[AKN #97] If You Were Broken, Would You Even Know?
LAUGH: Bo Burnham’s Joe Rogan Impression, LOVE: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Substack Is Great
Sup homies?
I read this stat that humans now only make up 38.5% of internet traffic. Apparently the other 61.5% are bots.
That means the Internet is basically 1 guy yelling at 2 Bluetooth enabled toasters. Which to be fair, I understand. The 1 to 5 dial on your toaster sucks. 1 doesn’t toast it at all, but 2 through 5 burns the shit out of it. We can’t stand for this injustice.
But only 38.5% of the traffic is human? I always intuitively knew the Internet was mostly unemployed 14-year olds intellectually sparring with a Python script about the merits of socialism in the comment section of a U2 music video, but that stat is sad.
What makes it even worse is when you dive deeper into what that 38.5% of human Internet traffic looks like.
For instance, MINIMUM 50% of that is porn. That’s just the reality of how most people use the Internet. In 2022, we know that people aren’t as interested in the contents of The Library of Alexandria as they are interested in looking at still shots of the labia of Alexandria.
The next 49% of the traffic is literally just people doing exactly what everyone else is doing. Take out your phone right now and you will find a million people on TikTok doing the exact same meaningless trend. Sometimes it’s an ice bucket, sometimes it’s a dance, and other times it’s participating in the kick your friend in the nuts challenge. Whatever it is, as long as people are doing it, more people are doing it.
When we aren’t copying each others videos, we copy each others text. Like what percentage of human Internet traffic is just people regurgitating mindless propaganda from their in group of choice like “I stand with Ukraine”, “You Can’t Take My Guns”, or “Ted Lasso Season 2 is a good television show”?
Every step of the way they are all feverishly copying one another. All competing for the same group of 10,000 fake followers. A prize which they hope will imbue their lives with purpose. Unfortunately, that utopia never comes because it ends up it’s easier to teach yourself how to dougie than it is to forge a meaningful existence.
The next 0.9% of traffic is people who make cliche content which could be assembled using an algorithm written by a freshman year computer science student. The algorithm would smash together a factoid with a socially acceptable critique of an out group.
“Humans now only make up 38.5% of internet traffic. The other 61.5% are Republicans.”
Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. What a unique joke which hasn't been told a thousand times!
Seriously people are so fucking lame. Did you know one of the biggest challenges of identifying spam is some real people’s accounts look identical to spam?
Seriously, this is the CEO of Twitter saying “some real human accounts are indistinguishable from bots.”
Wild! People suck so hard!
The final 0.1% of traffic is people who make original content.
I’m not even necessarily saying that content is good. But it’s just generated from a place of true self expression. It’s unique. No one else could have produced it.
I love that shit.
Finding that truly original stuff is what energizes me to sift through the Internet dumpster fire of robots, gangbangs, cliches, and cliche robot gangbangs.
And I hope this newsletter can be that for you as well.
On to the newsletter!
LIVE: If You Were Broken, Would You Even Know?
When I was 20 years old, I was the worst snorer in the world.
Friends would draw straws to see who would have to sleep in the same room as me.
I can still visualize the thousand yard stare the loser would have on their face the morning after. Did they do time on the front lines of Afghanistan? No, they stayed in the top bunk of the room I slept in.
The worst part was it wasn’t like I was getting good sleep either. Like of course people would wake me up because I sounded like a defective wood chipper, but I also just always felt tired regardless of how much sleep I got.
This was my normal.
When I was 21 years old, I went to the Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor for a recurring case of strep throat.
The doctor informed me that my tonsils were responsible for the recurring strep throat and they were much larger than they should be.
So I had my tonsils removed.
The surgery delivered on the promise of eliminating my chronic strep throat, but it also cured an undiagnosed case of major sleep apnea which I was suffering from.
I came to find out the tonsils were obstructing my airway while I slept which would result in me basically not breathing for minutes (!) of time in my sleep. The loud snoring was me choking on the tonsils and trying to reestablish my breathing.
Overnight, I went from a 99.9%ile snorer to an average snorer. Which was great for me as well as my friends and family. Many hours of saved sleep all around.
But that wasn’t the biggest transformation. That honor goes to how I felt after I finished sleeping.
I remember waking up after 6 hours of sleep feeling completely refreshed. An odd feeling for me as I never really felt “refreshed” unless I slept 9-10 hours.
Then it hit me. Holy shit. I didn’t even know what “feeling rested” felt like.
I now operated at a whole different energy level.
I no longer needed mid day naps or 10 hour sleeps.
My entire life was different because I fixed my sleep. But until they took my tonsils out, I never even knew it was broken.
Whenever I think about that story, I always wonder where else this occurs in my life.
Where else is something broken and I just don’t even know better?
LAUGH: Bo Burnham’s Joe Rogan Impression
I find the vast majority of Joe Rogan focused comedy bits to be very tired. Like there is this one Pete Davidson did for SNL which has to be one of the least funny things I’ve ever watched.
But Bo Burnham’s video here is legitimately funny.
I just love all the niche references you would only get if you watched the Joe Rogan Experience. Like I laughed out loud at “Salami Williams.”
LOVE: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Substack Is Great
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is one of the greatest basketball players ever. He would be considered the best ever if we didn’t have this weird cultural aversion to claiming a center was the greatest basketball player of all time.
Aside from his prowess on the court, his writing is super sharp. His dissection of various cultural moments has made me think differently about things — something I was reminded of again this morning when he wrote up his thoughts on the Heard-Depp trial.
I recommend you give it a read. I think you will have a good time with his writing.
CLOSING TIME
You don’t have to go home, but you can subscribe here:
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are strictly my own. Who else’s would they be?
Mahalo,
K.Rapp