Dead Internet Theory: Glitch in Matrix?

A Glitch in the Matrix (free with ads TV-14)

(YouTube Movies & TV) A Glitch in the Matrix, directed by acclaimed filmmaker Rodney Ascher (Room 237, The Nightmare), is a multimedia documentary that dives into the great existential question: Are we in fact living in a simulation?

• [Was the "simulation" called Samsara by the Buddha?]

Using a seminal 1977 speech from Philip K. Dick as a jumping-off point, Ascher presents compelling scientific evidence and philosophical musings through interviews with real people shrouded in digital avatars, as well as samples from cultural texts like Minecraft and The Matrix, to support the idea that the [world within this cakkavala, this prison planet, this Empire of the City, or] universe is a highly advanced computer simulation.

Part sci-fi mind-scrambler, part true-crime horror story, A Glitch in the Matrix is an eye-popping, open-minded, and highly entertaining journey to the limits of radical doubt that leaves no stone unturned.

The Dead Internet Theory

Whoa, I know I played Neo, but I feel my most important role in life was like playing Budda.

.

There is an online conspiracy, speculation, explanation, proposition (with evidence) that asserts that, due to a coordinated and intentional effort, the Internet now consists mainly of bot activity not of real people.

This activity is automatically generated content, manipulated by algorithmic curation, to control the population and minimize organic human activity [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

Proponents of this "theory" (explanation of how things actually are) believe social bots were created intentionally to help manipulate algorithms and boost search results in order to manipulate consumer [6, 7], and no one can doubt that -- just as spam ruined email and junk calls ruined answering the phone when it's from an unfamiliar number.

Dog teleports in. Man's legs switch as he slips.

Some proponents of the theory accuse government agencies (like the CIA, NSA, NSC, DHS, DARPA, FBI, IRS, ISI, KGB, Meta, Google Corporation/Alphabet Inc., FB, Apple, AI, CCP, SpaceX, Amazon] and many more we do not know about) of using bots to manipulate public perception [2, 6].

The date given for this "death" is generally around 2016 or 2017 [2, 8, 9]. The Dead Internet Theory has gained traction because many of the observed phenomena are quantifiable -- one such quantifiable is increased bot traffic.

But the publicly available literature on the subject does not yet fully support the theory [2, 4, 10] but aspects of it are not in doubt.

• This is where-when it becomes crucial to have read George Orwell's warning Nineteen Eighty-Four, to have a language or metaphor to refer to. In it the protagonist, Winston Smith (the Everyman), works in a cubicle at the Ministry of Truth manipulating reality, and all life is hounded by a "Telescreen." The screens are everywhere, always watching. Whether they are always all monitored, that is unknown, but one never knows when one is being watched. (Now, thanks to recording technology, we are always being watched not in real time but at any time authorities want to review the footage they are amassing for A.I. to go through). Sadly, most attempts to "rebel" are manipulated by police to preemptively (sting operation) undermine resistance, much as happened to the Occupy Movement, which was evaporated so that no one even seems to remember it now. It was big at the time. And the mainstream media was all for destroying it

Origins and spread

The Dead Internet Theory's exact origin is difficult to pinpoint. In 2021, a post titled "Dead Internet Theory: Most Of The Internet Is Fake" was published onto the forum Agora Road's Macintosh Cafe esoteric board by a user named "IlluminatiPirate" [11], claiming to be building on previous posts from the same board and from Wizardchan [2], and marking the term's spread beyond these initial imageboards [2, 12].

The conspiracy theory has entered public culture through widespread coverage and has been discussed on various high-profile YouTube channels [2]. [It has? This is the first we're hearing about it from a poorly done video by a man who can barely pronounce English words.]

It gained more mainstream attention with an article in The Atlantic titled "Maybe You Missed It, but the Internet 'Died' Five Years Ago" [2]. [Yes, thank you, we had missed it, though we suspected something was off, and it all started from the time we first surfed the Internet.] This article has been widely cited by other articles on the topic [13, 12]. More