some way. And I’m not saying there aren’t people out there putting human experiences and thoughts on the internet, God knows people love stating their opinions. But with the countless A.I.-generated videos and comments I see on YouTube and the verified bots on Twitter recycling posts to farm engagement, it feels like the internet is starting to lose its soul.

And I think that’s what felt so good about the internet back then. Everything felt like it had soul. Everyone’s standards for content were low; people were just doing stuff to have fun. The monetary opportunities weren’t at the forefront, and people were just sharing the stuff they loved to do. Of course, it was inevitable, how things turned out. But I think it’s important to remember how good it was back then.

This is the first post on my personal website, and I think it’s quite fitting. I made this website just to share, for fun. If people ever find this website, that’s good. But I’m mostly just doing it for fun.