Pre-Web internet fostered play and identity experimentation, not marketable self-presentation

Evidence

There are two points of view about how this came about. The first perspective, the technologically determinist view, implies that the technology itself dictates this type of self-presentation. It suggests some inherent property of contemporary social media technologies that promotes this enterprise view of the self. This view ignores the context in which technology is used; it is also empirically false since early social media like IRC (internet relay chat), MUDs (multi-user dungeons), and Usenet allowed for similar interactions, but marketable self-presentations were largely absent. Instead, a sense of play and identity experimentation abounded in pre-Web internet spaces—something that is in short supply on sites like Facebook and strongly discouraged by self-branding. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 493

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s soundscape/silence work: the argument that technology alone doesn’t determine culture mirrors Schafer’s warning against technological determinism in acoustic ecology. — connects to: Online self-presentation expresses a neoliberal subjectivity applying market principles to identity — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 25; Early internet use felt like entering a separate fantasy world under a made-up name — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 984; Internet self-representation conceals a capitalist infrastructure producing the self as commodity (+8 more)
• SEED: Possible essay: what did pre-algorithmic, pre-brand internet play look like and what changed structurally (not just technologically) that killed it?

Broader Connections

• Early internet use felt like entering a separate fantasy world under a made-up name #exemplifies (0.95) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 984
• The early internet’s value lay precisely in sheltering niche subcultures from mainstream attention #expands (0.85)
• Internet fame remains dependent on audience preferences and requires escalating self-disclosure #contradicts (0.80)
• Digital media shifted culture from representation of selves to self-presentation #expands (0.80) — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity, 77
• Internet self-representation conceals a capitalist infrastructure producing the self as commodity #contradicts (0.75)
• Showing oneself as a self online begins the manufacturing of the self as commodity #contradicts (0.75) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 61
• Fake authenticity backstories exploit the internet’s democratizing promise #contradicts (0.72)
• The internet functions as a factory producing the self as commodity #contradicts (0.70) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 18