The internet got too big

On the timelines of cultural trends and a lack of niche spaces

The last time I wrote to you, just a few weeks ago, we talked about Facebook and how much I miss it. Implicit was a nostalgia for an earlier internet – a craving for a digital space that accurately paralleled my real-world connections. It was an extension of similar thoughts I shared with Matt Klein, now the head of global foresight and methods at Reddit, for his newsletter ZINE in December 2021. 

This week, Klein released his annual META Trending Trends, a meta-analysis of dozens of news outlets and platform reports, forecasting 14 key cultural trends for 2024. Take a look at the report (it’s available for free here) if you haven’t yet. 

Among those 14 key trends, several touch on that craving for more private, personal online communities. 

Social media users have for years now been tiring of digital spaces that are too public in nature (hence: Snapchat Stories, Snapchat Private Stories, Instagram Close Friends, finsta, BeReal, et al). Taylor Lorenz outlined how this began playing out in the influencer economy in 2022: “Some say the toxicity and poor moderation on massive, open social networks,” Lorenz wrote for The Washington Post, “have pushed them into these more controlled spaces, where they can speak freely without worrying about bad faith attacks.”  

Also this week, new reporting from TechCrunch discussed Instagram’s addition of yet-another private space in one’s IG profile to share with a smaller circle, now in beta testing as a sort of “finsta” for your main profile. 

Those controlled spaces are predicted to play an even deeper role online this year, Klein’s new report suggests. Increasingly, “home,” or at least a sense of home, “is found in the obscure,” he writes. What if, Klein asks, “the internet wasn’t meant to get this big or important?” 

So, what’s new here? Not much, Klein also notes in his report. Analyses from 2018 are eerily similar to the insights shared herein. As Klein himself wrote for Fast Company in May 2023, “trends have lost all meaning.”

The always-fantastic podcast Vibe Check addressed this point in a Jan. 24 episode. We are living in a world wherein a viral TikTok causes a micro-trend to spread across the world in 24 hours, the hosts discussed.

How can our culture move in important, rich ways, when trends have no time to incubate? 

This also reminded me of a recent episode of the Las Culturistas podcast, where Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers reflected on the most iconic cultural moments of 2009. The great majority of these moments involved stars whose popularity did not wane in the last 15 years. (One possible exception to this rule: Katy Perry, whom Rogers and Yang acknowledged is experiencing the career trajectory of Paula Abdul from the ‘90s into the ‘00s, with her judge gig on “American Idol.”)  

Perhaps the internet is too big. Because everything is too everywhere, I think. Nothing is niche, nothing is private, nothing is sacred. Our inside jokes are in the outside. George Santos is a queen, Gypsy-Rose Blanchard is an icon. That boring Hinge guy probably loves that TikTok. Charli D’Amelio was a teen in Connecticut who danced and now presents at awards shows. Mob wife aesthetic over clean girl aesthetic.

Everything is everywhere, all at once, all the time, for everyone. 

A letter of recommendation

“Flux” by Jinwoo Chong is my new favorite book. It inspired me creatively more than any other text I’ve consumed in the last few years, usurping that title from “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.”

I loved it so much that I did two crazy things: 1. I gave it 5 stars on Goodreads, and 2. I sent the author a DM on Twitter. (He was so lovely!)

Please read nothing about “Flux” before you start reading it — its brilliance forces you to figure out what the fuck is going on as you go. Trust me, trust the writing. Enjoy.