Highbacon 🇮🇪

Back in my day, memes were different. And I'm already regretting starting a post with "back in my day." Yes - unc here - reporting for duty. But if you weren't around in the early days of the interwebs, you likely missed out on such moments as Numa Numa, Peanut Butter Jelly Time, Star Wars Kid, and Charlie Bit My Finger. It was truly an age to be alive. Compared to the endless stream of meme slop we see today there were - back then - two key differences. First, they were organic. @Gman250 wasn't sitting around trying to manufacture a viral sensation - he was just trying to get a laugh out of a couple of his friends. There were no engagement farmers, no Pump Fun, no algorithms to appease. Just ordinary people doing ordinary (and sometimes extraordinarily silly) things. Audiences, chugging along. on their Netscape Navigator and 56k dial-up connections decided what was worth sharing. Being viral wasn't something you engineered. It was something that just happened when enough people decided that something was worth passing along. Second - and I argue most importantly - those memes actually gave us something. A genuine laugh. A moment of innocence. A little absurdity to brighten an otherwise ordinary day. Sometimes even a reminder of the wonderfully awkward and endearing things that make us human. They weren't trying to sell us a ticker. They existing for no greater purpose than to entertain - and that was enough. We lost the plot when we turned the simple act of making people smile into an industry devoted to capturing and monetizing their attention. Instead of spontaneity we have strategy. Perhaps the saddest part is that we have become so accustomed to being marketed to that we've almost forgotten what it was like to encounter something online that wanted absolutely nothing from us. I'm not saying everything was always better back then (although I do miss the ICQ sound effects). But there was something special about a world where a kid dancing in front of his webcam could bring joy to millions of strangers around the world just because he was simply having fun. 🫡 From the depths — The White Whale 🐋

A public call to @blknoiz06 I understand you are in the US. I have close relationships with two of the top law firms who have a presence in the States. Turn whistleblower and I’ll personally cover any legal expense you might encounter as a result. Get in front of it.

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