It's certain that the internet isn't what it used to be. I was born in 2006 and missed out on a lot of great things about the early internet, save for newgrounds and flash games and early roblox. The online world has become a massive monolith that we now take absolutely seriously. It's no longer a playground. Early forums used to encapsulate this playfulness, but it's obvious many people really do live their lives online, and I'm no exception, because that's what social isolation does to you, and that's why you shouldn't wire your children to the internet at an early age.

It's understandable. Everything has become so accessible online now. My website uses multiple resources I pull up from the internet, and the web dev books I pull from the library, and other people's tutorials and scripts [which they put a lot of time and effort in! This expanding scrollbox actually takes a lot of time for some folks to make!! thank you, lobilles].

I use this word loosely but there is a sort of narcissism that comes with trying to build a perfect online presence since the internet has been weaved into reality. There's an increasing epidemic of loneliness and a strong lack of fulfillment in western youth. [And I'd argue in western Europe, too.] There are various coping methods the chronically online specimen uses. Blatant self-infatuation, self-destruction, political extremism, sexual promiscuity, and starting arguments.

In my search for a community and social connection, I strayed toward chan boards in my early teens, because they're the few remnants of the old internet left, and I almost came out radicalized. There's a reason these sites are 18+, the underage brain can't comprehend all of the nazi pepes and fluffle goreporn torture art and all the polcels mlpol hyperborea aryan vril a10 globalists mexican trans furry fascists...

But if you were to ask me? Sites like twitter or tumblr aren't any better. Same shit different smell. I've found pedophiles on both these sites that wanted my underage booty pics.

Now I'm in college and computer majors are the most popular ones besides liberal arts. I respect the creatives a lot. I don't think their decision is dumb, actually. I think college has become more and more of a scam, and internally I've questioned if I'm wasting my time here. It's been week 1 as I've written this. At least those in the humanities are focusing on self-expression, an ever-fading practice in our cultural monolith. It's desperately important to have human records of being human.

Excerpt from a previous writing, from when I was more lost and scared than right now:

im not sure where else to write this but if it matters i have this saved in a text file on my hard drive either way so i guess it wont matter that much. im on 0bin.net through TOR but im sure law enforcement can crack through it somehow as im on the surface web while accessing it. but thats not the point, the matter is that im not a criminal yet have a lot of thoughts on censorship in different governing bodies. the censorship of homosexuality in turkey for example, or the threat to lynch homosexuals and transsexuals in eastern europe, west asia, south asia, and middle east. in the U.S we are promised protection under the 1st amendment but this is variable and changes on a whim depending on how much something you've said has upset law enforcement or threatened/jeopardized the safety of others which is reasonable yet should not deserve jail-time once the culprit is thoroughly investigated or at least mentally evaluated and is proven to simply be a narrow-minded harmless bluffer. the censorship of certain educational topics or topics that require licensing to carry through [such as chemistry or physics] is also increasingly concerning, as no knowledge or information should ever be met with a barrier-- it's the culprit's fault if he uses information to be a bad actor. think of the inventor of TNT, the atomic bomb... it wasn't knowledge's fault yet the misconstruing of information and research gathered in order to bring destruction; sometimes it's the mass's fault instead of the inventor himself. i think of jiro horikoshi's disillusionment with the final months of wwii despite making a6m zero fighters for Mitsubishi i.e the planes kamikaze pilots would be known to use for their suicide missions.

I've grown up to not trust the government, the 2-party system, our modern politics, and have become a reclusive paranoiac as i grow more and more disillusioned with what i have to witness. extensive jail time over minor drug crimes, arrests without investigation, the discrimination and targeting of individuals who are supposed to be crime-doers-- the blacks, Hispanics, and anyone of lower class in a poor neighborhood.

obviously by writing this i feel like Winston and have already recognized myself a dead man for speaking the truth in a world that is supposedly a free one. the soil i step on in the west doesn't feel much different from the soil I've stepped on in the east. this isn't how it should be.

If you don't care about free speech, then you have nothing to say.