We didn't have access to the internet before 08- 09ish at my home. So I didn't even get to be on the pre-social media web, although I didn't have any social media until a few years later. I primarily played hotwheels themed flash games on various sketchy websites in my early times on the web. Then I discovered youtube, where I downloaded music illegally non-stop from and found out what pro-wrestling is, then made a facebook account etc. etc. friends, games, statuses, pokes, check-ins you know the deal.
This goes without saying that I missed all the glorious geocities sites, so no nostalgia from me. Despite that, I started developing a soft spot for bare "boring" static html sites that were all text and the occasional ugly image, sites like the tutorials at tldp.org (despite being very outdated, if tldp had a tutorial for something I wanted, I went there first! Pure text is awesome!), the various old school puroresu forums, archives and blogs (those were truly butt-ugly, but I loved them for it!) and many others I have visited but forgotten.
Until some random day in February 2023 in the middle of procrastinating studying for my uni exams, a tumblr blog I followed suggested to visit the yesterweb site and so I did. I thought it was a cool place and started poking around when I came across the yesterweb webring (this has since shut down, but you still find plenty of other webrings if you know where to look). I went to random sites and came across Sadness's page. I was absolutely mesmerized by its beauty and simplicity. After a brief read through her manifestos and some more exploring around the yesterweb webring, it was like I found something I didn't really know I was looking for, but could always feel was there.
I'm gonna keep this short, because I won't really provide anything new to the conversation. Sadness' manifesto and the collection of yesterweb zines cover everything there is to say, really. But I'm gonna repeat all that anyway:
"It's hard to believe now, but until 1991, commercial enterprise on the Internet was strictly prohibited. Even then, the rules favored public institutions and forbade 'extensive use for private or personal business.'" --source: wired
This isn't news, just a confirmation. Social media is based on engangement. They encourage and boost posts/photos/blogs that have high engagement. Engagement is high for content that causes outrage. The far-right uses outrage content to justify its racism, homophobia and other oppressive views. So, social media boost far-right content, as the algorithm isn't very good at understanding politics, or what constitutes hate speech and what doesn't. There are many examples of this, the alt-right pipeline, Andrew Tate, the manly man alpha male podcast infestation...
It is interesting to me that the "both sides" argument isn't totally correct. Communism and anarchism hold the interaction with other people at the core of their beliefs. In the process of adopting these ideologies, it is extremely rare to see someone that didn't interact and discuss politics with another anarchist/commie. The radical left bases itself on human interaction. This is the reason why social media, the home of the parasocial relationship, is best suited for the far-right. Yes, BreadTube exists, but it only serves to de-radicalize victims of the alt-right pipeline. It doesn't do a very good job of radicalizing towards the left, as the subject/viewer/former victim doesn't have anything to do next. Irl radicalization is great because the newly radicalized can immediately join a collective, a group, an organization and start making even the smallest of impacts. This isn't to say that leftist content is useless, or that it doesn't radicalize, but that it should be used as a way to exchange information and communicate, or as a gateway drug, not as the be-all end-all of one's political identity.
