*It's like they never watched television.
Or listened to radio networks, for that matter
(...)
Before big tech shepherded the vast number of online users onto a handful of sleek websites, there was a scrappier internet—where offbeat chat rooms and eccentric niche websites reigned, and carefully crafted “away statuses” were a kind of personal branding—back when you could be away from the internet. Until attention spans became a commodity, the internet was dreamed of as a “bastian for people to direct their own education,” as Charles Broskoski, co-founder of internet bookmarking site are.na, remembers.
Artists, too, forged communities in the spirit of collaboration and learning. From the gothic underworlds of Breed and Abnormis, to hyper-specific pixel art sites, to larger communities like DeviantArt, the internet presented a breadth of opportunity for all kinds of artists—often of marginalized identities or with artistic interests unrecognized by institutions.
As digital imaging advanced, the internet expanded into the multimedia universe we have today, and, perhaps paradoxically, its art communities dwindled. Users traded dedicated artist communities for major social networks, leaving links to their new Instagram and Facebook accounts on their abandoned profiles. In the 2010s, users asked on forums if their beloved communities were indeed dead. DeviantArt—though it remains active—has lost its culture. And more recently, Tumblr, formerly a haven for LGBTQ+ artists, issued a major crackdown on adult content—alienating many creators who found refuge in its sex-positive, queer-friendly environment.
There are a myriad of reasons people leave platforms—an unfriendly interface; outdated design; increased spam—but the shift away from tight-knit spaces for collective creativity marks more than just a natural fall in popularity. As the internet consolidated, it moved toward homogeneity and passivity, and the internet’s once-vibrant art communities became casualties in social media’s rapid, obliterative rise.
Before advanced search engines, information floated on databases like a string of scattered islands. Communities formed out of necessity to help early users surf the boundless web.
Art discussions even appeared in the primordial text-based internet on Usenet newsgroups, bulletin board systems (BBS), and email listservs. In 1991, two years before the first digital image was uploaded to the web, Wolfgang Staehle, an early net artist, started The Thing as a BBS about art and criticism; members traded links, shared gallery announcements, and debated creative and cultural theory. In 1995, Nettime—a listserv for “cultural producers”—followed, as well as Rhizome in 1996; in one particularly zany “cyberdawg ramble” on Nettime in 1998, Jon Lebkowsky declared that the internet was there to stay, “like rock ‘n roll.”... (((Rock and roll not doing all that great either, and for a lot of the same infrastructural reasons. Seen a transistor radio lately?)))
