The Internet of Internets

If the internet is a connection of websites, then the internet is built of different internets.

Platforms and social media that represent the everyday internet for a lot of people — instagram, twitter, youtube, news sites ... Each of them are an internet of it's own. They are a series of interconnected websites that lead you from one to another.

The links on these sites lead you in vertical directions. Up or down a website. Up and down the internet. Their internet. If they were a building they would be best represented by a skyscraper, with a shop for it's inhabitants built on the ground floor.

The Sprit of the Internet of Internets

A specter haunts the internets of internet, the specter of CSS, custom html and javascript. A specter of emancipated surfers. Some internets choose to embrace this specter, they welcome it with open arms. This can come in smaller doses, like tumblr's themeing system or in vast extremes where neocities expects it's users to build their whole sites.

Some internets do not e m b r a c e this spirit. They run away from it and pretend it doesn't have anything to do with them. Their "customization" is a black or white background, a profile picture and a header.

Escaping the (singular) Internet

Sometimes the internets do not let you leave. They are very happy with you surfing around, as long as the waves that you stay on are theirs.

This was most easily seen on instagram, where your link is not clickable, nor is it copyable. Hashtags or @'s, which both keep you inside of instagram, are very clickable. This was even more apparent when twitter tried to get rid of links to other social media.

To these giants of the web, up and down is okay, but left and right is not.