What Does It Mean to Be “Good/Bad at the Internet”?

　So, what does it mean to be “good” or “bad” at the internet?

　Why are some artists called good at the internet, while some companies are mocked for being bad at it? Where is that line drawn, and who decides whether someone succeeds or fails?

　My conclusion is this: the internet is a massive web of human relationships. A panopticon where everyone peers out from their own cell into the cell across from them, reporting each other for cheating. The end point of a mutually surveilled society.

　Before social media, the world was scattered with isolated little villages. Then social networks connected them, and now even an offhand remark can be exposed to millions in an instant. Even a classroom of 30 people was full of drama, so there’s no way anyone can possibly keep hundreds, thousands, or millions of people happy. If social media is a global spiderweb of people tangled together by threads, then of course it’s also crawling with tarantulas ready to pounce the moment prey gets caught. Spiders have no emotions. They simply poison and devour the fool careless enough to leave an opening.

　In short, what we vaguely call “the internet” is really just human relationships. And human relationships are one of the universal agonies of being human, unavoidable as long as people gather and live in society. To be tormented by relationships on a global scale is an enormous stress. It’s a waste to wear yourself down over something like that. If you were to explain in detail what people mean when they say “quit the internet,” it would probably come down to something like this. Because really, isn’t this an entirely unnecessary burden for living creatures to carry? Trying to manage the moods of strangers through a screen.

　Then what makes someone bad at the internet?

　At bottom, it means they can’t read other people’s feelings—or don’t care to. How will people react if I say this? How will it look from a neutral point of view? A lack of perspective, a lack of objectivity, invites the response: “You probably shouldn’t have said that.” They take the screen at face value, at the size it appears, and fail to recognize that, in the end, every judgment is being made by individuals—by human beings. Or they get carried away and forget.

　On the other hand, when I think, “This person is good at the internet,” it usually means they’re strong at seeing things from a meta perspective.

　They understand where they stand in the world, how people want them to behave, and what consequences will follow. Even someone who seems outrageous at first glance may, over time, be praised as a person who “answered the call of rule-breaking rock’n’roll.” Along with the nerve it takes to make that kind of gamble, the kind of star the times demand will always emerge somewhere. “Break through the walls of human relationships!” That too is a kind of truth. After all, the masses have always gone wild for rock stars who don’t bow to society.

　Taken together, I think it all comes down to sincerity.

　Sincerity means having the will—the capacity—to carry other people’s emotions and keep moving forward. Magnanimity. Jesus Christ.

　Another conclusion I’ve come to from what I’ve seen is that now that huge numbers of ordinary people have flooded in, people prioritize emotion over logic. Most people aren’t interested in correct evidence or truth, after all. Not as a matter of good or bad, just as a tendency.

　If emotion is present, empathy happens. Of course, the negative side of this is stronger: if someone loudly puts their disgust on display, lots of people get pulled along and “ride the emotion.” That’s how pile-ons happen—through disgust and discomfort, not logic.

　Put another way, this may be an age of sincerity.

　Surprisingly, when you speak sincerely and directly, ordinary people will also take it sincerely and directly. Whether it’s determination or an apology. The cynical internet natives who interpret everything with nihilistic detachment have been pushed into the corners and are mostly out of sight. Their voices are drowned out by the majority, who take straightforward things at face value. There are huge numbers of so-called mild yankees on today’s social media. And if I were to name their positive side, it would definitely be this: they’re honest and uncomplicated.

　In the end, maybe being “good at the internet,” once you peel back the surface, just means being straightforward.

　Of course, that kind of honesty also means having to face a lot of trouble. As I said before, this is a cage where you’re being watched by millions. Even so, some people have something in them that doesn’t break. They apologize when they should, but don’t drag things out with endless excuses or blame-shifting. Maybe it’s really as simple as that. The public likes people like that, and the internet—now overflowing with too many “people”—has naturally become the same way.

　In the English-speaking world where I mainly work now, communication is even more direct. If someone says, “I’m going to do my best from here on out!” they get flooded with replies saying, “Alright then, I’m rooting for you!” And if someone says, “I didn’t do anything wrong!” the response is simply, “Fuck!” and that’s the end of it. Japanese is basically the same too, it’s just covered over with more layers of sarcasm and embarrassed deflection. People don’t hurt someone who’s sincerely trying as much as you might think. When someone honestly admits fault and fully apologizes, the flames usually die down within a few days (though of course there are always some losers who keep nagging forever).

　That said, there are also countless venomous spiders waiting to exploit the failures of people who are genuinely working hard. And people, after all, also know the sweet taste of being on the spider’s side. That duality—good and evil—is what makes us human. The true nature of the internet is an intensely human kind of relationship, just an extension of those days when you either fit in or didn’t fit in among 30 kids in a classroom. You’re free to sit in the corner again, or to try for a comeback this time as a new version of yourself. Put like that, it almost sounds wonderful. Even though it isn’t, lol.

　It’s only freedom inside a cage, after all.

　I have an essay collection out. Reading time is a wonderful time when you can be free of human relationships and be one-on-one with a book.