Vitriol on why I can’t read anything on the internet

7 Steps To Writing A Better Substack Post, nope. Flick. 5 Reasons Why I Quit Twitter, nope. Flick. A Deep Study On The Psychology of Human Potential, nope. Flick.

“Alright now!
Won’t you listen?”

---

I sit, staring at the sleeve. It’s battered around the edges, the bare cardboard showing through, once white, now yellow. It’s all black on the front, with purple text in large. There’s a faint imprint of the record showing through on the sleeve, a perfect circle. I study the text: it’s a simple cover, but it’s always been one of my favourite record sleeve designs.

BLACK SABBATH

MASTER
OF
REALITY

The typography speaks of a time when designers actually had to make shit. This simple cover would have been drawn by hand, pasted onto a board, shipped to the record company for approval, the record company would have asked for amends, shipped the board back, and the designers would have made changes. Then finally, the designers would have shipped the board back to the record company. This process probably would have gone around a few times, shipping the same artwork back and forth across the country. Sometimes, design firms used to hire people just to travel artwork around to clients. Different times.

“When I first met you, didn't realise,
I can't forget you, for your surprise”

Ozzy’s haunting lyrics are blaring loud in my room, that heavy Black Sabbath sound shaking the walls and the chair I’m sat in. Black Sabbath is designed to be played loud, through loud speakers, and paid attention to. I’m performing the ritual right now. Listening. None of that mumbo jumbo speak of ‘being present’. I’m doing the thing people used to do: put a record on, listen to it, read the sleeve. I’m not flicking on my phone, reading emails, taking a selfie, taking a looping video of the record artwork to show you how cool I am

¹

.

“You introduced me to my mind,
And left me wanting you and your kind”

I don’t write this to say I’m above a casual internet addiction. I’d just been in the garden, sitting, pondering, flicking on my phone. I’m addicted to my phone, just like the rest of the world. I normally open up my phone, open up Twitter, flick endlessly, get angry, close Twitter, open Instagram, laugh at a cat video, send it to somebody, reply to a WhatsApp message, send them the cat video, open up Facebook, remember why I hate Facebook, get angry, close Facebook, open up Twitter, close Twitter. But today, instead of reading Twitter I thought I’d try and read an article. I thought I’d find something interesting if I just browsed Twitter for long enough. Surely, people on there are still writing articles? But then I remembered that social media doesn’t promote articles and content on other websites, so I opened up the Substack app instead.

I perform the same ritual. Flicking. 7 Steps To Writing A Better Substack Post, nope. Flick. 5 Reasons Why I Quit Twitter, nope. Flick. A Deep Study On The Psychology of Human Potential, nope. Flick.

“You think you know, but you are never quite sure,
Your soul is ill, but you will not find a cure”

I sigh. Head banging to Black Sabbath, I wish for 1971. Listening to Master of Reality loud, I feel like I’m there in the studio with them. I can hear guitars bleeding through to the bass drum. The rawness of Ozzy’s voice. Unfiltered perfection. In 1971, nobody had heard anything like it. In 2023, it sounds old-fashioned. Like the musical equivalent of the Windows 95 desktop wallpaper, and I fucking love it.

I keep flicking the Substack recommendations. Book reviews. Studies on intelligence. Pseudo science bullshit hot takes dressed up as journalism. Endless efforts to sound intelligent, to sound more impressive than they are, to sound legitimate. Everybody is writing something because they feel like they have to, to boost their personal brand. Fuck, the fact we live in a world where everyone feels like they need a personal brand is depressing enough.

I’ve been sat here, trying to read. You know, the thing we’re meant to do instead of scrolling and poking. But, I just…can’t. I can’t read any of these articles I keep finding. They’re either trying to teach me something like my old high school geography teacher or they’re trying to be funny like my old high school geography teacher. It doesn’t grab my attention. It’s as if somewhere along the line, everybody forgot that writing is an art form, that writing should be engaging. 

Why the fuck can’t I read anything on the internet anymore?

“I’ve not stopped crying since you went away,” Ozzy shrills in the background.

And I don’t even think it’s just because people can’t write, because I’m quite hopeful on that. I do think people can write. I just don’t think people have the incentives to write any longer. People are given the incentives to write a tweet by getting instant likes, so why would anyone bother with writing an article? I have high hopes for art. I just don’t have high hopes for people trying to ‘create content’. Writing things as a means to an end, rather than writing to create a body of work.

Imagine writing something because you wanted to create a lasting body of work. A brave new world. A world of lasting things, instead of temporary artefacts.

“Love upon a land a world unknown,
Where the sons of freedom make their home,
Leave the earth to Satan and his slaves,
Leave them to their future in their grave”

Nobody is writing things because they want to, because they have something to say, because they have a burning desire to carve their opinions in stone and say: “Here it fucking is. I don’t care whether you like it or not, but I said it, and do your fucking worst.” Nobody is tying their colours to the mast, tattooing it on their forehead, covering themselves in mud, and spitting their opinions through gritted teeth, knowing nobody will agree with them.

Nobody argues any more either. Punk music is long gone. Activism, riots, passion. Nobody has passion either. Everyone is trying to be perfect online to build their personal brand. You can’t have an opinion in that environment because you might upset someone. Nobody gets upset any more either.

Anyway, I can’t read anything on the internet anymore because the vast majority of it isn’t designed to be read. It’s not written by writers, it’s written by marketers. It’s not written by artists, it’s written by content creators. It’s designed to be shared, clipped, tweeted. It’s designed to be served desiccated, sprinkled over your internet addiction to soften that particularly bitter pill you have to swallow. 

Screen time today: 8 hours. And you can’t remember what you looked at.

AC/DC is playing now. I’ve switched the record. Flick of the Switch.

“This house is on fire,
House is on fire,
This house is on fire,
House is on fire”

1. I’ve instead chosen to write in great detail about how I am One Who Listens To Records, and ultimately Makes Me Better Than You.