No, this isn’t an article about How-old.net. It’s about a term called “oldnet“.
Oldnet is basically an online service or area of the internet that has been in use since the mid to late 1990’s. Things like telnet, Usenet, and IRC are oldnet.
Like the services, the people who have been using the internet since those times are also called oldnet. They are in their 30’s to 50’s and up now.
Though it is no big deal that older people are on the internet, when someone says “oldnet” about someone, they usually mean it in a bad way. This is often used in reference to old trolls who try to reinvent themselves into today’s “shitlords”, but still have no real sense of humor.
You can recognize negative oldnet by the level of thought policing they attempt wherever they are. There is no room for discussing anything other than telling them how right they are. They miss the old days when it was harder to get rid of insane people spewing word salad and streams of text diarrhea against whoever triggered their oversensitivity to living on Earth. The fact that this is the internet seems to trouble them as much now as it did then.
Basically, someone is oldnet because they failed to “get a life”, and base too much of their confidence on people agreeing with them online.
Its becoming increasingly difficult for me to take any internet interaction seriously due to the lack of ability or will for most people to engage in debate or any real exchange of ideas.
People just react with a “wall of dogma”.
A niggardly form of Maoism seems to be the default response on the net these days.
That’s just humanity. All most people have is dogma that they don’t even know the source of. Stuff like thinking things through, and Gods forbid, learning about opposing views or different perspectives of issues is just not done by average people. They don’t know why they believe what they believe, so they definitely won’t know why anyone else believes anything else.
The internet just brought that reality into plain view.
BTW; are you gonna do a Bowie thread?
Not a fan?
His final words to us were “Im a Blackstar”
The Thin White Dukes final resting place was a jazz-fusion cloud of saxual liminality punctuated by haunting claims of being a Blackstar…
R.I.P David, you’ve really done it now.
I wasn’t really much of a fan of David Bowie. I respect him as an artist…just didn’t get much into his music.
Thats a tragic revelation coming from you?
I will drop a single tear for you.
(I keep my tears numbered for just such emergencies)
Heheheh…How is it tragic? As old rock goes, I’m more Motorhead, AC/DC, and Led Zeppelin.
Nicole,
I don’t know you, but based on your blog; Bowie embraced and supported all those concepts and ideas you seem to love and hold dear; fearless identification with your attractions, opposition to “consensus reality” pursuit of your passions no matter how obtuse, refusal to be confined in anyones box…
sound familiar?
Maybe his music was too refined for your tastes?
When it comes to Bowie virgins I always tell them his medium is his message; no matter what you decide to be, make sure you OWN IT.
I like his lyrics and his style…referred to him a couple of times when called upon for guidance by androgynous young men who didn’t fit in a box. It’s just the music, specifically, that did not make me a fan. His speaking voice is like butter. His singing voice is nails down a chalkboard for me. The music didn’t really say something special to me either. I would rather he sat and read his lyrics with his speaking voice. I’d buy that album.
I did have the album in which he narrated _Peter and the Wolf_ when I was a kid.
Oh I think I get it now. Nicole is a “rocker”; not a “mod.”
The “rockers” and the “mods” are not really that different even though they would say they are, and there is a lot of overlap.
Motorhead?
ACDC?
Nicole is a headbanger (why is that not surprising?)
I get your comments about Bowie’s singing voice; lots of UK singers are like that (All those great Beatles harmonies are due to their weak thin individual voices.) Its not a great natural voice and he has to work at singing, use a lot of effects, overdubbing… but the finished product is admirable; he worked with what he had.
His work is much more interesting if you have a background or some knowledge in theater; and of course if you are gay theres probably another level of meaning in many of his songs; especially since they were written back when being gay was a liability.
Its ironic people pointed to him as some kind of freak, when we are ALL walking around in drag? How can you truly know yourself if you spend your entire life trying to fit in with whatever dominate power structure distributes punishments and rewards?
Thats all most of us are doing?
In other words, the joke isn’t on us; we are the joke.