Wagner's essay focuses on the web culture that is evolving as it follows from Web 1.0 in its early days to field domination by Facebook and Instagram among other sites. Wagner provides an in-depth discussion on various ideas such as Web 2.0, death of MySpace era, rise of Vaporwave aesthetics and change from social media discusses technology hopes moves society through innovation at all times pertaining to humanity's needs.
One of the major themes under consideration is that this transition went from user-generated chaos in Web 1.0 to professional control and curation in Web 2.0. However, Wagner regrets that this transition has led to loss of individual agency and creative expression it brought with itself — sites such as Facebook replaced personalized idiosyncrasy for early web pages through general standardization and minimalism. As Wagner notes, "Website Eugenics" has become an accepted practice for users who are now confined inside computer interfaces developed by professionals and lost their peculiarity of Geocities' time.
In addition, Wagner focuses on how some social media are based upon class divisions of Myspace and Facebook. From the perspective of Danah Boyd's theory, Wagner analyzes how racial and socioeconomic factors shaped user preferences trends. Facebook remained a popular app for people seeking professional class status. This change exemplifies the wider public sentiments concerning social media, where elitism and restricted access guides user views and actions.
Wagner reveals vaporwave — an aesthetic nostalgia-infused irony produced by appropriating 80's and 90's symbols to criticize modern market capitalism. The author looks into how Vaporwave's aesthetic value has been appropriated by mainstream media portals such as Instagram, away from its original ideological premises and thus reduced to nothing but commodified nostalgia. Jameson's analysis would seem to suggest that the constant presence of Pastiche in contemporary culture is symptomatic, tellingly enough, not only for a consumer interest in simulacra but also replaying and reproducing images from the immediate past under convenient new contextual arrangements.
In the face of these developments, Wagner poses a provocative question: Is there space for a "Revenge of the Old Internet"? The author also discusses how platforms such as Facebook, once viewed as the "gold standard" of status symbols are now being made fun off and subverted by younger generations more hip to internet means. With the rise of "Weird Facebook" groups and return to conscious ugliness, users attempt to regain control over their agency as well fight against hegemony with sleek corporate design-driven aesthetics.
Yet, the exploration of internet culture that is treated in this essay has a deep resonance with liminal spaces. Like liminal spaces exist in the transitional moment between different states of human existence, web space belongs to another intermediate reality — that which is not quite either physical or digital; nor personal and corporate but also something related with time- both past times and present. The liminality of Web 1.0 and to some extent, that of Google is reflected in its journey from being a decentralized DIY medium into centralization with web professionals controlling it. In addition, the rise of vaporwave aesthetics and return to the deliberately ugly designs can be seen as ways of reclaiming agency in these liminal spaces; subverting hegemony propagated by corporations and assertion into mainstream internet culture. On this note, the essay encourages readers to navigate the liminal realm of the internet where creation and commodification meet nostalgia-driven innovation in a perpetual motion.
Wagner paints a clear picture of how the internet has evolved and its success as well as failure. It highlights the conflict between individual freedom and corporate discipline, battle for authenticity in an era of mass production, as well as ardent attraction to nostalgia ushering contemporary culture. While the internet changes, whether its innovative and creative roots can survive commercial imperatives dominated by homology is an open question.
Wagner provides an interesting perspective on the intricate processes underlying the culture of the internet in the 21st century. Through analysis of the past, present and future interpretation it opens up a debate regarding one's own engagement with this space. Journeying through the maze of a globalized world, lessons forged from past events provide much insight into how the internet has shaped and continues to change society.