What is the Internet? Is it an app, an idea, or a phenomenon that continuously interacts with society, constantly being shaped by it while simultaneously shaping it, or is it is a force impacting the human race on scales so grand that it is hard to comprehend, and if told, can seem so far-fetched that one might refuse to believe.
Is it the router in your home that is always awake, when everyone is asleep or the telephone lines that accompany you like a co-passenger, as you drive down a long national highway to go see your grandma or the transcontinental fiber-optic cables that run millions of miles all across our ocean floor.
Is it the invisible data bits floating around in the air that sometimes, for some, almost suspicious, unknown reason, stop coming your way (a little too often in RH-5) and you go to the next cs major claiming “bro i’m not getting any internet? help?” Is it the ability to type “google.com” on Chrome or Safari on a laptop or smartphone and get an answer or an app called Instagram or TikTok to doom scroll your way into depression or a place to find new friends, co-authors for your papers, book recommendations, and collectively fangirl over how cool David Chaum is.
Tell me(if you can), think, recall, when was the last time you woke up and took a piss before, not during, not after, gazing deeply and lovingly into the eyes of our dear mutual friend, the internet? Are you in love? Is it a problem? Are you a user? You’re an addict, aren’t you.
“When you try to take control of a nation-state, you first get control of its media. ”-an FC prof. I claim, if you control a nation’s internet, you control the nation(enshrine this into a war principle with my name. Kerchoff got nothing on me). And if by luck you happen to control the world’s internet, well, you kinda sorta control the world(at least in parts of the world the internet does reach. In the other parts, you go build infrastructure as goodwill). Today’s media is on the internet. Young culture is defined less by popular shahrukh khan films produced by a select few, exclusive, big name production houses, but more by millions of teenagers and adults influencing from their own homes with a smartphone and an internet connection, on a platform called Instagram and TikTok. Internet culture is gen-z culture. My friend, do you know who you are?( I have not met many people who can answer this while doing justice to this sort of questioning) I certainly do not. If you don’t either, do you too find yourself struggling to find answers to existential questions like, who am I? Why have I been put on this Earth? What is a self? How do I find myself? In your soul searching quests to seek such answers to such questions, have you called upon the classics - going on a solo trip? meditation? a shortcut to a temporary altered state of mind?(you thought psychedelics, didn’t you. Jesus, try picking up a sport next time. Same high, I swear?) Pretending to read Nietzsche while claiming to be a nihilist? Or perhaps you have found your own meaning and joy while rolling the boulder up the hill everyday, like Sisyphus has.
You’ve tried at least one if not all, don’t lie to me. . . . . . But, hold on, Did it actually happen!? . . . . .
You did record yourself in the process to post it for all your friends to see? (Everyone knows nothing actually happens if it aint on Instagram or Snapchat, right). . . . . .
I bring to you 2 big, very obvious ideas: One, Private human experience happens more on the internet, than real life. While you may not know much about yourself, your instagram feed knows you better than your best friend, your parents, or your teacher. Two, Capitalism. Yes, the idea of taking something out in the wild, and bringing it into the market as a commodity. Example, land exists freely in nature, in the market, it is real estate.
I’ll leave you with a teaser for this post. In the case of the internet, the thing out in the wild is private human experience, brought into the market as behavior data, which can now be sold to the highest bidder. Zuboff calls this surveillance capitalism.