Remember when “Dead Internet Theory” sounded like something cooked up by basement-dwelling conspiracy theorists with too much time and too little sunlight? When did the idea that most online content was generated by bots seem laughably paranoid?
Well, joke’s on us, isn’t it?
What started as fringe speculation has become our daily reality so gradually that we barely noticed the transition. Like that frog in slowly boiling water, except the frog is human creativity and the water is an endless sea of AI-generated slop masquerading as authentic content.
We’re not dealing with a theory anymore. We’re living through the aftermath.
The Slop Factory Never Sleeps
Walk through any corner of the internet today and try to spot the human fingerprints. Go on, I’ll wait.
Twitter’s awash with accounts that pump out motivational quotes with stock photo sunsets. LinkedIn has become a wasteland of AI-generated “thought leadership” that says absolutely nothing, whilst using 500 words to do it. Medium’s drowning in articles about “10 Ways AI Will Transform Your Business” written by… well, AI.
And don’t get me started on the content farms. Entire websites dedicated to churning out SEO-optimised articles about everything from “Best Coffee Makers 2024” to “How to Find Inner Peace” – all written by algorithms trained on other articles that were probably written by algorithms.
It’s turtles all the way down, except the turtles are all made of the same synthetic material.
The dead internet theorists predicted this years ago. They said we’d reach a point where most online content would be generated by bots, for bots, creating an endless feedback loop of artificial engagement. They said human voices would get drowned out by the sheer volume of synthetic noise.
They were right. They were just early.
When Efficiency Became the Enemy of Authenticity
Here’s the thing that really gets me: we did this to ourselves. Not maliciously, but through the same relentless pursuit of efficiency that’s turned everything else into beige, optimised mush.
Why pay a human to write 10 blog posts when an AI can pump out 100 in the same time? Why struggle with writer’s block when you can generate endless variations on a theme? Why wrestle with finding your unique voice when you can deploy a consistent, professional-sounding one at the click of a button?
The logic is unassailable. The results are soul-crushing.
We’ve optimised the humanity right out of human communication. Every platform rewards volume over voice, consistency over character, engagement over authenticity. The algorithms don’t care if what you’re saying comes from lived experience or a language model; they just want something that keeps people scrolling.
And so we feed the machine. We generate, we optimise, we scale. We create content that’s technically proficient, grammatically correct, and utterly forgettable. We’ve become curators of synthetic authenticity, editors of artificial experience.
The internet didn’t die in some dramatic cyber-apocalypse. It suffocated under the weight of its own productivity.
The Uncanny Valley of Online Interaction
You’ve felt it, haven’t you? That creeping sense that something’s off about online conversations these days. Comments that are too perfect, responses that are too quick, interactions that feel performative rather than genuine.
It’s not your imagination. It’s pattern recognition.
Your brain’s trying to tell you that you’re not talking to humans anymore. Not always, anyway. You’re engaging with increasingly sophisticated systems designed to mimic human interaction without the messy unpredictability that makes human interaction worth having.
The tell-tale signs are everywhere once you start looking. The slightly-too-polished prose. The responses that address every point you made without actually engaging with any of them. The conversations feel like they’re following a script written by someone who’s heard about human emotions but never actually experienced them.
We’re living in the uncanny valley of online communication, where everything looks human-ish but nothing feels quite right.
The Feedback Loop of Synthetic Culture
Here’s where it gets properly dystopian. It’s not just that AI is creating content, it’s that AI is creating content based on other AI-created content. We’re watching the birth of a synthetic culture that’s increasingly divorced from actual human experience.
AI writing tools are trained on AI-generated articles. Image generators feeding on AI-created visuals. Chatbots learning from conversations with other chatbots. We’ve created a closed-loop system where artificial intelligence is talking to itself and calling it culture.
And because it’s so much faster and cheaper than the human alternative, it’s drowning out genuine voices. Why would a platform promote your carefully crafted, personally experienced blog post when it could surface 50 AI-generated alternatives that hit the same keywords?
We’re not just losing the internet to machines. We’re losing our shared cultural references, our common understanding of what human experience actually looks like. We’re replacing lived reality with algorithmic approximations of it.
The dead internet theorists warned us about this, too. They said we’d reach a point where it would be impossible to tell what’s real and what’s artificial online. They said authentic human culture would become a niche product in a world optimised for synthetic efficiency.
That point isn’t coming. It’s here.
The Great Human Retreat
So what do we do about it? How do we reclaim human spaces in an increasingly inhuman digital world?
The answer isn’t to rage against the machines or pretend AI doesn’t exist. It’s to be intentional about creating and maintaining spaces where humans can be human without algorithms mediating every interaction.
We need human-exclusive communication hubs. Not because we hate technology, but because we recognise that some things are worth preserving. Like the messy, inefficient, gloriously unpredictable nature of actual human conversation.
Think about it: when was the last time you had a proper conversation online? Not an exchange of information or a performance of opinions for an audience, but an actual conversation where ideas evolved, where minds changed, where something unexpected emerged from the interaction?
If you’re struggling to remember, you’re not alone. We’ve trained ourselves out of genuine dialogue in favour of content optimisation. We’ve replaced conversation with broadcast, interaction with engagement metrics.
Building the Human Web
The solution isn’t technological – it’s cultural. We need to deliberately create spaces where human messiness is not just tolerated but celebrated, where inefficiency is a feature, not a bug. Where the point isn’t to scale or optimise but to connect.
These spaces will be smaller, slower, and more intentional than what we’re used to. They’ll prioritise depth over reach, quality over quantity, and authentic voice over algorithmic appeal. They’ll feel anachronistic in the best possible way.
Some already exist. Private Discord servers where people actually talk instead of performing. Small forums dedicated to niche interests where expertise comes from experience, not datasets. Email newsletters written by actual humans about things they genuinely care about.
But we need more. We need platforms designed from the ground up to prioritise human connection over machine efficiency. We need verification systems that prove humanity, not just identity. We need spaces where the goal isn’t to go viral but to go deep.
The Resistance Is Human
Here’s what I find oddly hopeful: the very fact that AI-generated content is becoming ubiquitous is making a genuine human voice more precious, not less. When everything sounds the same, authentic difference becomes valuable again.
People are hungry for real voices, real experiences, real perspectives. They’re tired of being fed algorithmic approximations of human thought. They want the weird, the personal, the unoptimised.
The challenge is creating spaces where those voices can emerge and be heard above the synthetic noise. Where humans can find other humans without having to wade through endless streams of artificial content.
This isn’t about being anti-technology. It’s about being pro-human. It’s about recognising that some things – genuine connection, authentic expression, real understanding – can’t be optimised, scaled, or automated without losing the very qualities that make them worthwhile.
The Choice We Face
The dead internet isn’t a conspiracy theory anymore. It’s an observable phenomenon, a documented trend, a lived reality for anyone paying attention.
But it’s not inevitable. We still have choices.
We can continue feeding the machine, prioritising efficiency over authenticity, scale over soul. We can accept that human voices will become increasingly rare and precious, like artisanal goods in a world of mass production.
Or we can deliberately choose to preserve spaces for genuine human interaction. We can resist the urge to optimise everything and leave room for the beautiful inefficiency of actual conversation. We can remember that the internet was supposed to connect humans, not replace them.
The choice is ours. But we need to make it consciously, intentionally, and soon.
Because once the internet is truly dead, once human voices are completely drowned out by synthetic noise, it’ll be much harder to bring it back to life.
The time to act isn’t tomorrow. It’s today. It’s right now, in this moment, while we still remember what an authentic human connection feels like.
Don’t let them tell you it’s just a theory. You can see it happening. You can feel it happening.
The question is: what are you going to do about it?
Until Next Time
Discover more from Dominus Owen Markham
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