Have you heard of the dead internet theory? The theory goes that as AI takes over and more content and online activity tends to gather around centralized spaces, such as Twitter and other social media platforms, the internet becomes increasingly filled with websites that are no longer operational, no longer being run by humans, and more and more made of automatically generated content. The age of StumbleUpon and the organic discovery of entirely new websites that become trending hits seem to be on the way out, so where does a person go for some distraction, entertainment, or fun nowadays? Here, we’re going to look at a few examples.
The best places to listen to music
Most of us do not discover new music through the radio or through music videos like we might have, once upon a time. Instead, now most of us hear that music online for the first time. Spotify and YouTube are the two biggest streaming services, but it’s also worth looking around Bandcamp and SoundCloud to discover those indie or niche artists who might be playing with sounds that you’ve never heard before, but are much more up your alley. Of course, virtual concerts are now a thing, too, so we might even be enjoying most of our live experiences through the digital world, too.
Video places other than YouTube
While YouTube might be the indisputable king when it comes to hosting and sharing video content, it’s not the only place to find it, either. Dailymotion has been around for almost as long as YouTube but when you go there, it can feel almost like you’re back to those early years of video hosting. It’s not as heavily algorithm-driven, nor is it as relentless in pushing big content from big publishers, such as trailers and official deep dives. It’s one of the most interesting places on the internet to go hunting for videos of the new, the strange, and stuff that you have never seen before. There are a few other smaller video hosting sites out there still providing much the same kind of thing.
Puzzling your brain online
If you’re looking to get a quick break from work, to get your brain ticking as it should in the morning, or you simply love a good puzzle, then the internet is absolutely full of them. Take a look around and you can get your fill of crosswords, sudoku games, trivia quizzes, and more. Of course, the biggest trend at the moment is the worldwide domination that Wordle has brought with it. There is no shortage of Wordle clones to spend some time playing, whether you’re trying to guess the song, guess the game, guess the logo, the author and book, and much, much more. Plenty for curious minds that are looking to tease themselves to get up to these types of sites.
Exploring the world in your browser
It’s a big, wide world out there, and most of us are never going to get to see more than a few percent of it. Even if you travel often, there’s just so much to see that it is impossible to fit it all in a lifetime. Of course, you can see a lot more if you’re willing to do it through the screen of a browser. Google Maps can become a real rabbit hole of curiosity for those who want to take a look at what the world is like in an entirely different place. Another site, WIndowSwap, allows you to take a look out windows around the world, which can give an oddly peaceful and intimate look at the view that people entirely remote from you get when they glance outside.
Getting some gaming in
If there’s one market of online denizens not content to let their pastimes be taken over by dead websites and AI, it’s the gamers. There is never a shortage of free games that you can play in your browser. You can explore classic sites like Newgrounds and Kongregrate, you can explore a wide host of indie gems through sites such as Itch.io, or you can go for one of the most simple and enduring gaming experiences of all time and dig into some online solitaire. Free games are as easy to find as ever, and they can provide all of the variety as well as those familiar faves as ever.
Finding the weird and wonderful
StumbleUpon truly was one of the best online tools of our time, and it was greatly underappreciated before it was gone. For those who aren’t aware, it was basically a giant archive of a very wide range of super interesting websites and online experiences curated by a large userbase, and you could simply click the “stumble” button to jump to a random one, with the ability to set preferences on what kind of sites you wanted to see. Cloudhiker is setting itself up as something of a successor and is fast growing, with 13,000 sites, trying to always provide the most interesting online experiences for those looking for something new.
Going down a Wiki rabbit hole
Wikipedia is, by no means, some maverick new site, it’s the most well-established online source of information, period, on top of being the biggest encyclopedia ever put together by humans. But, if you’re looking for something new and interesting, there is always something to be said for exploring new topics on Wikipedia. You can start at just about any page, start clicking on the links that interest you, and end up spending hours reading about something you’ve literally never heard of before. There are even a few ways to make a game of your time on Wikipedia, as well
It’s important to take the time to really explore the internet, to enjoy what it has to offer, and to share it where possible. The future of the dead internet seems like more and more a prophecy than a theory nowadays, and only we can hold it back.
