None of that’s really changed, though.
Sometime within the last few years (I wanna say 2020 or so) there was a viral trend on twitter where if you disagreed with somebody’s fandom opinion you posted a video in the replies of their tweet–and the video would cut to what looks like genuine footage of something horrific. I personally saw child abuse and a hostage being executed, and I’ve heard tell of worse still.
There was also an MLP fan animation that was pro-Nazi complete with Nazi ponies and everything that made the rounds.
People livestream their suicides–and those go viral. Sometimes people even try to trick others into watching them (I recall seeing multiple different warnings in the 2010’s of “don’t click a video with this thumbnail or title because it cuts to a graphic suicide taken from this person who livestreamed killing themselves”)
Back then, in the lawless wasteland that was 2000’s internet, I (a kid lying about my age online)–and everybody I knew–was aware that you needed to take care because you’d come across horrifying stuff people would send you for shits and giggles and even the greatest care wouldn’t be 100% preventative of seeing disgusting or horrifying stuff.
But now it feels like a lot of people have lost that awareness and mindlessly trust every link or video they come across or get sent because they’re under the mistaken assumption that just because things look more respectable on the surface the internet truly is a safe place now where the don’t need caution.
The internet wasn’t all rainbows'n'Rapidash back then, yeah. But isn’t now, either, despite people assuming it is.
