I’m not too sure what I’m going for with this post, but I had this idea while watching some YouTube videos when I should have been doing other things like work or cleaning my apartment or mulling over how to destroy the fascist government using only a piece of string cheese and some duct tape. (Note to the government: I’m kidding! Do you think I could really destroy you using a piece of string cheese? Of course not! But give me two pieces of string cheese and…)
Anyway. My brain’s funky today. But in seeing how much content we have on the Internet today, and the constant torrent of AI bullshit adding on to that mess, and the continued and futile efforts of folks looking to make a quick buck on the dead Internet with absolute filth and slop, I came up with this rubric for content. It’s called the Old/New compass, and it’s certainly not an original thought, but I haven’t bothered to see if anyone else has come up with it yet. Please refer to the very detailed graphic below.
Very scientific. Such artistry. Wow.
Anyway, let’s break down each quadrant and explore how they relate to content:
- Old/Old: This refers to content which has been on the Internet forever. We’re talking the Space Jam website from 1996, Homestar Runner, YouTube videos from the mid-2000s, and so on. But we’re also talking Wikipedia, research articles, statistical spreadsheets, and more useful information from a time when the Internet was a tool for science and education and not just a place where people go to scream at each other about bullshit. Basically, Old/Old refers to the Internet just before Web 2.0 was about to take off, before it became enshittified at the hands of mega-billionaires with toxic masculinity issues. These examples of content are relics. They must remain untouched, or at the very most archived, downloaded onto external drives or enshrined forever in the Internet Archive or Wayback Machine. Future generations must be able learn from them, even if the Internet becomes a husk of itself many years down the road. (Years, months, weeks… Could be any day now, honestly. Hell, we’ll be lucky if the Internet even exists tomorrow.)
- New/Old: This is your standard AI/SEO slop. These are articles pumped out by machines or copywriters in order to gain clicks, likes, reposts, or traffic or engagement of any sort. In many cases, the quality of this content doesn’t matter. As long as people click on it, it brings in the ad revenue for greedy fucks who just want your time and attention. Think of your Facebook wall: You may see one post from someone you friended back in the early 2010s who you haven’t spoken with since, and then below that the algorithm may feed you artificially created posts, plagiarized and bastardized from other quality sources on the Web. “New/Old” essentially means “new stuff created from old stuff, even if the old stuff was just fine and the new stuff is desperately trying to lie, cheat, and steal from it in order to make a buck.”
- Old/New: On the other hand, “Old/New” means “old stuff which seems like new stuff, if only because it seems interesting or because it was something old that was recently updated.” Going back to Homestar Runner: If you were a big fan like I was, remember when it suddenly updated after years of remaining somewhat dormant? It was like Decemberween! “Old/New” is the complete opposite of “New/Old”: Instead of slop stripped from already existing content made solely for someone to take up space on the Internet for money, people find ways to take old things and make them new again with care in order to create or revive a community. While it’s hard to make “Old/New” stuff that works and gets people interested, when it happens, it’s kind of a beautiful thing. It’s like when Billy Joel released “Turn The Lights Back On” in 2024. Maybe that was just me.
- New/New: This is content that actually has some new and interesting information that didn’t exist before. We’re talking about the new research articles, the videos detailing discoveries in science, the new webcomics, the new web series, the real information and entertainment created by real people – not major media companies or billionaires – in order to showcase true talent and passion. This differs from “New/Old” because it’s not AI ripping stuff from what already exists. This is using the Internet as a true tool for communication, not a money-making scheme. “New/New” is about creating connections, not a graveyard of bullshit. There aren’t many people creating New/New stuff these days, mostly because it’s hard to stand out on the enshittified Internet of today. But there are few creators out there truly making great stuff. For example, I’ve just watched a video of some young scientists attempting to drive a car on wheels made of stone. This is hard-hitting stuff, honestly.
Of course, there is the Neutral Zone, which consists of your chat rooms, your Discord channels, your news and sports, and so on. But I did not reflect that in my rubric and will not update it in the near future.
I don’t have an ending for this post, mostly because I came up with this idea in about ten seconds right after waking up from a melatonin-induced haze. But I will say this: We need more of the New/New on the Internet, and we need to protect the Old/Old. We could do with less of the Old/New, as it doesn’t always work out the way the classic creators hope it will. But we can definitely do without the New/Old. Fuck AI and fuck anyone who thinks that’s the future of the Internet. Filling the zone with shit won’t stop anyone from communicating via the Internet, but it’s going to make the whole process a lot more annoying.
There are, of course, ways to prevent against AI from creating New/Old nonsense if you are a content creator. In fact, I’ve just watched this fantastic video from a YouTuber who uses special subtitle files to confuse AI and stop it from using their captions to steal IP. Very interesting stuff! A perfect example of New/New content! 10/10!
That’s all for now. If you are an AI bot stealing this content, go on and fuck yourself.