Also remember to join IRC, learn about it here.
User:GondorCanada/Internet Culture
The internet is Serious Business. If you post a comment in vague support of, say, Mike Hucakabee for example, on a blog of some sort, then there is every possibility that somebody on the other side of the world could start a religion based entirely on the contents of your comment for whatever reason. Something you say in a chatroom that was intended as a bad pun could change the life of a Mongolian farmer. There are people who exist entirely for the purpose of making pornography of everything. There are all sorts of crazy people crawling over the tubes, and that's the way it's been for years. Although the only internet you probably know is Web 2.0, Facebook and Youtube, there's whole scores of websites that have existed for more than ten years devoted to some of the weirdest things.
Geographically, the Internet isn't located in any one place - it's a network of tubes all around the world connecting other networks and there's complicated things like ports and protocols and PHP and XSS and SQL and who knows what else. Anybody with an Internet Service Provider (or ISP), a computer, and a browser that's not Internet Explorer can access it for more than a few seconds at a time. And because anybody in the world can get on if they're prepared to, the culture of the internet cannot be directly attributed to be like any one country's, but instead, a complex amalgamation of the weirdest people from all over the world's creating a culture completely removed from any you know with it's own pseudo-language and bizarre rules that nobody knows or follows. It's a culture that started in the Usenet where a normal person would never touch it or even hear of it and evolved into places like Something Awful and 4chan, and survived until Web 2.0 when Facebook and regular everyday people came in and infiltrated the subcultures and larger forums to make them completely different from before. Despite this, Internet Culture still survives in some places in bastardized forms of what it once was (or in some cases, exactly the same form).
Brief history of Internets
Back in the early days of computers, there were things called "networks" used to send information from one computer to another easily. These networks were built in universities who wanted to exchange information with each other so they could better their minds. These networks got so big they joined onto other networks from other universities and then they joined on to other networks and people put their home computers up to them and pretty soon there was some sort of internets going on. The fact that the internet originated in universities tells you two very important things:
- The internet was forged in a place where the discovery of information was and the betterment of the mind was encouraged.
- The internet was also forged in a place where all the time is party time and people get drunk enough to wake up the next day and wonder where their legs went, and found certain parts of the body HEE-LARIOUS.
Then Eternal September happened.
After this, something happened with BBSes or Bulletin Board Systems, early prototypes of forums where people with modems could use a phone number to connect to a server and find text files people nearby had written for communication purposes and write other text files or something. Most of these text files were about burning cats, hacking phones and misunderstanding anarchy. You can read some of them here. After BBSes came the usenet, which was created with something about newsgroups where people posted articles, commented on articles and cross-posted to other newsgroups with articles. Non-text things were found on this thing to. They were called Binaries, but not every group allowed them. This was also the place where trolling was born, with Usenet trolls commenting on articles in order to try and cause maximum controversy.
This time in the internet was not terribly well-known, but it's when trolling and a feeling of anonymity was born (also giving birth to the Internet Tough Guy). The trolls formed their own newsgroup and talked about their own things, and they got bigger and more popular. Because they wanted to cause controversy they learned every inch of the usenet and how the users reacted to little sentences and lines and so on and so forth. Troll newsgroups were almost like a hub for usenet drama. They formed their culture over being offensive and pissing people off, and while people came and went to the usenet, the trolls stayed because it was too much fun.
Of course, that's pretty one-sided. They aren't the only people who stayed. Ordinary people stayed and used it occasionally. Massive nerds stayed for reasons that should be obvious. Often, nerds, trolls, ordinary people and everything in between would exist in the same newsgroup, in some poor mockery of harmony. Then some stuff happened and Web 1.0 was born, with websites like Something Awful being at the forefront of internet culture - which was about making fun of stupid people, knowing about Star Trek, and enjoying shock images more than normal people should. They became the majority on the internet, and the ones who'd stay the longest, along with the nerds and loonies. They all came together to create Internet culture, and began forming the first memes and communities.
Thus a culture was formed, separate from the culture of any one country.
Internet culture today
In the lolden days of the internets, people treating discussions on the internet with as much weight and seriousness as IRL discussions were mocked and made fun of and called names. That's where the meme "The Internet is serious business" came from. But Web 2.0 has changed all that. Media reports about the internet paint as the most important revolutionary invention, and give the impression that everyone on the planet wants to and will view your facebook page and add you as a friend. This is silly and untrue.
The media talks about the internet as a revolutionary way to connect and socialize (which is laughable to people who've played an MMO before), and talks it up as everyone's key to fame leading to attention seekers crawling into every single site on the internet. The portrayal of the internet used to have myspace at the forefront of cool, which has now been replaced by the much more "natural" Facebook, which most people consider a basic extension of their social lives and believe it to be the entire internet itself. People who've been on the internet for years can normally tell when somebody from facebook has ventured too far into the real internet. And if the facebooker is unlucky, they'll encounter a troll who will force them realize how the internet isn't serious business as the media and Australia portray it. Or force them off the internet. Which never works.
Characterisitics of Internet Culture
Note that there are exceptions to all of these and they tend to vary from site to site.
Anonymity
In the real world, your name, identity, mind, all these things are intrinsically linked to your body. People see you and know that it's you because of what you look like. They can easily identify you. But not on the internet. When people don't have to see your body, you don't have to let them know who you really are, or who you are at all. This is probably one of the defining characteristics of the internet, how you can speak to someone for years yet only know them as their username. People don't have to reveal their identity. And without an IP address, you can't truly track down anyone who hasn't given out personal information. Play it right on the Internet and nobody will ever know your real identity.
The result of of this? People let themselves go. They can no longer be properly threatened with consequences for their actions, so they do what they want, and say what they want, especially things they normally wouldn't say in real life. But, even though forums still have a degree of personal responsibility, they same cannot be said about the chans, where no accounts or usernames are required, and you can have total anonymity from everyone who isn't the FBI, or Moot, or a 4chan mod or admin.
Humour and entertainment
In the real world, genres of drama tend to vary in just about every medium. That doesn't mean they have to be good. They just vary. Not every movie is an action thriller, not every TV show is Jersey Shore, and not every videogame is Call Of Duty. But on the internet, nearly everything is comedy. The guys on the internet who make the funniest posts or the best MS Paint comics are the awesome guys, held in high regard until the next awesome guy. When people post on the internet, they're often trying to be funny, whether that be edgy and funny, absurd and funny, scathing and funny, you name it. Because posts on the internet aren't out there to give you a serious emotional experience - the best they can do is comedy.
When people are on the internet, they're rarely trying to expand their intellect or open their horizons. They're normally looking for something to entertain them. And if it's not a flash game, it's a comedy website. That, or pictures of deformities.
Common Interests
This section could have easily just been called "Neeeerds" but it isn't.
The Internet is full of nerds. You're probably a nerd. Being a nerd or having nerdy interests is the norm in the tubes. Not liking Pokemon makes you seem mature in an employer's eyes, but on the internet, you're the odd one out if you don't have fond childhood memories of trekking down route 13. Not everyone shares the same interests on the internet of course, but things like Pokemon are nearly universal. Sci-fi stuff is more readily accepted. Anime stuff is (mostly) more readily accepted. This is what most forums are about - bringing together people of common interests.
This sort of intrinsic nerdiness isn't inherent in every internet user, but it is in the majority. Plenty of people have at least a glancing knowledge of HTML, an interest in Star Trek, the ability to edit levels for the original DooM, or maybe they have none of these and have just been stuck with the social ineptitude of the nerd. The point is, you'll find that on the internet, nerds are in higher concentration than anywhere else, and chances are, thanks to anonymity, they don't care if you're stronger than them in real life. This is a nerd's domain.
Being casual
If an internet formal was ever held, nobody would ever attend. Apart from it being an absolutely stupid idea, formality is nearly inconceivable to the average internet user on a forum. This isn't a workplace environment, or a diplomatic meeting. This is just some place where you talk about things with other guys. Manners are put on hold. Although this varies from site to site (like everything), the way people speak on the internet is never how they speak in real life unless they love swearing in front of their family. People swear, post links to porn, insult one another, brag about their achievements, and insult each other. Never mind the fact that someone's a moderator, go ahead and swear in front of them, they won't mind (unless it's a wp80 moderator). The internet is a casual place, with almost zero formality. And that doubles in IRC.
This is about the internet not being taken seriously. Nothing on the internet is to be taken seriously.
Memes and lulz
With the lowered feeling of responsibility that comes with anonymity and the drive for humour and entertainment comes Lulz. Essentially, laughing at stupid things stupid people do. It's a time-honored internet tradition, and it's just about the foundation of all memes. Stupid people are in surplus on the internet. There's no danger of them running out. And when they say or do something unbelievably idiotic, most people laugh. That's lulz. And when people troll them for being so stupid, which makes them do stupider things, there's even more lulz. This is definitely one of the parts that varies the most, but this sort of instinct to laugh at and make fun of stupid people is all over the internet to some degree. This is why people speak with bad grammar on purpose, to mock those who did it by accident.
And this is the basis of most good memes. They come from something particularly lulz-worthy that people like it enough to spread it around and make different versions of it, parody it, mock it, you name it. That's why things like Milhouse fail to be memes. They had no lulz in the first place.
Layers of internet culture
Internet culture layers are ranked in visibility to the media, which decreases as the web community gets older and more saturated in Lulz or Internets.
Layer 1: The web
Example sites: Facebook, Twitter, Amazon.com
Whenever you see the internet in the media, chances are it's from this part. The famous commercial sites that everyone knows of or uses. At this time of writing, facebook is the second most visited site in the world next to Google. These are sites so famous that they replace the rest of the internet for most people. These are the sites normal people go to, and talk about in real life. You might overhear some teenagers talking about their facebook status, or their twitter followers or their youtube subscriber count. You'll probably hear these sites mentioned on TV too.
Unlike regular and old internet sites, these ones don't have a typical "community". They're way too big for that. They just have users doing whatever, and as such, lack normal internet culture things like Lulz and trolling, or most importantly, the perspective required to see that the internet is just a bunch of words and pictures on a screen. Sure, those words have to be written by someone, but they don't always have the intent behind them the reader thinks they do. Facebook, for example, is spoken about in the real world like it matters at all, as though when someone takes five minutes to reply to you on chat, it means they don't like you. People talk about their facebook profiles and updates among things actually worthy of IRL conversation. You can only really classify it as "internet culture by association". Once a meme reaches these sites, it's not funny. Once a joke reaches these sites, it's ancient. Once a video, concept, or game hits these sites, it's as old as the dinosaurs. And it's often because it reaches these sites, not because of how old it is. But unfortunately, this is the most populated part of the internet, and sometimes journalists refer to something happening on it in place of actual news. Which means memes reaching IRL. This is a bad thing. If you don't understand why now, you will when people start talking about how long longcat is to you.
It's not all bad. It's just that a lot of it is. Youtube has cool videos. Twitter has cool accounts. Facebook probably has cool groups, although this is unknown. You have to take the good with the bad.
Think of it a bit like the clean corporate part of the internet, the Wal-marts and Starbucks or a Starbucks in a Wal-Mart, whereas the other sites are the local supermarkets with atmosphere and the shopkeepers who are awesome to you, or will spit in your food. Possibly both. At the same time.
The most popular site in microblogging (like regular blogging but with fewer redeeming qualities), Twitter is most often cited by lazy journalists as a representation of the public at large because of its high account number, despite the fact that the accounts don't represent even a twentieth of the global population, more than half of them are devoid of a follower count in even double digits, certain demographics are grossly under/over represented, and also despite the fact that approximately eighty percent of twitter accounts are dead. What's really notable, however, is that celebrities and people that matter use it to get their messages out to their fans/supporters, and even sometimes converse with them. In this way it's pretty cool, but it was originally created to make blogging so easy that you'd just type and wouldn't even have to think about it. You can see how well that went.
At the time of writing, Twitter holds a global alexa rank of 11. Out of every website on the planet.
Youtube
We really shouldn't need to tell you what youtube is, or what sort of things you can expect from it.
So we won't.
Facebook has a movie made about it.
Nothing more needs to be said.
Layer 2: The trollosphere
Since we're going by media visibility, this comes next. Not necessarily because it's the second largest (it is pretty big though) but more because it's the one the alarmist media will pay more attention to, like say, Fox news. This area's made out to seem like a big scary Internet Hate Machine run by Hackers on steroids because steroids increase intelligence, apparently. Whenever reported, if at all posible, this layer will be portrayed as the seedy Mos Eisley of the Internet, a mob rule abomination of callous behaviour and malevolent will. Which would seem pretty accurate at first, until you actually start looking around this layer, at which point you realize it's about time to drop a few IQ points from that description. This layer's where the nitty-gritty of Internet Culture still exists. This is where the traditions from the olden days persist, often unadvisably. Heard of a meme? Probably came from here. Image Macro spread across the internet? Probably from around here somewhere. Things relevant to Internet Culture survive and develop around here.
It's not a malicious underworld, it's an offensive overworld with brain damage. This is internet culture at it's most intense and hostile, and occasionally at it's most hilarious.
4chan
Oh lord.
4chan is the biggest Internet Culture-y website there is. What 4chan is in theory, is a discussion board where people can exchange opinions about different topics (divided on a board by board basis) without the need for a username. What 4chan is in practice is a place where people can exchange swear words offensive to different people, and try to get other people to take these swear words to fill other sites, only to have swear words put on them, along with the visual representations of said swear words.
Memes are born mainly here, unfortunately, because this is the place with the most people willing to spout them off for ages. As for it's significance to trolling, 4chan used to do, quite successfully (to a degree) raids on other websites, where they'd all gather and simultaneously drown another website in naughty words by sheer weight of numbers, like this was an accomplishment of some sort (it is in internet culture). But as the site grew bigger, its IQ grew smaller, and it can barely co-ordinate a raid anymore, and anything successful trolling-wise to come out from 4chan is more often put down as coincedence.
Probably should be pointed out it has boards where people don't arrange raids, and like everything, it has it's good and bad sides, but this one's mainly got a bad side.
Encyclopedia Dramatica
Think whatport80, but 7 times more offensive than the most offensive thing you can think of.
There you go.
Something Awful
Arguably more organized that 4chan, they still sometimes pull off relevant trolling stunts but more often than not talk about other things. Here, Internet Culture lives side by side with actual discussion, and also imitations of actual discussion. Almost anyway. Memes (referred to as catchphrases) are banned over there, and things that might become memes are also banned to keep what happened to 4chan off of SA. Still, it uh... exists? Man this bit is going to need a rewrite.
Layer 3: The third layer.
These are the sites you don't hear about on the media until they do something earth-shattering yet are still pretty popular among certain groups of people. The less offensive memes and mannerisms from Layer 2 trickle down here and are (sometimes) used acceptably, and so do the jokes and image macros. This is comedy websites, gaming forums, funny t-shirt stores, all those sorts of things you'd never hear about in the media but are still kind of popular. Normal person-troll-nerd hybrids are the majority around here. Most people here are aware of Layer 2, all its memes and rules of loletiquette, and some choose to spread their time out hanging around both, others choose to call the people who hang around Layer 2 as idiots, not always incorrectly, and the rest just don't care.
Despite the name, these sites often rank fairly highly on the alexa rank. But the people who loiter around Layer 1 often have no idea they exist unless they click on them by accident.
Cracked.com
This is a comedy website that's aware of all internet traditions. You'll never hear about them in the media, but they're around the top 1,000 in the Alexa rank. Cracked started out in the 1950's as a Mad Magazine rip-off, but has grown into one of the most well loved comedy sites on the internet while Mad has become stale and obsolete with barely any web presence at all. The reason it remains here is because they get no media attention at all, totally internet focused, with the exception of the occasional book. They're obscure in the eyes of the public at large.
Eegra.com
A pretty cool gaming website that occasionally languishes in obscurity and inactivity. By total coincedence, it too started as a magazine, an awesome little known one named Total Gamer.
The reason the website listing for this section is kind of short is probably obvious.
Layer 4: Dust gatherers
Things on the third layer are well known to quite a few people. But down here's where you can find the real obscurity. Forums with only 30 active members. Blogs with only 12 views and one post. IRC channels with four users idling, two of whom are bots, one of whom is chanserv. These are the small places, the nooks and crannies of the tubes. Some of these sites are graveyards of old posts and usernames. Others are thriving micro-communities. But what really defines these sites is how much you'll never hear about them.
These are actually some of the best and worst of the internet. Small communities can actually be pretty cool, but at the same time, they can be a small community of idiots.
We haven't listed any examples. You can probably figure out why.
User Archetypes
These do vary, and sometimes combine to make other archetypes. If there's any you think could be added, be our guest.
Grizzled Mod
This is the moderator on a forum who takes no crap. If something annoys him in the slightest, he deconstructs that thing viciously with a mix of mocking sarcasm and scathing parody. He's cynical, often misanthropic, quick to anger and intolerant of any noobish tendencies a user has the misfortune to show while around him. Any of his posts that aren't insulting something are a rare archaeological find, to be put up in a museum for all to see and wonder how such an unlikely event happened. Almost invariably male, if this user isn't a moderator yet, then he's just in his chrysalis. On some forums where rules are actually enforced, he's constantly banned, often permanently. On other forums, he's tolerated for reasons unknown to many of the users, and ones that the admins don't feel like revealing.
Example quotes
| —Grizzled mod |
| —Grizzled mod |
| —Grizzled mod |
Laugh track
The unmemorable background characters of the internet, they're not particularly well-known anywhere and don't have many interesting things to say. Most of their posts consist of "lol", "rofl" or "lmao", sometimes inadvisably combined to make some new acronym, along with an animated bbcode emoticon laughing. When they start threads, they're quickly buried to page 2, and often either "What do you guys think of [insert popular mainstream average TV show here]" or "Hey guys, check out this link to a news story everyone already knows about". And often, they'll use more than one exclamation park to show just how much they're lolling.
| —Laugh track |
| —Laugh track |
| —Laugh track |
Successful troll
The one who manages to cause confusion and often outrage in a community on a regular basis, and sometimes recognized as a cool guy among the mods despite his constant trolling, the successful troll is the one most likely to post something so stupid that it has to be a fake.
| —Successful troll |
| —Successful troll |
| —Successful troll |
Village idiot
Oftentimes you'll read something so stupid, so utterly ignorant, so mindbogglingly outlandishly idiotic, that you think "This guy isn't being serious. He's a troll. I'm calling it now." The Village Idiot is what happens when it's not a troll. This is a board's local whipping boy, the crash test dummy they test their insults on. Nobody likes him, except for when he makes people laugh because he's so stupid. Nobody takes anything he says seriously. Frankly, nobody's sure why he stays around the site, or how he's still alive. He can fit into all sorts of categories of idiot - and this is probably the broadest archetype of all - but the invariable uniting factor is that something about him is absolutely, completely, retarded. Common characteristics include USI, being 12, sheltered upbringing, lack of/warped sense of morality, low IQ, clinging to logical fallacies and hilariously stupid posts. It's difficult to some them up in quote form.
| —Village Idiot |
| —Village Idiot |
Local legend
Ever read some posts on a forum, and people are dropping a name all the time, and talking about how great this guy is? They're talking about the local legend, invariably recognized as one of the coolest guys on the site. What he did to become so awesome or highly regarded depends on the site. Maybe he can make better games than all of them put together. Maybe he trolled an ITG into oblivion. Maybe he's just the most hilarious awesome dude on the site. Maybe he's the best at this one game, better than all of them combined at it. Either way, he could start a thread with just a picture of a duck and people would be praising it as the best thread in the site's history. And criticizing the local legend is a good way to head towards a ban, especially if this guy's popular for a good reason.
Example quotes would be inappropriate here, because what defines this archetype is what other people say about the user.
The Awesome Mod
This guy's posts are funny, he's generally helpful, he doesn't really insult anyone except Village Idiots, and he does his job of moderating pretty much perfectly with no disputes except from, well, Village Idiots. Nobody would dare to ask why this guy became a mod. It's obvious, because he's just one of the coolest guys on the site. Maybe he's even a local legend at the same time. This is the guy you see doing things and feel like you should send money to him.
| —Awesome Mod |
| —Awesome Mod |
| —Awesome Mod |
Tolerated Weeaboo
If you've read a few of the other articles on this wiki you possibly already know that a lot of the most annoying people on the internet are consistently lumped into groups like Weeaboo, Furry, Noob, and probably more. Well this is what happens when somebody who'd normally belong to one of those groups is - at the very least - tolerable, and often, actually a pretty cool guy. They're not always weeaboos of course - Tolerated Weeaboo is just a name. They could be furries that are actually pretty cool, or noobs who know how to lurk and understand a website's rules and unspoken rules before posting or chatting, or someone with an interest in anime that doesn't start saying "kawaii desu ne" all the time.
| —Tolerated Weeaboo |
| —Tolerated Weeaboo |
| —Tolerated Weeaboo |
Noob
We have an article on this, but here's a summary. When people on a site are presented with someone who's incredibly ignorant of Internet Culture and how to behave on the site/the internet in general, a sort of treehouse mentality activates and they become immediately hostile to this person. Try going onto a Half Life 2 deathmatch server and ask what fragging means, and you'll just be bombarded with "lolnoob" and "go back to COD f******". The noob is stereotyped as a twelve year old idiot who hasn't taken anytime to educate himself on what he's doing. The truth is that he's more likely an average guy who types like he's texting and doesn't even know how to learn about the culture he's trying to be a part of. If anyone was a minority that was being discriminated against on the internet, it'd be noobs.
But a lot of the times the noob-bashing is kind of warranted. Just wait until you're not one and you'll see.
| —Noob |
| —Noob |
| —Noob |
Crash Bandicoot
This name is completely inappropriate for this kind of user, which in turn is fairly descriptive of this type of user. These people deal in non-sequiturs and confusing internet sarcasm, and sometimes you can't tell if they're post is ironic or they're being totally serious. They start parody threads of other threads, they post completely unrelated images of otters in threads about bollywood cinema, and they get away with it too because people find it hilarious.
Note that if this user is 12, then they're automatically unfunny and are more appropriate for the Noob or Village Idiot category.
| —Crash Bandicoot |
| —Crash Bandicoot |
| —Crash Bandicoot on botany. |
Professor Layton
Have you every played a Professor Layton game? Right, you know how Professor Layton acts? There you go.
For those who haven't, the Professor Layton is a polite, intelligent upstanding member of the forum community who's imported his manners to the internet and generally carries himself as a sincere, true gentleman. One of the rarest and nicest people on the internet, the Professor Layton offers good advice free from logical fallacies, makes a post and provides evidence, and is generally an all around good chap.
| —Professor Layton |
| —Professor Layton |
| —Professor Layton |
Edgy 13 year old
You know these guys in real life. We don't need to tell you anything about them. And none of their quotes are reprintable. You know exactly who we're talking about.
Often coincides with Village Idiot and Noob.
Happiness Rainbow
Unlike most of the other archetypes up there, generalizing this one with the term "guys" would be inaccurate. The Happiness Rainbow is predominantly female. These are the excitable people on the Internet who end their sentences with exclamation marks in a totally earnest and sincere fashion. Unlike a lot of other people on Internet Culture, they genuinely do want to help people when they say "Sure, I'll help!" or actually want to hear an answer when they say "sup [username]". They don't particularly want to offend anyone or hurt anyone, and are just here for a good time. Generally, when they're insulted, it's totally unprovoked and because someone feels like being grumpy that day or harbors some sort of resentment to nice people.
| —Happiness Rainbow |
| —Happiness Rainbow |
| —Happiness Rainbow |
Pretty Cool Guy
One rank up from the Laugh Track, the Pretty Cool Guy is a pretty cool guy. He's sort of funny, he's not a massive jerk to everyone on the site, he helps out, his posts are pretty good - he's not legendary, he's not famous, and he's not the coolest person on the site - but he's pretty cool. Often fading into the background, sometimes barely making it into the foreground, the Pretty Cool Guy is the closest thing to normal people on the internet. He's the embodiment of everything the phrase "pretty cool" stands for. Not to be confused with the meme of the same name.
| —Pretty Cool Guy |
| —Pretty Cool Guy |
| —Pretty Cool Guy |
Mixing and matching Archetypes
Not everyone falls into only one of those archetypes. You can add them together to make new combinations. It's all possible. Grizzled Mod + Crash Bandicoot + Local Legend for example (Local Grizzled Bandicoot?). Frequently, these archetypes combine to make most of the users you know on the internet. If you can think of anything these archetypes don't cover, feel free to whack it in above.
PRETTY SURE THIS GALLERY IS RELEVANT
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This is the last section of the article.
Now you have an overview of the Internets at large. Well done. You made it through the article. Or maybe not.
The more experienced of you may have been reading and thinking "This is a gross oversimplification of the most chaotic culture on Earth", thinking that this article leaves too much out, that there's things it's missed or doesn't explain. If you were thinking that, you A) Take the Internet too seriously, and B) would be right. This article does leave a lot of things out, and on purpose too.
You know how there's an emphasis on "don't take the internet seriously" but an awareness in the top paragraph of how a single sentence on the internet at the right time can change someone's life? That's something we've simplified. Yes, words on a screen sometimes have as much power as words in real life, but you shouldn't take what people on the Internet say too seriously, because most of them say it out of apathy rather than malevolence, boredom rather than benevolence, and "hey guys check this out" rather than "I am being genuinely helpful and believe I will improve your day by posting this". Is that always the case? No, it's not. But it's a general rule you should keep in mind. And why did we simplify it? Because that element alone could be the subject of seven 64kb articles, and nobody would read them. Why? Because they'd be seven 64kb articles. We certainly can't fit it all into this article. Look at your scrollbar. It's bite-sized.
And really? We don't need to fit it all into this article anyway. Why? Because this article is part of an entire wiki about Internet Culture. Welcome to WhatPort80. We aim to explain Internet Culture in a way most people can understand. If you don't think we're doing a good enough job, this is a wiki - why not help out? If you think we're doing a good enough job great, - why not help out?
If you want to learn more about Internet Culture, we recommend you start here.
