New (?) and hip (?)
Web3, sexbots, TikTok sleuths, internet vibes, ancient potatoes and PMs on the loose
Hi friends. Today is December 10, 2021.
And we’re all apparently living through ✨the nExT gReAt✨ internet revolution.
I speak not of Zuck’s magic metaverse. Or Donald Trump’s “new” social app. Instead, I wanna talk about Web3, an unimaginative buzzword that has nevertheless achieved near-overnight pervasiveness.
Sort of like Web 1.0 and 2.0 before it, Web3 — styled differently for no apparent reason that I can discern, other than to look new (?) and hip (?) — is less a concrete artifact than a concept, a collection of services and technologies with a shared philosophy of the internet.
That philosophy, in this particular case, involves decentralizing and democratizing control of the web through systems run on cryptocurrency. If Facebook and Google are the robber barons of the virtual world, then Web3 enthusiasts want more neighborhood co-ops ... plus or minus some predictable cryptobro douchery.
This is one of those concepts that only becomes decipherable with an example — so let's have one, yeah? Take a site like Presearch, a super-niche search engine pitching itself as the Web3 Google alternative. Google's business model, as we know, involves extracting troves of free data from its users while selling their attention to other corporations. In exchange, we get to type mundane queries like "can dogs eat cabbage gas" with the reasonable expectation Google will answer them.
Presearch works differently in several respects. First, users get more than mere search results from the platform: It pays them a little amount every time they give up data by running a search. Users can also donate their personal computing power to the site, which earns them more payment in return. Advertisers still pay to place ads, but to do so they have to buy and hold Presearch currency — which effectively supports the value of the token. It’s all kind of a lot to figure out if cabbage is making your dog fart, but I guess convenience doesn’t rate much in most revolutions.
Anyway, make us this what you will, but the mayor of New York, $27 billion and a budding army of tech lobbyists say this is the future of the web as we know it.
If you read anything this weekend
“Where the Despairing Log On, and Learn Ways to Die,” by Megan Twohey and Gabriel J.X. Dance in The New York Times. Obvious TW/CW on this link: It involves suicide and self-harm. Reporters spent months tracking deaths back to this *truly* shocking and reprehensible site, which sees far more monthly views than the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
“The Great (Fake) Child-Sex-Trafficking Epidemic,” by Kaitlyn Tiffany in The Atlantic. Side note: How is Kaitlyn Tiffany so goddamn productive, and why is everything she writes straight link-bait for this newsletter?? Do not know the answer to either of those questions, but do know some close relatives have fallen for this myth, and I’m very much looking forward to their reactions.
“What’s So Wrong About Sexbots?,” by Alex Pearlman in FreeThink. A thoughtful, thorough update on the only technology more immediately mockable than NFTs.
“TikTok Drama Channels Are Turning Into Online Intelligence Agents,” by Ryan Broderick in The Verge. Armchair sleuths have always used the internet to pursue perceived wrongdoers. But in the age of TikTok, the threshold for “wrongdoing” has truly hit rock-bottom. I.e.:
“I’m the TikTok Couch Guy. Here’s What It Was Like Being Investigated on the Internet,” by Robert McCoy in Slate. “At times, the investigation even transcended the digital world—for instance, when a resident in my apartment building posted a TikTok video, which accumulated 2.3 million views, of himself slipping a note under my door to request an interview. (I did not respond.) One viewer gleefully commented, ‘Even if this guy turned off his phone, he can’t escape the couch guy notifications.’”
👉 ICYMI: The most-clicked link from last week’s newsletter was this Vox interview on niche internet aesthetics.
The classifieds
This edition of Links is powered by SAD lamps, snow, the Muppet Christmas Carol, this low-ABV cocktail (mocktails are overrated!) … and the following wonderful sponsors:
Maybe This, Baby That — a newsletter for moms who love design.
Kitchen Witch — Want to learn to tell fortunes with cheese, pick your meals by tarot, or explore some other aspect of edible witchcraft? Subscribe to Kitchen Witch, a newsletter exploring the connections between witchcraft and food.
Unruly Figures — Unruly Figures is a podcast celebrating history’s biggest rule-breakers. Join historian and host Valorie Clark as she geeks out over the craziest things our ancestors have gotten up to.
Postscripts
Santa School. “Déjà Zoom.” Metaverse marriage. Can’t stop thinking about the Prime Minister who clubs until 4 a.m. (!!). How AI can optimize therapy. Why some kids are saying that birds are fake. Behold the ancient potato that could save us from climate change.
A dispatch from the world’s worst Michelin restaurant. A full year in internet vibes. Meet the Navy SEAL who consults on Call of Duty and the humanoid robot that will keep you up at night. The dark side of instant delivery. Kamala Harris wins this round. Last but not least: on the “participatory reality show” that is Citizen (and all social media?) now.
That’s it for this week! Until the next one. Warmest virtual regards.
— Caitlin