Just as it is still possible (although rarely necessary) to ride a horse, it is still possible to browse the internet. This is a thrill that has not been wasted yet.
By “browsing the internet”, I don’t just mean surfing the internet. I mean exploring the Internet by focusing on hyperlinks from page to page, except when a wonderful, uncleared website is when you find it, it surprises and fascinates you and looks like it’s been waiting for you for a lifetime and you can’t get enough of it.
To surf, you have to start with a normal website with outbound links and avoid all the algorithm-driven channels using most of today’s Internet traffic (Reddit, YouTube, X, any “app”). You also have to use a real computer, not a phone. If you end up on social media, you won’t be surfing anymore.
Young readers may not even know that the Internet was entirely made website, Created by humans, connected only by hyperlinks. Hyperlinks are used as signposts, placed by others by hand, pointing travelers to unique locations they didn’t know about. There is no company-owned access, only many routes shot from each cleanup, marked by these hand-made signs, greeting you elsewhere in the wilderness.
This internet from the late 1990s to early 2000s offers a completely different feeling and emotional experience than today. To switch metaphors a little, the ancient network feels like an endless city, dressed in connected, decorated apartments that can be traversed by climbing through small troughs and portals in the walls. Everyone will send you directly to some other quirky spaces built by some other quirky characters from which each character radiates its own chute array.
Surfing through this structure is a wonderful and rich feature. Outside the next portal, you probably never saw it. You pull around the universe and find something you don’t know is even a thing that the universe is expanding.
When we don’t look, the era ends. In 2018, I came across an article that gave me a lump in my throat. Its title is I don’t know how to waste Dan Nosowitz wasting time on the internet. He describes moments when he is bored at work, trying to surf the internet, and realizes he doesn’t know what to do.
I realized then that I didn’t, nor for a long time. By then, our online behavior was captured by large platforms that initially served as the gateway to the endless Ramshackle apartment complex but at some point became the entire visible landscape. To “go online”, rather than typing in your favorite website (fark.com, digg, livejournal) and spanning from there, people start visiting their “home” on Facebook or Reddit and end up anywhere they point, which is usually another place in Facebook or Facebook or Reddit. This spirit has become a capture and retirement, rather than a swing one by one. Open water Internet navigation – surfing – quietly disappeared as these platforms designed more sliding and more magnetic participation programs for us.
While this will never be used to most people, you can still get online. You can choose a website with many outbound links (they still exist) and follow your heart.
The first time I tried to surf again, I was surprised to find that it still works. I did successfully go online, poke around and find something fresh and unexpected. I found a long-standing blog with followers of cults, projects that ignore creativity, nerd data projects, and personal papers I want to print and put on the wall.
This experience feels relatively uncharacteristically shaped bait and manipulation of social media experiences. I haven’t encountered any partisan quarrels, “suggestions” topics, ragebait or quick shot video content.
In addition to the gravitational appeal of social media platforms, the main reason why online surfing is now more difficult is because outbound links are much scarce. Many websites simply don’t have links because linking out will disrupt the advertising-driven business model, most of which are operated through.
Plus, since people are no longer open to the internet, they haven’t found so many weird and excellent online locations to link to. Even if they do, they are more likely to share them to their social media accounts in exchange for some delightful heart or thumbs up than on the site. Most of the attention will eventually lead to those large channels.
The old internet is still there, between elevated highways, though, you may have to surf there.
Three rules for browsing the Internet today
It’s never complicated, but contemporary web surfing requires some guidelines:
1. Start with a standalone website with many outbound links
Search engines like Google used to be a good place to start, but those days are over. The result is captured and retired entirely through commercial clothing playback.
The best place to start today is those rare blogs that still have Blogrolls – a list of other blogs read by the author.
Ben Kuhn’s blog is a great place to post. He has a good job, and he has linked many people who are also good and also linked. Whenever you find a good launch point, you bookmark it.
2. Avoid opening multiple browser tabs.
In the past, web browsers had no tags. You have to commit to jump straight to the next place. If you don’t like it, you can always back up, but in reality, you do have to leave your current apartment to see another one. This is an exciting part, which allows your mind to completely change the gear from the idea of one space to the idea of another instead of spreading the attention across more and more websites and investing it entirely in it.
Stick to one tab. Use the return button as needed. You want to return to the bookmark site instead of opening a new tab.
3. When you enter a closed system, go out.
When you end up on a social media site, back up and go somewhere else. Bring the nearest chute to a standalone site, or return to the starting point. Don’t start driving in the aisle!
News websites and Wikipedia, while making good rabbit holes, are basically Cul-De-Sac. They only lead to more types of content.
Surfing alternatives
Although web surfing is a kind of enthusiast nowadays like riding or toast, it’s still a bright source of popular outbound links: regular alternatives and other newsletters that collect links to special content weekly or monthly.
A well-curated collection can provide you with a place to start a surfing session or replace the onshore rubber-type surfing needs by directly hiding to you in the wild corners of the internet.
I publish my own featured link sets monthly for the Patreon community in Raptitude. These links are my own surfing sessions and casual browsing gems. The focus is on links to the “old-fashioned” flavor – excellent writing and creative projects that show this affluent feeling and wondering what the early internet is characterized.
How violent is still on the Internet
The site started with most people still arriving by surfboard. The fierce project is now seventeenth Talk about people who get better.
Many readers don’t know this, but the fierce speed almost ends in 2019. The website is increasingly expensive to maintain, these posts will always require writing, and I have other projects in progress. I got to the point where I don’t know if I can continue to make it work.
The website was saved – now saved and saved by a few (about 1%) readers and voluntarily promised a few dollars to readers (about 1%) through a platform called Patreon.
As time goes by, this support shrinks as people naturally enter other things. It will only grow in the rare cases where I ask readers to consider joining. (How the Patreon model works.)
In addition to helping Raptors stay online, supporters have access to some extras: monthly sets of old school links, behind-the-scenes updates, and access to the second library of the second library, which is a non-publicly 100 posts.
Joining is entirely voluntary. If you’ve worked a lot here and have the ability to do so, consider joining the Patreon community, or even for a while. We really want to have you.
I unlocked some posts so you can see how the inside looks:
[A free “bonus” post] | [A free links collection]Thank you for all your support over the years, in every form.
-David
