internet-5
Explanation
This comic expresses generational disappointment about how the internet turned out compared to early utopian expectations.
In the first panel, an older man tells a younger person, "I feel bad for your generation on the internet." When asked why, he explains that when he was young, everyone believed the internet would make all information free, people would educate themselves, communicate across borders, and democracy would reign. Instead, he laments, people use it to fixate on "murder, ignorance, and cruelty."
The younger person challenges him: "You thought anonymous people saying what they think in a free forum would lead to the best ideas gaining the most?" The older man pauses, then admits "Well... we thought everyone was like... us, basically." The punchline — "So, yes" — drives home the irony.
The comic satirizes the naive techno-utopianism of early internet enthusiasts, particularly the assumption that free information exchange would naturally lead to enlightenment. The deeper joke is the older man's admission that early internet advocates simply assumed everyone shared their values and intellectual curiosity. The comic points out that the internet didn't fail — it just revealed that most people don't behave the way a small cohort of optimistic technologists expected them to.