The Internet Is Not Boring, You Are

a rant, a manifesto, a love letter to the digital frontier

Imagine, my cosmic compadres, being granted access to the Library of Alexandria - that ancient wonder containing the sum of human knowledge. Picture yourself standing amidst scrolls and tomes holding the secrets of the universe. The air is thick with the musty scent of papyrus and the tang of sea salt carried on Mediterranean breezes. Towering shelves stretch as far as the eye can see, each one laden with the collected wisdom of civilizations.

As you walk the marble floors, your footsteps echoing through the cavernous halls, you pass by scholars hunched over texts, their quills scratching furiously as they transcribe and translate. In one corner, mathematicians debate theorems that won't be rediscovered for millennia. In another, astronomers pore over star charts that map the heavens with astounding accuracy.

Here, a scroll containing a lost play by Sophocles. There, a treatise on mechanics that prefigures Newton by centuries. The healing knowledge of a hundred cultures sits side by side with philosophical insights that still challenge minds today. Every shelf, every scroll, every tablet is a doorway to understanding, a key to unlocking the mysteries of existence.

Now, imagine having the audacity, the sheer unmitigated gall, to stand in those hallowed halls, yawn and declare, "Meh… I'm bored."

Absurd, isn't it?

Yet here we are, in the digital age, with the entirety of human knowledge at our fingertips, infinite possibilities for creation and exploration... and some of us have the nerve to claim the internet is boring.

Where does this insidious malaise come from? How have we, as a species, managed to take the sum total of human knowledge and experience and somehow find it... dull?

One must remember that boredom is not a state of the world, but a state of mind. We've become accustomed to constant stimulation. Our dopamine receptors are more fried than a schnitzel at Oktoberfest, thanks to the endless scroll of social media, the binge-watching of streaming services, and the instant gratification of on-demand everything. We expect to be entertained, to have our senses tickled and our minds engaged without any effort on our part.

But here's the thing: true engagement, true fulfillment, requires effort. It demands that you bring something to the table other than your atrophied attention span.

Adults are bored because they've forgotten how to play, how to explore, how to engage with the world around them. They've outsourced their curiosity to algorithms, their creativity to AI, their sense of wonder to VR headsets. They've become so accustomed to being spoon-fed content that they've forgotten how to forage for knowledge. We no longer have to hunt for our food or fight for our survival, so we hunt for likes and fight boredom instead. We've traded the exhilaration of discovery for the hollow comfort of familiarity. Boredom is a choice. It's a surrender, a white flag waved at the frontiers of human potential. To be bored in the face of infinite possibility is to admit intellectual defeat, to declare oneself a mere spectator in the grand theater of existence.

And nowhere is this more apparent, more egregious, more mind-bogglingly absurd than in the claim that the internet - that vast, pulsating network of human knowledge, human connection and creativity - is boring.

The public, “mainstream”, internet used to be better, yes—the Wild West of Web1.0, a lawless expanse of creativity and chaos, a realm of small personal websites and niches forums run by true enthusiasts. The key word here is "public" or “mainstream” or "average"; personal websites and blogs didn't go anywhere, but they've become increasingly hard to find among the sterilized, monetized, optimized-for-engagement hellscape.

You see, the internet isn't boring - it's been borified. Slowly but surely, the tech giants have sanitized our digital playground, transforming it from a vibrant ecosystem of the weird and wonderful into a homogenized feed of lowest-common-denominator content.

This is the true face of the "Dead Internet" - not a wasteland devoid of human interaction, but a carefully manicured corporate garden where every plant is genetically modified to maximize engagement and profit, or, perhaps, made of plastic. The tech giants, in their infinite wisdom (and by wisdom, I mean greed), have decided that a predictable, controllable, and monetizable internet is preferable to one that's actually, you know, interesting. They've traded the potential for digital enlightenment for the certainty of quarterly profits.

But here's the real kicker, you surrendered synapses: we've let them do it. Yes. We've willingly handed over our digital autonomy for the convenience of one-click shopping and the dopamine hit of a new notification. We've accepted their terms of service without a second thought, signing away our digital souls in exchange for free email and cloud storage.

So yes, parts of the internet are dead, or at least on life support, their vitality sapped by the vampiric algorithms of engagement optimization. But that doesn't mean the internet as a whole is boring - it just means you need to look beyond the walled gardens of Big Tech.

The real internet, the living, breathing, pulsating network of human creativity and connection, is alive and well. It's still thriving in niche forums, obscure subreddits, small newsletters and blogs, in private Discord servers, often even here on Substack, where passionate individuals debate everything from quantum mechanics to the philosophical implications of meme culture.

This "cozyweb," as Venkatesh Rao called it, is where the true spirit of the internet lives on. It's where you'll find communities of brilliant minds collaborating on open-source projects that push the boundaries of what's possible. It's where you'll encounter digital art collectives creating mind-bending works that challenge our perception of reality. It's where you'll discover underground networks of crypto-anarchists and digital revolutionaries plotting to overthrow the very techno-giants you claim have killed the internet.

But the internet isn't just about consumption or even communication - it's a tool for unprecedented creativity and innovation. It's a canvas where anyone can paint their ideas, a laboratory where hypotheses can be tested at the speed of light, a stage where new forms of art and expression are born daily. The internet has given birth to entirely new industries, revolutionized existing ones, and democratized access to knowledge and tools that were once the province of elite institutions. From crowdfunding platforms that turn ideas into reality, to collaborative coding projects that push the boundaries of what's possible in software or art, to citizen science initiatives that harness the power of millions to solve complex problems - the internet is a catalyst for human ingenuity on a scale never before seen in history.

But you wouldn't like to talk about any of those, would you? No, you're too busy scrolling through your algorithmically curated feed, passively consuming whatever lukewarm content the AI overlords deem suitable for your atrophied attention span, and complaining how boring it all is because your favorite Substacker hasn't posted a new guide to writing today or you haven't seen any good inspirational quotes lately.

Now, before you rush to judgment, let me tell you a tale of two Felixes: the extremely offline and the extremely online.

On weekends and most evenings, I transform into Offline Felix. I touch grass, I breathe air that hasn't been filtered through a CPU fan, I even engage in that archaic practice known as "face-to-face conversation." Shocking, I know. This offline time recharges me, gives me new perspectives to bring into the digital realm.

However, growing up in a small village in Germany (population: three humans, two cows, and a particularly judgmental black goat), I quickly realized that the internet was my ticket to intellectual stimulation. While you city slickers were out gallivanting with your plethora of like-minded individuals, some of us were stuck in other places.

The internet became my lifeline, my connection to a world beyond the narrow confines of my village, a beautiful place nonetheless. It allowed me to connect with brilliant minds across the globe, to engage in debates that would make Socrates weep with envy, to learn about obscure subjects.

So when you say "Go hang out with real people," or "Just go outside," or “online isn’t cool anymore,” I say, yes sure, isn’t that obvious? But check your big-city privilege, you pompous urbanites! Some of us don't have the luxury of a local coffee shop filled with aspiring philosophers and part-time poets. Some of us had to scour the digital landscape to find our tribe, our intellectual equals, our partners in cosmic contemplation.

The internet isn't just a distraction or a time-waster. For millions of curious minds trapped in intellectual deserts, it's a university, a social club, a creative outlet, and a window to worlds we could never physically access. It helped me become smarter, more connected, more aware of the vast array of human experience. It allowed me to grow beyond the limitations of my geographical circumstance.

Which brings me to my main point, if you think the internet is boring, I've got news for you (sit back, I’m going to roast you).

You passive consumers are the reason the mainstream cyberspace is degenerating faster than your two last synapses doing seppuku during a morning Twitter scroll. While you're busy gawking at whatever brain-cell-annihilating trend is currently turning your gray matter into sludge, the real internet is happening somewhere else. And by "somewhere else," I mean literally anywhere you're not looking, you myopic mole people.

"But Felix," you bleat, "there's nothing interesting online anymore!" Oh really?

You've mistaken the internet for a digital opium den. The internet is not your electronic babysitter. It's not here to keep you entertained while you lie there like a beached whale, occasionally emitting a grunt of approval when a particularly shiny meme washes up on your shore.

The internet is a mirror, reflecting the vastness of human creativity - or the lack thereof. If you find it boring, you're simply projecting your own intellectual torpor onto the screen. It's not a passive entertainment device; it's a tool for the curious mind, a playground for the intellect.

So, here's a radical idea for "the internet is boring" crowd: entertain yourself. Reach out to some interesting people instead of arguing with strangers over the inconveniences of the zeitgeist. Learn something that drives your browser history into existential dread. Create something that requires more cognitive function than a pet rock. You think you're a "content creator" because you can apply a filter to your brunch photos. You think you're "a writer" just because you share your thoughts online. You think you're "participating in online discourse" because you retweeted a hashtag. You're not interneting, you're internet-adjacent at best. You're a human CAPTCHA test, existing only to prove you're not a robot (though the jury's still out on that one), a human version of the "Are you a robot?" checkbox, existing only to prove that consciousness was a mistake. You're an unambitious sea cucumber. At least the sea cucumber contributes to its ecosystem. You? You're just converting oxygen into carbon dioxide, moaning and bad opinions.

The internet isn't dead. It's changing, pulsating with both the collective stupidity and creativity of millions of minds. The fact that you can't see it, can't feel its electric vitality, is a damning indictment of your own intellectual stagnation, you sentient screensavers. The real internet is becoming guarded from "the boring" crowd as the true creatives, intellectuals, and rebels keep thriving in their obscure esoteric realms as it always has been.

So the next time you feel the urge to declare the internet "boring," do us all a favor: unplug your router, smash your smartphone, and go live in Plato's cave. It'll be a net positive for the digital ecosystem, and who knows? Maybe you'll finally have time to develop a personality that isn't based on which Netflix shows you've binge-watched. The internet is vast and weird and wonderful, and you're sitting in the kiddie pool complaining about the lack of ocean. It's the fucking reincarnation of the Library of Alexandria and you're standing there yawning because shelves with interesting books are too high to reach.

Do better, or get off my lawn. Or my cyberlawn. Or better yet, go lick a cactus – it'll be the most stimulating thing you've done all year. Whatever.

If you don't think it's boring, I love you! Let's hug! I want to be your friend on this wonderful journey into the future.

Yours in digital disdain,

Felix Futzbucker, PhD in Not Being a Total Waste of Bandwidth

P.S. If this post offended you, congratulations! You just experienced more genuine emotion than you'll get from a year of scrolling through your social media feed. You're welcome.

P.P.S. And if you think this essay was written by an AI - congratulations! You are trapped in the confirmation bias of your personal Dead Internet Theory. Now go do something creative with that knowledge.

P.P.P.S. Meme yourself into oblivion – it's what Nietzsche would have wanted. Probably.