Theories of the conspiratorial kind

[Mooncat]

I'm trying but it's difficult. The mindless doom scroll is so deeply engrained at this point that I find myself doing it without even realizing I've started doing it. What a fucking waste of time. At least the amount of obvious fakeness is helping a little in that regard though as it is lifting me out of the haze and genuinely turning me away.

[tonictitan]

The dead internet theory stops being theoretical when you see something like this. 49 million accounts and that's only from a single bot farm. It only takes 20 of these setups over the world and you've got almost 1 billion accounts posting shit everywhere

https://thehackernews.com/2025/10/europol-dismantles-sim-farm-network.html

https://youtu.be/Z-ImysXws-0

[Bürggermeister]

Yet the me wana banana guy was allegedly human.

[John Kimble]

I'm trying but it's difficult. The mindless doom scroll is so deeply engrained at this point that I find myself doing it without even realizing I've started doing it. What a fucking waste of time. At least the amount of obvious fakeness is helping a little in that regard though as it is lifting me out of the haze and genuinely turning me away.

Pretty much this. I recently reactivated dormant FB and Instagram for God knows why...partially out of boredom and curiosity, and I'm wondering why I bothered. Even if you park the AI stuff (which is hard to ignore as its so prevalent), it's all so toxic. I get a lot of MMA spam as I used to follow the UFC closely enough, not so much these days, but the amount of shite talk about the Aspinall/Gane fight is staggering. Just waves and waves of keyboard warriors and trolls throwing in their ill-informed tuppence worth.

[Mooncat]

Yet the me wana banana guy was allegedly human.

There was a guy on here I did half wonder at one point if he was a bot or not. DJ something?

I'm trying but it's difficult. The mindless doom scroll is so deeply engrained at this point that I find myself doing it without even realizing I've started doing it. What a fucking waste of time. At least the amount of obvious fakeness is helping a little in that regard though as it is lifting me out of the haze and genuinely turning me away.

Pretty much this. I recently reactivated dormant FB and Instagram for God knows why...partially out of boredom and curiosity, and I'm wondering why I bothered. Even if you park the AI stuff (which is hard to ignore as its so prevalent), it's all so toxic. I get a lot of MMA spam as I used to follow the UFC closely enough, not so much these days, but the amount of shite talk about the Aspinall/Gane fight is staggering. Just waves and waves of keyboard warriors and trolls throwing in their ill-informed tuppence worth.

I've been getting a ton of the same on my feed as well. Pause for more than a few seconds on something and then you're flooded with it for weeks. You almost have to train yourself to skip over things you would be half-interested in but not interested enough to be bombarded with. I have an overload of Gane/Aspinall stuff too despite the mildest of passing interest in UFC.

Also comments sections are genuinely one of the most depressing places on Earth. Everyone thinks their opinion is equivalent to that of professionals and experts. What a shitshow.

[ochoill]

There was a guy on here I did half wonder at one point if he was a bot or not. DJ something?

Sniffles.  No he is real, I bumped into him a couple of times at gigs in Limerick and there are a few other lads here who have too.  He's actually the solid finest, he was in his teens and discovering metal so was out sneaking into gigs in Dolan's, gas

[ochoill]

Dead Internet is real and very disheartening, and something I am obsessed with but I won't dig into it here at the minute in a brief post.  There's a lot of rejection online for the way things have gone though, which is good, especially in creative communities.  Forums like here of course, a couple of odd sites in between.  Have been digging into Neocities a bit while doing some sites meself and there's mad stuff there.  Bandcamp and some more curated IG pages are mostly okay.  But AI and bots have 99% of the Internet unusable.

[astfgyl]

Wasn't there a theory that some plan would only be complete when we all couldn't tell what was real or not?

[ochoill]

Wasn't there a theory that some plan would only be complete when we all couldn't tell what was real or not?

Probably but as it turns out this is also the whole point of Arsenal Gear in MGS2.  Hilariously relevant plot given the way everything is today

[astfgyl]

Wasn't there a theory that some plan would only be complete when we all couldn't tell what was real or not?

Probably but as it turns out this is also the whole point of Arsenal Gear in MGS2.  Hilariously relevant plot given the way everything is today

I tried looking it up but only got that it wasn't real. Still in all that's likely where most of us will end up. I could see people giving up on a lot of the internet over it

[Giggles]

I don't  use fb or insta anymore (great decision lads!), but a girl I know has recently started sharing her daily social media scutter via that WhatsApp status update thing, so every time I open my app, there's a wee green notification and sometimes mindlessly tap it and subject myself to her shite.

The latest is her sharing a video of a woman who is convinced that the recent hurricane Melissa is man-made, and that the governments are taking down weather stations so that they will be able to wipe out ENTIRE COUNTRIES, read it again: ENTIRE COUNTRIES, and we somehow won't hear about it. She posted a screenshot of a weather station, which usually updates every x amount of minutes, but hasn't updated in 3 hours now. God forbid that there was a fucking problem with satellite link like!

I got off the bus when I got to the part where she talks about how convenient it is that Jamaica has been approved to build Smart Cities, and now it's about to be wiped out to clear the way for construction to go ahead.

I could see people giving up on a lot of the internet over it

I had a conversation with some friends only recently about how good the internet was before it was all ads and regulations and shite, nevermind the bots and AI even.

[Mooncat]

I don't  use fb or insta anymore (great decision lads!), but a girl I know has recently started sharing her daily social media scutter via that WhatsApp status update thing, so every time I open my app, there's a wee green notification and sometimes mindlessly tap it and subject myself to her shite.

The latest is her sharing a video of a woman who is convinced that the recent hurricane Melissa is man-made, and that the governments are taking down weather stations so that they will be able to wipe out ENTIRE COUNTRIES, read it again: ENTIRE COUNTRIES, and we somehow won't hear about it. She posted a screenshot of a weather station, which usually updates every x amount of minutes, but hasn't updated in 3 hours now. God forbid that there was a fucking problem with satellite link like!

I got off the bus when I got to the part where she talks about how convenient it is that Jamaica has been approved to build Smart Cities, and now it's about to be wiped out to clear the way for construction to go ahead.

I could see people giving up on a lot of the internet over it

I had a conversation with some friends only recently about how good the internet was before it was all ads and regulations and shite, nevermind the bots and AI even.

Interestingly, it's kind of been out there for a year or so that people are moving off social media and into chat groups, where they feel more private and safe from all the bullshit. I've read a few articles about it here and there. I didn't know that Whatsapp had started doing that, but I guess this is the corporate way of starting to infiltrate chat groups now as well. Only a matter of time before the ads make their way there too I suppose. Utterly brazen, and utterly stupid. Like take the hint lads if you want people to stay on your platforms.

[John Kimble]

The absolute fucking state of the Internet has given me serious cause for concern, esp when it comes to parenting. I have a nine year old daughter who is obsessed with watching those short clips on YouTube...relatively benign stuff or so I thought until recently. She was watching this fairly innocuous clip the other day in the car, the audio was coming through the speaker on Bluetooth...nothing of note until an AI voice at the end declared something along the lines of "like and subscribe or your parents hate you". Fuck sake like. Myself and the missus had to have one of those "frank conversations" with her about the nonsense on YouTube, and re-evaluate our own tendencies towards lazy parenting at times. Like, your working from home or in a restaurant and it's an easy option to just hand them the phone for the sake of a few minutes peace. It's a recurring request every now and then as to "when can I get a mobile phone" and the answer now is a resolute no. Not a fucking hope in hell.

[astfgyl]

Well at least we have this place to give out about it all on. I still scroll for a few funny cat videos on Twitter but I can't even trust them now with the AI stuff. Ah well

[Thorn]

Yeah, once you give 'em a phone they're gone. My 16 year old has the whole world and it's nefarious politics and perversions at the touch of a button 24/7, often you don't even need the button, it'll come anyway, uninvited. To put it in context I was renting out Sega consoles at 16 years of age and staying up all night trying to complete Sonic the fucking Hedgehog.

And sneaking out to burn down churchs with Mayhem on the Walkman obvs.