Let's play the internet game
I had an idea last night, while trying to fall asleep. An idea for a game. The current internet is dominated by platforms and algorithms and our internet diet is mostly dominated by content that is "curated" for us by some third party. All that is, quite frankly, pretty boring. There's no sense of wandering anymore. Mindlessly scrolling through your Instagram or Twitter feed is not really an exploration. It's like walking through a mall and looking through shop windows. Yeah you get to see different content but the setting is always the same and it is, to put it mildly, fucking uninspiring. So forget the mall, let's instead go for a walk through a forest, carving our own path through trees, roots and rocks.
The goal and the rules
The goal of this game is to bring back the sense of exploration that used to be part of the web. This is how it works:
- Step 1: find a site you like as your starting point;
- Step 2: browse it until you find a link that spikes your interest;
- Step 3: follow that link to a new site;
- Step 4: repeat the process until you've connected 10 sites.
That's it. As simple as that. Explore, click, explore, click. Nothing more than that. Only one rule to follow: you can't go through social media platforms. So no Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, Reddit, you name it. Try to stay away from those.
An example
An example is probably the easiest way to show you what this game looks like so here's what my exploration this morning has produced: jon-kyle.com → walkerart.org → taeyoonchoi.com → distributedweb.care → sfpc.io → cyberwitch666.com → cargo.site → troyvasilakis.com → docs.google.com → nytimes.com.
Not gonna lie, this was quite the ride. If you decide to play the game feel absolutely free to share it with me via email or even better share it on your own site. Hopefully more people will rediscover the joy of randomly exploring the web through this fun little game.