Plethora of Tranquility

Am I the only one who hates the 'new' Internet? And finds it less than impressive and even frustrating. I remember a time, not too long ago, when the Internet was a wondrous place where you could go on at any time and find practically anything you desired, whether it be information or images or backgrounds or animated gifs or whatever. You name it, you could find it if it existed. All you had to do was type whatever in the search box on your browser and boom! Dozens of websites would be brought up that would instantly take you to where you could find what you were looking for. And it was quick to find it usually, unless it was something rare that you had to spend a little time digging for. It was always fun browsing through the many different sites available and picking out the best ones. And don't forget fan sites! Those were always fun to peruse. Fans always made the best sites about their favorite fandoms and had the best information out there. You could spend hours just looking through the amount of stuff.

Now, whenever you type in something, it's insanely hard to find answers or find images or find whatever about anything. All the search manages to do is bring up a bunch of useless sites and pages that, sometimes, aren't even related to what you searched for. Or you end up with a ton of advertising junk. If you DO manage to find what you're looking for, chances are there's very little info there that's either vague or feels halfway written. Not nearly enough to tell you what you need to know. (This is especially frustrating when you're doing research for writing.) Or you have to pay a fee to access it or use it or download it. I don't even see the amount of backgrounds and wallpapers and images as I used to that were usually free to use. Now, everyone wants money for them. Or they've removed them entirely for whatever reason. Or they've suddenly become overly protective of their stuff and won't allow anyone to use it anymore.

If you want answers to anything nowadays, you basically have to fall back on YouTube vids, which can be time consuming to sit down and watch, especially if you're in a hurry. Or you have to search for it on large collected sites like Wikipedia (which isn't always accurate and doesn't offer alternatives to cross check information). Pinterest is the best place to find images these days, because Google and other search engines are somewhat pointless and don't bring up nearly as good of a selection. Fan sites have turned into Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook groups, and other social media platforms that a lot of people don't care to join and are trying to move away from because the atmospheres have grown toxic and vile and the algorithms are changing. Because it's really not possible and practical to just build and own a fan site anymore like it was in the good old days.

Changes to the Internet in more recent years have taken something away from us. The Internet as a whole feels less personal and feels more mainstream and watered down. I literally hate browsing for anything anymore because it always becomes highly frustrating to me because I very rarely find what I'm looking for. I can't begin to count the number of times I've wished I could have the old Internet back.

I'm really glad to see some blogging sites have survived and still exist. It's a little bit of nostalgia that's hung around and hasn't changed much.