03/09/2025
LIFESTYLE WEDNESDAY | ALIVE INTERNET THEORY
by himpapawid
Dead Internet Theory: It is the conspiracy theory that the majority of activity online consists mostly of bots, AI, and algorithms rather than actual people.
Recently, I have seen this term popping up in my feed more frequently. I had heard of this theory since before it became as well-known as it is now, and I thought it was absurd. Up to that point, I had been knee-deep into the internet and had been part of several communities where I had made friends and acquaintances alike. The connections and experiences we had, there was no way a robot could ever replace that.
Fast forward to the present day, and going on my phone is one of the worst experiences of my entire life. That silly conspiracy theory back then has become a strongly held belief to many users online — and who could blame them? AI content generation has become not only more realistic, but also widely available to the public. Every social media site you’re on, every ad or video you watch, and even the people you meet online are all handed to you by an algorithm that knows you better than yourself. Every post you see online, every image, every comment, every person — how do you know for sure that the people you’re interacting with are even real?
Ever since you stepped foot onto the internet, whether you were aware of it or not, your data has been tracked. Every link you’ve ever clicked, or any question you’ve asked Google, has been stored and bought by companies that use it to help themselves advertise to you. The internet is a vast sea of knowledge, one that you walk away from knowing more than when you first arrived. But every time you walk away from it, you walk away a little bit more mean, a tiny bit more cynical, and a little angrier; and they walk away with a little more of you.
What the algorithm feeds you, is what it knows you will watch. It doesn’t need you to feel anything, it just needs you to engage with the content it serves you. It echoes back to you, your beliefs and ideas, because it knows that it is what you wanted to see. So you see these posts and you see these videos about how everything is horrible and it's only going to get worse — so you carry that mindset with you; and you keep going, you keep seeing the world’s worst. There are less and less people in these posts, with the few people there just as angry as you.
Since it works, the algorithm does it all over again. The content you’re being served has been edited, cut, recycled, repackaged, and reposted for you to watch for the hundredth time. The video loops over and over until you swipe down and see another one just like it. Whatever soul was put into it has been ripped out, stretched apart, and put back in misshapen. Nothing on here is human anymore, it has been replaced with machines, robots, and AI — just like you knew it would.
Your phone runs out of battery, and you catch a glimpse of your face in the reflection and feel a sense of realization. How long has it been? It’s already lunch and you haven’t even gotten up yet. How has something that was meant to connect you more with the world turned into something that took it away from you? And how could you let it? Since when did you let the algorithm take the wheel for you? How many hobbies did you want to pursue but didn’t because you were too busy? How many hours have you wasted waiting for the opportunity to just have a little more time? Living life shouldn’t look like this, and you know it; but what else are you supposed to do?
You wrestle the wheel back, you fight for your autonomy. The internet is full of AI slop, ragebait, and doomscrolling has never been easier. But in that pile, is a diamond in the rough. There are still people out there who put their heart and soul into what they create. They make it to inspire, to motivate, to give you hope. There are people, real people, who need your help in situations where only you, a person, can make a difference. You need to make that decision, to break from that cycle. Watch something that you wouldn’t usually watch, talk to someone you wouldn’t normally talk to, see something that breaks how you see everything else. There are so many people with different stories of optimism and hope just waiting for you to listen — all you need is to choose to.
“51% of the internet is bots... but 100% of You is human.” - Campbell Walker
Layout by Althea Dineros
in
