03. How to Recapture the Joy of the Early Internet

The Viewing

Context

Michael Sun is a tech culture writer, and presents his thoughts on the early internet, as well as ways, with contemporary algorithms, that we can achieve some of the effect of the earlier internet.

Things to think about

• What does Michael Sun seem to miss about the earlier internet, and are any of these things memorable? What other things might he miss from different eras?
• Is the current internet actually "worse", or just more efficient, more monetized, and less surprising?
• What has been gained by making online experience smoother, faster, and more personalized? What has been lost?
• Do you think “weirdness” online can be designed for, or does it only appear accidentally?
• How might this relate to your own work? If the web feels increasingly standardized, what would it mean to make something that is, for better or worse, harder to confuse with a template?

Homework

respond to the above in some kind of text file (.txt, .pdf, .rtf, .doc, etc) and place in the respective folder for the class by 04/30/2026