Boring Internet Theory

The internet isn’t Dead. It’s just Boring.

Dead Internet Theory, written at the height of COVID insanity, posits that most of what you see online are bots and AI. There’s clearly some truth to this. Posts from trannies saying “just be a heckin’ decent person and mutilate your kids” getting 150K+ likes doesn’t add up given how unpopular these takes are in the polls. There’s tons of accounts with 500K+ followers that can barely crack 200 likes per post. You can buy likes and followers. Bots are real. But this theory has a major flaw.

‘Dead Internet Theory’ was written by someone who spent a lot of time in internet forums at the height of internet forums. Brilliant misfits running wild in a pre-slop internet. They experienced a Very Smart Internet, so they assume most people are Very Smart. This is very human of him. It assumes most people are interesting and can think for themselves. If it weren’t for bots, we’d see the depths of creativity from dazzling minds and groundbreaking takes from untapped human geniuses. This is, frankly, astonishingly naive.

Allow me to propose an alternative theory from someone who spends most of his online time in a post-COVID internet. The majority of online engagement isn’t coming from bots, it’s coming from people. Boring People. People who are Very Easily Memed. Most online activity comes from NPCs. Everyone knows Reddit is composed of leftist NPCs. It’s time to admit that X is mostly composed of right wing NPCs.

The right loves to accuse the left of having the ‘woke mind virus’, which is undoubtedly true. But this accusation assumes people on the right are immune to mind viruses. Indeed, the right is much more intellectually diverse than the left. However, people on right are just as susceptible to parroting expected arrangements of words. Because they’re people. ‘Save The West’ Account #5000 posting about the dangers of pre-marital sex and the mutilated Redditor stating Elon is a Nazi are both people. People who want to be liked.

All leftist minds use the same app. When this app is updated, their minds receive the same update. Minds on the right are running on the same operating system as the left, there’s just more than one app. The left gets updates from the Woke app. The right gets updates from the Trad app, the Ray Peat app, and the You’re Jewish app, among other cringe apps used to replace having a personality.

Most people would rather die than think for themselves. This isn’t a novel insight. Nietzsche talks about this.

“Such a man of late cultures and broken lights will, on average, be a rather weak man: his fundamental desire is that the war within him should come to an end; happiness appears to him, in accordance with a soothing medicine and way of thought, pre-eminently as the happiness of repose, of undisturbedness, of satiety, of final unity.” —Beyond Good and Evil, Section 199

‘Dead Internet Theory’ was written at the height of COVID insanity. Now that the cultural chips have fallen, I propose Boring Internet Theory:

Post-COVID, an increasing amount of people are socially stunted and therefore desperate to Fit In. They cling to one subculture or another and repeat what’s expected of them. If they don’t cling to a subculture, they cling to a Meme. They try their best to Become The Meme. They will say what The Meme would say. Becoming a Meme is easier than becoming a Person. If you understand a Meme, you can predict what the Meme would say. If you can predict what a person would say, then that person is Boring. Most of the Internet is Boring.