The Internet Quotes

“One of the biggest things I miss is the internet used to be an escape from meatspace. Now "internet" is so ingrained everywhere there is no longer that sense of escape. People don't say "g2g" or "ttyl" anymore because they never sign off.”
― stained hanes, 94,000 Wasps in a Trench Coat

“The internet is nothing but a jumble of nonsense, an atrocious mixed metaphor. It’s not meant to be understood. First and foremost, it’s a web that you surf. What the hell does that even mean? It not only defies sense but the very laws of physics! And now, apparently, it also contains a cloud. And this is something that’s supposed to be secure? That which looks solid but in fact is not, something literally as thin as air? Perfect!”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“Dear God, Thank you for another day, my health, and the internet.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Exaggeration is another way of saying you’re afraid someone won’t listen to the truth. But the truth’s enough, Laramie. We never know that because we never dare to speak it. Look at how we talk. Or text, in all caps. Thumbs stuck on CAPS lock because we’re scared they won’t get the idea. The media. Everyone begs to be interesting. And questioning what people have always questioned is suddenly an “existential crisis.” And we’re so numb to it. Laughing is called “dying.” Any brief moment of sadness is called “crying.” A great moment is called "iconic." We call our boyfriends and girlfriends our ‘kings’ and ‘queens.’ Who can measure up to that? All of these words, it’s impatient and rudimentary. We are desensitized, Laramie. As if it’s the internet’s information overload that causes us to dramatize our opinions.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, The Goodbye Song

“Back in the early 2000s you were called a freak, loser, virgin, nerd or weirdo by women for using the internet. Now look at them.”
― stained hanes, 94,000 Wasps in a Trench Coat

“There were actual online communities, and the lack of free options prevented people from forming their own personal hugboxes and fiefdoms.

There was no discord or free voice servers for the most part. Someone in your crew had to pay for TeamSpeak or Ventrilo server. This meant people had to cooperate and get along.”
― stained hanes, 94,000 Wasps in a Trench Coat

“Meatspace and the internet were almost completely separate things, and now its mutated into this horrifying semi-permanent hyperreality.”
― stained hanes, 94,000 Wasps in a Trench Coat

“Do you remember how people talked about the internet 15 years ago? It was this weird place full of scammers and fucked up shit, now its totally casualized.”
― stained hanes, 94,000 Wasps in a Trench Coat

“The internet has more or less been in its present form, technology just had to catch up.

Trolls, death threats, porn, riveting discussion, free multimedia, art, fandoms, hacking, crimes against humanity and lonely people at your fingertips even on AOL, Compuserve or Prodigy.”
― stained hanes, 94,000 Wasps in a Trench Coat

“It used to be you'd search for something and find tons of good results. Now you type "hamburger" anywhere on your phone or computer and now advertising cartels serve you up some ads for hamburgers for the next week.

Hell just say it aloud near your phone, it'll just take longer.”
― stained hanes, 94,000 Wasps in a Trench Coat

“The spirit there was very decentralized. The individual was incredibly empowered. It was all based on there being no central authority that you had to go to to ask permission. That feeling of individual control, that empowerment, is something we’ve lost.”
― Tim Berners-Lee

“Everything is about the phone; everything is about the internet.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“Messages marking the start of a romance used to require forethought and an effort to be at least somewhat charming; back when they were written in ink and delivered by horse or carrier pigeon or personally in the flesh, or even just the postal service last century, they were supposed to count. Now that they’re delivered in more of a stream of consciousness than speech and at the speed of light to computers and phones where myriad other forms of communication are possible and likely taking place simultaneously, they’re practically meaningless.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“The Airborne Toxic Event has in fact occurred, and it’s even worse than he imagined. Subtler, more insidious, its victims’ deaths prolonged: resembling a normal cloud more than anything obviously virulent. And one of its first victims was the Culture. What it is now is a thing without reason.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“New York was like the internet before the internet. A densely populated, hectic, ever-evolving place that’s always on, that you extract yourself from in order to rest, to catch your breath, and will be there in full force when you’re ready for it again. The city that never sleeps. Interconnected in a grand plexus by a series of subnetworks and subsystems. Shiny parts and seedy parts. Covered in ads, understated and overstated. Multicultural. Everybody’s here, every language is spoken. The anonymous mistaken for the rude: people here get away with saying how they feel, speaking their truths.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“IP addresses don’t matter in the afterlife.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“The internet is, like most things that matter these days, a mostly visual medium. A third of the human brain is dedicated to processing vision.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“I don’t really like being connected to the internet all the time.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“The Airborne Toxic Event has in fact occurred, and it’s even worse than he imagined. Subtler, more insidious, its victims’ deaths prolonged: resembling a normal cloud more than anything obviously virulent. And one of its first victims was the Culture. What it is now is a thing without reason.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“Users scroll through their feeds and look for something that isn’t there— what a perfect hamster wheel: unlimited content for a lonely soul. The miscellaneous dumpsters of the internet have sought refuge in modern consciousness.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, The Goodbye Song

“Does age constitute maturity or an accumulation of observations? If you look at your phone all day and you’re 40 and the 22-year-old for all their life has roamed life hands-free, who has lived longer? Why measure age when you can measure the development and streak of your consciousness?

How often are you in control? Not because you’re controlling a phone— because really you’re just receiving stimuli and algorithms control you. How often do you think? I miss the time where the high seats playing God in their big offices were scared of the person who thinks. But they’re not anymore. Because they already won. The threat died. No one thinks.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, The Goodbye Song

“People used to shop in stores; swiping through hangers, trying on clothes, and being surprised by what looked good on them. Now, clothing is a 2x4 digital image that you scroll past, worn by someone who isn’t you, in a color that isn’t accurate, in a fashion that invites no spontaneity. Our infinity makes us so limited.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, The Goodbye Song

“We have solved the problem of not having enough information by creating the problem of having too much information.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Every time we encounter a troll, we say, 'Another village is missing its idiot.' If the world is a Global Village, there must be plenty of Global Village idiots on the loose. They’re all trolling on social media.”
― David Sinclair, The War of the Mind: Understanding Inflation and Alienation

“The internet makes it extremely easy to plagiarize, and even easier to get caught.”
― @Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Pornography did not serve him either. Andrei used to have his personal kinks and fetishes, but after a while, nothing could get him off. For a long time, the only videos he would search were the ones titled: “Who is she?” The only thing that vitalized his self-play was the prospect of some woman on the earth no one knew of and could not find. There was something infinite to these tapes, not the appearance of the girls, but the agitating dissatisfaction and momentary access of a not-so-innocent stranger who men innocently lost forever. It consisted of poorly recorded videos, posted from a smartphone or webcam, and a desperate number of melancholy comments trying to search for the mystery woman. There were plenty of these recordings. But it broke Andrei even more when eventually he knew all the girls no one knew.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, A Happy Ghost

“His generation was uncertain if God existed. Having had parents who were religious and breaking off from them, they had associated childhood apathy with religion. But larger than that, this generation was unsure why human life existed—and no matter what technology was invented, there was, in everyone, an incontestable hole. But the internet came, with its limitless span, and for the first time, something was vast enough to challenge that hole. To challenge God. The world needn’t question the universe when it was in the palm of their little hands.”
― Karl Kristian Flores, A Happy Ghost

“Hope was part of the internet’s success. In truth, the news was always bad – but sailing on the current of connectivity was this sense you were a few clicks away from the very thing you didn’t know you were looking for.”
― Kirsten McDougall, She's a Killer

“The spirit there was very decentralized. The individual was incredibly empowered. It was all based on there being no central authority that you had to go to to ask permission,” he said. “That feeling of individual control, that empowerment, is something we’ve lost.”
― Tim Berners-Lee

“The internet was a far better doctor than anyone I met in the medical profession.”
― Steven Magee