Started by Dara Kelly (@dara_k) ·
where the dead internet theory actually came from
Wanted to know if this started as a joke, a real theory, or a vibe. Answer: all three.
6 sources · 41 min down the hole
How I got here
- Started with
- “dead internet theory origin”
- Ended at
- “what is dead internet theory”
The Trail
- “dead internet theory origin” (google.com)
- Dead Internet theory (en.wikipedia.org)
- “agora road macintosh cafe dead internet theory post” (google.com)
- Social bot (en.wikipedia.org)
- Sock puppet account (en.wikipedia.org)
- “what is dead internet theory” (reddit.com)
What I came away with
It started on small forums, and the 2021 post that spread it was on Agora Road's Macintosh Cafe, claiming the internet 'died' around 2016 and is mostly bots. The Atlantic covered it that year and it went mainstream. The conspiracy part isn't supported, but the observation underneath (a lot of activity online isn't people) is taken seriously.
Keep going
- YouTube engineers once worried about 'the Inversion' · Tobi Adeyemi · 5 sources
- reddit's founders filled early reddit with fake accounts · Lou Tremblay · 5 sources
- the second-biggest Wikipedia is in Cebuano, and a bot wrote most of it · moth · 6 sources
- content farms were the dead internet before it had a name · Ben Adler · 6 sources