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Dead internet theory

Marco Guarascio

Date 1

The TL;DR

The theory

  • The internet died in 2016 or early 2017, and that now it is “empty and devoid of people,” as well as “entirely sterile.”

  • Most of what we assume to be human-made internet content is actually produced using AI networks and propagated by bots, possibly aided by a group of “influencers” paid by corporations working with the government

  • Why? in order to manipulate people into being submissive consumers

When and where did Dead Internet Theory originate?

Origins of the theory

  • Agora Road’s Macintosh Cafe (lo-fi hip-hop + conspiracy theories)

  • Thread titled Dead Internet Theory: Most Of The Internet Is Fake, in January 2021

  • Agora Road user IlluminatiPirate

(more than 160,000 views)

A group effort

The author's (kinda funny) sources

  • "My background is that of an oldfag. I've seen it all. I started going on 4chan in 2006 [...] when #34 porn was an obscure interest"

  • Anonymous users of 4chan’s paranormal section

  • Wizardchan, (an online community about earning wisdom and magic through celibacy)

"Footfag" prose

The iconic paragraph

- Innocent sexual perversion and the horrible reality it spawned. Anon is a pervert and always was one. I am into loli and feet for instance. Why is it that real life and the real world seem to emulate our sexual interests, with a time lag? "I wish to be the little succubus" became an actual thing that actually happens. Pedo activism is also gradually becoming accepted, as is virtually every fetish that was once either a joke or a fantasy of Anons. As said I'm a footfag. When I became aware of it few others were with me, now it's as common as can be, with gigantic number of people who are into it, with huge mountains of hentai and #34 with it etc. Why does the real world bend over backwards to accommodate our weirdest fetishes? It's as if everything is going "Look, look! I created this for you! I made it real!" in an effort to keep us within this world. The results of this are devastating to society, to people, to civilization. Simply put, trannies are a thing because Anon fapped to doujins of cute boys in dresses. Once it was an impossible fantasy, not to be taken too seriously. Now it's grim reality. Again: it's as if the real world is using imageboards as a template on what to be and what to do.

Good points in the sea of crazy

  • “I’ve seen the same threads, the same pics, and the same replies reposted over and over across the years.”

  • Modern entertainment is generated and recommended by an algorithm (deepfakes)

  • "Positive feedback loop"

  • Internet rot

  • Repetitive articles

  • “I’m absolutely the type of loser who would get swindled into living among bots and never realize it,” -Something Awful forum member (“Seems like something a bot would post”)

From theory to fact

Internet rot

Exponential growth since the 1990's ...

or is maybe the internet actually shrinking?

'Internet Rot': theory based on studies showing that about 50% of links cited in court opinions since 1996 as well as 75% of links in the Harvard Law Review no longer work

Repetitive articles

"The same news items about unusual moon-related events seem to repeat year after year. What is a super flower blood moon? What is a pink supermoon? A quick search of headlines from just this month brings up: “There’s Something Special About This Weekend’s Moon,” “Don’t Miss: Rare, Seasonal ‘Blue Moon’ Rises Tonight,” and “Why This Weekend’s Blue Moon Is Extra Rare.”

The Focus, Bruno Cooke

Bad Bot Report

Cyber security company Imperva's annual Bad Bot Report

Data from its Threat Research Lab,

40 % bots (Bad bot traffic 25.6% of all website traffic in 2020, 15.2% in 2019; 15,2% of good bots in 2020)

Bot traffic analysis

Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic (31.08.2021)

Twitter: anonymous, "reletable" accounts who all tweet almost the same thing

"I hate texting"

YouTube: due to high bot traffic that some employees feared “the Inversion”, the point when its systems would start to see bots as authentic and humans as inauthentic.

Facebook: human presence can be mimicked with click farms or cheap bots.

The inversion

Encouraged repititivity: arguments, celebrity apologies, meme cycles.

People responding on impulse in predictable ways to things that were created, in all likelihood, to elicit that very response.

encouraged repititivity

The Internet Is A Potëmkin Village: Proof Of Dead Internet Theory?

The Internet Is A Potemkin Village

An Agoraroad theory by AnonymousNVP about anomalous and misleading numbers behind search engine hits.

Potëmkin village: an impressive facade or show designed to hide an undesirable fact or condition (Grigory Potemkin, former lover of Empress Catherine II, during her journey to Crimea in 1787)

Climate change search results

Google search results

Climate change seach results pt.2

Bing search results

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