“Is the internet actually dying? (It’s worse than you think.)
I just read this title of a video (that has a quarter mill views). Execpt it was written like this, “Is the Internet Actually Dying? (It’s Worse Than You Think)”
Side note: Yes, this early! I cannot get over the dropping of the punctuations in messages and titles like this. I had put a period after think before the end parenths the second time I wrote it as well as the first, but it’s not in the actual video title. It kills me to take it out, but so be it.
Hm. Apparently this is a hot topic of discourse (twhether the internet is dying or not). Here’s my very erudite and lengthy response: No, it’s not.
Thank you fgor coming to my TED Talk. Tip your server on the way out.
Look. Is it changing? Yes. Is it making huge shifts? Also yes. Will it look the way it does now in five years? No. But is it dead or dying? No. Is it getting worse? Yes. That’s what this series of posts is about. But is it dying? Well, that’s above my pay grade, honestly.
Before I continue, let me just say that I wrote yesterday’s post mostly about my emotions are broken, and the internet isn’t helping with that. To briefly summarize, I’m bad at feeling my emotions and at expressing them. It’s partly because my brain is weird, and it’s partly beacuse I was emotianally beaten up if I dared express anything but the most positive of emotions. Only my father got to show anger, and only my mother got to be depressed. My brother and I were supposed to fade into the wallpaper, I guess.
I dedicated my teens and twenties to becoming invisible. I got really good at it, too. I was able to tamp down my energy to the point where people wouldn’t notice I was in the room. Which isn’t easy, by the way. I’m fat and Asian, and I have huge tits. Blending into the woodwork almost broke me. It was so hard. And then I just gave it up when–probably after starting Taiji. Now I just take up the amount of space I take up.
Back to the internet being dead or dying. I don’t think it is, but there’s also not much I can do about it if it’s true. Look, I’m really good at finding things to freak out about. If they are not there, then I make them up. A weird twist to that is that if something is really serious, I don’t overreact. If anything, I underreact. I don’t know whwy this is, but I have a hunch it has to do with my neurodivergence.
I just looked it up, and, yes, there are theories as to why neurodivergent people are better under pressure/in a crisis than neeurotypical people. One, hyperfocusing is our thing. Two, we are used to being out of step with neurotypicals, meaning we view things differently, anyway. Three, our emotions are different. So what gets neurotypical’s pulse to spike may not do the same to us.
Those are only a few of the theories. I found it to be true, by the way. I realized when I was in my twenties that I was better under pressure than in the day-to-die in a large part because I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop*. When it finally did, it actually was a relief.
I got in a minor car accident about a decade ago. It was a young girl who looked South Asian (this is important). She was with her boyfriend, and it was on a road with a speed limit of 30 mph. I was going forward, and she was going in the opposite direction. She suddenly realized she needed to turn left to get on the freeway (a truly terrible turn), and she was going at least forty mph. She was talking to her boyfriend when she realized that she was going to miss her exit. She yanked her car to the right without looking.
I was watching her because she was driving really fast and distracted. She kept looking at her boyfriend, and I just sensed that she was not watching what she was doing. I also sensed that she was going to turn left (which would be where I was). I saw it all happen.
Time slowed down to a crawl. I knew she was going to turn into me, and there was not a damn thing I could do about it. My Taiji instincts took over (in fact, that was where I was going), and my body went totally limp. When she hit me (front bumper, but not on my side), I was completely boneless (well, you know what I mean, I hope).
After we collided, I just got out of the car and sat calmly on the side of the road by my car. I was in shock, probably, but I also felt very chill. There wasn’t much I could do about it, so no need to get upset about it. The young woman who hit me rushed over to see how I was (after calling a friend to pick up her boyfriend), and she was so upset. She was crying and wailing that her father was going to kill her because he needed the car (SUV) to go to work.
I was concerned beacuse it did not sound like hyperbole to me. I know it might have been, but she sounded legit worried. I told her gently that he could get a taxi if necessary and that I was sure he would not kill her. Honestly, thoug,h I wasn’t as sure as I would have liked to be. Not about killing, obviously, but corporal punishment? I could see it. Asian parents are strict, and some were not shy about it.
Her boyfriend came over before he got picked up, too. He wanted to make sure I was OK, yes, but he also wanted to make sure I realized that his girlfriend wasn’t being reckless or neglectful. Well, she was the latter, even if it wasn’t her intention. I was not going to be vindictive, but the accident was completely her fault.
Someone must have called the cops because a policeman showed up to talk to me. he reassured me that everyone had said it was not my fault, which was good, I guess. I was still numb from the experience so I wasn’t really feeling anything.
This went in a completely different direction than I had expected. More tomorrow.
*I have PTSD from my childhood, which is not the point of this post. That’s why i’m always on edge and feel like something disastrous is just around the corner. It’s not as bad as it was when I was a kid, but it’s still there.
