Internet Event of the Year - 2016

Lord Jezo

Well, last year this thread finally died off in G&T and it was suggested by the (a) mods to move it over here, so over here it goes.

So, for the internet event of the year of 2016, I will start it off with two big hitters, Mr. Trump and Fake News. There were other things that went on and maybe these are the most fresh in my mind, but right now those are what I can think of most when I think what happened on the internet this year.

Let's see if this picks up more steam over on this board and we get some events to put into the history of this yearly thread for us to look back on, decades to come.

2015:
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/34137087#Comment_34137087

2014:
https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/195174/internet-event-of-the-year-2014

2013:
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/185573/internet-event-of-the-year-2013

2012:

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/171061/internet-event-of-the-year-2012

2011:

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/21627209

2010:

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/133936/internet-event-of-the-year-2010/p1

2009..

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/108821/internet-event-of-the-year-2009/p1

2008:

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/78655/internet-event-of-the-year-2008/p1

2007:

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=44279

Burnage

It's odd for me to think about an "internet event of the year", because for me this was the year that finally cemented that the internet is actually an intrinsic part of everyday society, and that it's genuinely difficult to disentangle internet culture from just... culture.

And the problem is that a huge amount of internet culture is terrifyingly regressive.

Trace

I say, The Internet itself. Considering just how much of an influence it's had over everything this year.

Hevach

Trump and Fake News are very much the same event. Sure, not all fake news was related to the election, but they were intrinsically linked with one another, especially with several of the biggest purveyors of fake news being either direct members of the Trump campaign team or surrogates, Trump extensively used fake news to justify himself, and his followers used it far, far more extensively. The crown jewels of the year's fake news were literally campaign material for Trump.

Compared to that, the new rise of flat earthers, chemtrails finally making it to Infowars, all the offensive Obama pardons and executive orders pale. And while there was a fair bit of anti-Trump fake news, most of it sits firmly on the right side of Poe's Law.


Personally, I'd almost want to nominate that explosion of flat earth just because Trump has like nine fecking threads as it is, but that one's more sad than anything. Up until mid/late 2015, FE was dominated by trolls, but they were creative trolls who came up with ridiculously complex models that were actually kind of weird to debunk. Now it's all young earth creationists who don't even try to think anything through and plug their ears and shout "LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALA" as six year olds point out their mistakes.

firewaterword

Yeah I feel like this was the year the internet broke through the containment walls. I felt that moment most acutely when my 74 year old dad asked me what a meme was. I had the presence of mind to remember "Kilroy was here" and that cut the discussion mercifully short.