Autism's confusing cousins

The internet is turning society into a kind of "social emulsion" where everyone is their own little droplet in the fluid, but they don't merge together.

It's not "the internet". It is "this internet".

Back in the 90s early 00s the internet made us mesh together because each one of us there was a specific person. We had forum signatures and every single post was clearly made by a person, for a person.

Then social media took over and relegated every single person into a tiny unidentifiable avatar next to a non-prominent name, not unlike NPCs in CRPGs.

In turn this has been exploited by the powers that be to ensure the social glue gets even weaker: a society barely held together won't revolt. There's only one thing left to do: productivity, productivity, productivity.

The political opponent is no longer a person. Just a nameless, faceless NPC (personifying everything that's wrong) spawned there to be defeated and collect their social loot tokens.

But I might just be an old fart rambling about the good, old days.

Maybe the issue is this perception that "the Internet" consists mainly of the big 4 social media sites.

Go on Discord. People have usernames, avatars. Discord Profile Bios are just as unique as forum signatures.