After reading Kate Wagners essay about the internet's life I was left with some mixed feelings. I definitely agree with a lot of her points that the internet has become boring and dull, but sometimes that's necessary. She also points out a lot of pre social media internet culture has died out to bigger companies. Although she is correct, things can certainly change.
Being born in 2001, I was never included in the myspace age and grew up with facebook, snapchat and instagram. When looking back at the myspace pages you can still find on google, I like it. I love the personality that's shown when you give people their own page. I have my own website as well, albeit not as interesting as one of the old myspace pages, but it's purpose is for professionalism. And that's okay. She says “Because websites had to either become apps or self-optimize for mobile, web design declined from its creative, more variegated heights to become flat, highly minimalistic, and multi-platform, and the results are, frankly, fucking boring.”As the internet aged it became more accessible, the addition of mobile viewing being one of them. I agree that these newer sites are in fact borning, but for good reason.
Sites today are generally for a purpose. Business websites need to be easy to read, easy to navigate, for both humans and machines. There are plenty of things that happen in the background now besides showing funny images of cats. However, we can still make websites like they were back when. Web rings can still exist, old glitter pop text and gifs can still happen. Personally, after living in a boomer house where everything is always cluttered, modern cleanliness is honestly peak design. The internet has just turned mostly into a utility instead of an art project.
Looking to the future, I think that sort of myspace-esque format can come back alive. More and more kids these days have STEM classes that teach them the basics of computer technology. Usually one of those classes involves making a website. Even in college in our class Interactive arts we are learning the basics. This means that more and more kids can make their own websites and are able to read code. Thus breaking a vast majority of the population into the tech scene. All it takes is a simple new app, a simple new startup to break the foundation and bring back the personalization Kate Wagners yearns for.
In conclusion I think the new web has come a long way. it's certainly changed a lot from the myspace days with FANG taking up the scene, but you can't say it's for the worse. People all over the world use the web with varying degrees of use. Some people will be happy with the way things look and others won't. However, I think making a more accessible web is never a bad thing, even if it means the mainstream use isn't super personalized. You can always do it yourself.