Internet

Characteristics

Herald of the Octopus:

"A few key characteristics of the internet:

While audio-visual, short-form media tends to dominate, we find all types of previous media on the internet: books, radio, and television all reincarnate in cyberspace.

The internet supports instantaneous communication, resulting in an increased speed of interaction. The interactivity also leads to more repetition, remixing and recombination: like an infinite game of “telephone”, messages morph and propagate through the interwebs. Think of cross-posting, memes, and copypasta.

The internet is increasingly made up of different platforms, creating a multiplicity of different online environments.

Communication on most platforms is many-to-many and global. This characteristic erases the notion of geographic distance—the internet is flat.

These characteristics not only change the message, but fundamentally transform both sender and receiver. The medium of the internet doesn't just carry our identities—it actively reshapes them. This transformation manifests most visibly in “profilicity”—a new paradigm of identity construction unique to digital spaces."

(https://octopusyarn.substack.com/p/how-the-internet-broke-the-self-57d)

Profilicity

Herald of the Octopus:

"Interactivity and multilateral communication give rise to the most profound characteristic of the Internet: the sense of being witnessed by others. The public nature of communication online adds an (imagined) audience to any interaction.

Second-order observation reigns supreme online.

The consideration of how others judge our posts and interactions is always present, and we carefully curate our profiles accordingly. Hans-Georg Moeller describes this as “profilicity”, a new paradigm of identity after sincerity (fixed social roles) and authenticity (individual expression)."

(https://octopusyarn.substack.com/p/how-the-internet-broke-the-self-57d)