“Hey, Former Internet Analyst, is [SITE X] worse than it used to be?”
“The answer, grasshopper, is always yes. But only for oneself. Three years reading, five years sitebuilding and three more years working on the net boils down to this one obvious finding: Internet culture is nomadic. Web communities work like institutions – like school, like university, like prison. The newbie-top dog-release arc is the same. The only difference is that you have to realise yourself when your time’s up, and go and find the next one. This is nothing to do with the web contra the ‘real world’ – of course your online experiences are real. But a web community is not a community: it’s a vector.”
“Wow, heavy stuff, FIA. So why are you still lurking?”
“Sod off, grasshopper.”