Rebuild the internet

In an attempt to visualize the internet, I made a post-it note animation.

I visualized the internet as a web with little spiders bringing information from one place to another.

Here are some of the more important frames, since you can’t pause a GIF

First lets talk about the cute little spiders, they crawl across ‘the web’ to send and receive things for us. I thought that would be cute (if a little on the nose)

So one of the big things the internet can do for us is help us connect to other people, and grow new relationships that can help us feel at least a little bit less lonely in the world.

Another thing the internet is great for (and what I primarily use it for) is sharing things I have created, and receiving all kinds of feedback. Sure the feedback won’t always be positive, or even useful, but it’s at least seen and enjoyed by someone.

A problem we face on the internet is how some people are emboldened to act out in aggressive and toxic ways because the consequences don’t feel as real as they do in real life, and for the most part it can be kind of easy to send out a bunch of negativity and then log off and avoid seeing the impact you’ve made on others. This impact is felt heavily by marginalized groups, like trans people who face this kind of problem in real life, because it gets amplified even to even greater nastiness.

It also makes it easy to harass people, from the comfort of your home all safe and cozy, you can send a tidal wave of angry and hurtful (and also harmful) messages, or create a mob to do that work for you. It’s easy to create a digital echo chamber, even on accident.

Just as well when you post something online, like say a youtube video sometimes you are hit with a massive flood of feedback that can be overwhelming even if it is positive.

This is what I started and ended the GIF on. This is the basic utility of the internet that many think of. You request information, content, or other things and it brings that to you. While yea, the internet does that, the internet is MORE than just that. The strength of the internet is the interpersonal connections that it helps create.

(These frames also show how my drawing changed from the first frames to the last, and the changes that happened mid animation, like the spiders getting bigger and their limbs longer)

So, just to leave you with an idea of how much work I put in (because even though its a short GIF, animation is not easy) these are most of my frames there are about 115 hand drawn frames here. And there are more in the GIF because I went through and duplicated some to play back in reverse (like blinking and stuff).

The initial plan was much longer(with some stuff about how social media creates stars, and how the internet influences their interactions with fans and what not), but things had to be cut because I ran out of green post-it notes(and patience). That is the interesting and wonderful thing about doing this kind of project, it can make the final product better by forcing it to be honed and refined.