The Dead Internet Theory

a jaded generation living in a virtual ghost town

For a while I’ve been contemplating why I’m so bored with my phone. I mean, here’s this piece of technology, a testimony of how far humans have advanced, that holds a whole wide world of possibilities, which I can take with me wherever I go — and yet, I find I gain no sense of pleasure from it.

But this isn’t just about my phone, it’s about the Internet. The Internet has been lacking the same sense of intrigue it once had and though what I intend to discuss doesn’t particularly fall under the definition of the Dead Internet Theory, it may come pretty close.

The Dead Internet Theory describes the idea that there exists an effort to suppress real human activity on the internet and instead, maximize bot activity and automatically-generated content in order to control the population. May not sound far off from your typical urban legend or creepypasta, I know. But there is some merit to what seems like a mere conspiracy.

The Internet has indeed seen a rise in bots within the last few years. Click on any thread on Twitter and you’ll find several bots in the replies section, all repeating the same thought in different words, if not verbatim. Alongside the increase in bot activity, AI-generated content has become all the rage, with more and more sites and apps incorporating AI into their user-interfaces such as Grok and Meta AI.

And while all of that is incredibly concerning, I’ve been experiencing a different type of dead internet lately.

(If you would like to know more about the above-defined Dead Internet Theory, Robert Mariani’s journal article “The Dead Internet to Come" is an interesting read)

In the big social media boom of the mid 2000s to the mid 2010s, everyone was scrambling to have a presence on the Internet, to leave their mark, their digital legacies. If you didn’t have Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat, you were genuinely considered a loser. It was the one way to connect with others without ever having to be face-to-face. People craved interactions with other real people; their friends, their crushes, even the people they hated. Facebook statuses were regularly updated, Instagram feeds were flooded with photos of the breakfast your friends had that day, Snapchat streaks were maintained with a discipline these teenagers saved for nothing else.

There are obviously negatives to this obsession with the Internet and having a social media presence. But it’s also concerning to me that, while everyone still uses social media, no one actually uses it. What I mean to say is everyone is on it, but no one is as connected as they used to be.

By no means do I large presence on social media. The only typical social media apps I use consistently are Instagram and Twitter, and I have a considerably small following on each. But I’ve noticed that out of the approximately 200 people I follow on Instagram, I’m the only one who posts regularly, besides celebrities, influencers or meme accounts.

I don’t say this because I desire having access to what’s going on in other people’s lives. I just truly wonder where our intrigue, our sense of connecting via the Internet has gone, why we’ve lost interest in sharing some part of ourselves. I see who’s regularly watching my stories, or liking my posts. I know which of my followers use Instagram on a daily basis, yet I don’t see their presence.

And that’s all fine if you’re not someone who likes social media, but that inevitably asks the question, why are you still using it? Why are you still following me?

I don’t care much for getting engagement on Instagram. I post because I like sharing my thoughts, I enjoy curating a profile that looks visually pleasing, and sometimes I genuinely just want people to see how good I look in certain photos. All honesty. But if that’s not something people care about, why continue to follow me and watch my stories? Simply to maintain a false sense of familiarity? Or because there’s something taxing about clicking that ‘unfollow’ button?

Instagram has started to feel somewhat like a ghost town, with my followerss watching me from their windows. I even regularly post on my finsta (“fake-insta”: a second Instagram which users will use for photo dumps and “spam posting,” so as not to disturb their main profile — for those of you might’ve missed that era of the Internet). But I’m learning that hardly anyone has or uses a finsta anymore because no one seems to find it fun to share anything about their lives.

To me, the Internet is dying because the personalization of it all, the authenticity and the realness of the people who were on it, has dwindled over time. I may not be the best example of this because I’m not a big account but I have seen others discussing the same issue. In one example, a girl explained that she would regularly use her Instagram stories to ask questions or invite discussions or request advice — and while her followers would watch each story, none ever responded. Hell, there are people who’ve been following my Instagram for years and have viewed every single one of my stories for years, but never exist beyond that.

TikTok is somewhat of an exception to what I’ve observed. The app does consist of real people posting real content but that sense of community that once existed within social media sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Instagram, the sense of proximity and familiarity users had to each other can’t be found on TikTok either. Most people who post TikToks are unwilling to actually have their “irls” visit their account. Far from the “Facebook me” and “send me a friend request” age of the Internet, it’s rare that people ask their friends or classmates to follow their TikTok accounts.

I can’t seem to bridge the gap. I don’t mean to say everyone must use social media and interact with everybody they follow. I just find it saddening that the intrigue of the Internet, this whole wide world of people and possibilities, is becoming increasingly stale and boring. There’s nothing much to do on it anymore — social media has hollowed out, apps are mainly used to doom scroll, there’s a sad lack of fun websites to explore.

The Internet is dying and I don’t know if it’s because of bots and AI or because we’ve just become a jaded generation. Maybe a combination of both? I just miss the livelihood, the connections, and the culture of the Internet. Perhaps, it’s the human determination to progress simply for the sake of progress that seems to inevitably destroy all the experiences we seek to enjoy.

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