Digital Cargo Cult: How Zoomers Ruined Old Internet Nostalgia

Posted4 months agoActive4 months ago

Kokouane

26 points

9 comments

cy-x.netOtherstory

heatednegative

Debate

70/100

NostalgiaInternet CultureGenerational Differences

Key topics

Nostalgia

Internet Culture

Generational Differences

The article criticizes Zoomers for romanticizing the old internet without truly understanding it, sparking a discussion about nostalgia, authenticity, and the evolution of internet culture.

Snapshot generated from the HN discussion

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4-6h

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01Story posted
Aug 24, 2025 at 11:02 PM EDT
4 months ago
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02First comment
Aug 25, 2025 at 2:45 AM EDT
4h after posting
Step 02
03Peak activity
2 comments in 4-6h
Hottest window of the conversation
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04Latest activity
Aug 25, 2025 at 8:18 PM EDT
4 months ago
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Discussion (9 comments)

Showing 9 comments

hofrogs

4 months ago

2 replies

The language of the blog post is extremely bitter, self-aggrandizing and mocking, and points out hypocrisy that isn't there -- it's just multiple different groups of people who enjoy different things. There are zoomers that chat in XMPP, subscribe to RSS feeds and use other decentralized tech, and there are many that are not, there are those who enjoy frutiger aero look and feel and there are many that do not, and these groups may or may not overlap. You complain about being banned from some discord for advocating the use of XMPP, and I really can't blame them if you came there with the same tone and ego that you put on display with this post.

If you want people to listen to you and want to spread the values of decentralization and freedom you shouldn't be pouring hot oil on them from your ivory tower and then complain about how they are so dumb to mistreat and misunderstand you.

j0lol

4 months ago

Matrix using, RSS subscribing zoomer here!

rightbyte

4 months ago

> it's just multiple different groups of people who enjoy different things.

It seems like a quite common character flaw to not be aware of this. Like, be it subcultures, nationalities or party members that are critiqued for not being coherent or assumed being coherent. But commiting the fallacy about a generation seems even more silly.

saubeidl

4 months ago

1 reply

The old internet is mostly dead and many of us in this community are to blame.

Nerd culture sold out - stock options won out over hacker ethics. What was once an emerging space of digital freedom has become a tightly controlled corporate dystopia, but hey, some of us drive fancy cars now!

bigbadfeline

4 months ago

> Nerd culture sold out - stock options won out over hacker ethics.

Ad hock ethics is clearly insufficient here. Without sensible defenses nerd culture was molded into a tool without its own agency.

jhbadger

4 months ago

1 reply

While I agree this seems overly bitter, the idea of such "pseudo-nostalgia" both fascinates and puzzles me. I get normal nostalgia for things from one's own youth, but not for things you never experienced. Not that this is limited to Zoomers being into (an idea) of Internet culture they never new - people too young to have experienced either the 1950s or 1960s often have wildly romantic idealized concepts of these decades for example.

rightbyte

4 months ago

> "pseudo-nostalgia" both fascinates and puzzles me.

Super hero movies have some pseodo-nostalgia fans around me.

I mean, I knew those people when they were kids. They didn't care for super heroes except for like Batman, Spiderman and Power Rangers.

Nothing else was even available for them.

But they talk about obscure characters like, Thor and the Hulk or Cpt. America as they read those as comics or something.

subjectsigma

4 months ago

Wow, why is this dude so fucking angry?

>green meme arrows

Ah, I see.