Once you learn about the Dead Internet Theory, you'll never be the same

I've reported before on the idea that bots are taking over social media. I did this without knowing that there's an actual theory about the state of online spaces that goes even deeper than that. And ever since I started looking into it, I've never interacted with the internet the same since.

The Dead Internet Theory, put simply, is the idea that the internet "died" sometime in the late 2010s. It's the idea that most of the posts and content on the internet are generated by bots or AI -- meaning while plenty of real humans still use the internet, they have little to no influence over trends, algorithms, or discourse.

X (Formerly Twitter) may actually be the closest proof of this theory that we currently have. For some people, the app experience has been reduced to posting seemingly into a void with very bot-like replies as their only "engagement." Others may receive high engagement on their posts, but it's impossible to tell how much of it -- or if any of it -- is real.

There's also a running theory that most of Facebook is overrun with AI-generated accounts, images, and posts that are only fed responses by AI. I've seen plenty of people online point out that many of those recipe images you see are fake -- if you were to actually make some of the recipes posted, they would look nothing like the images generated to represent them.

You do not have to convince me that most online interactions are bot-centric by now. I'm constantly questioning whether or not the "people" responding to my content are real. The online communities I used to be a part of seem completely overrun by spam and rage bait. Not only is it no longer fun to be online -- it's also growing more and more difficult to decipher what's real and what isn't.

It feels dystopian, uncomfortable, and inevitable.