A rainbow of iMac G3s? This old tech party in L.A. is a balm for our isolated times
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Set us as preferred What happened to the future we were promised? The vision that grew out of the 1990s techno-utopianism, when the internet was still a place of freedom and experimentation.Where are the infinite possibilities the early years of the millennium afforded, when social media meant AOL Instant Messenger and GeoCities, when our cellphones were not yet smart, and when personal tech evoked whimsy and excitement rather than anxiety and dread?On a recent night in L.A., that digital optimism still existed.
Here, at a clothing store on La Brea Avenue in the Fairfax District, something that felt lost was rediscovered.People were huddling around to play 1999’s “Crazy Taxi” on a Sega Dreamcast, or 2005’s “Tekken 5” on a PlayStation 2.
They were surfing a perfectly re-created Y2K-era internet, and navigating an early version of Apple’s Photo Booth to snap selfies with a first-generation iSight webcam.Yes, almost everyone was staring at screens, but almost no one was looking at their phone.
Instead, the room felt alive and buzzing with energy.Technology was creating human connection rather than isolation.Welcome to Dead Internet Theory, an event hosted by game designer Paizley Lee that’s both a celebration of vintage tech and a place to build community.
The name is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the theory that the internet today is mostly bots, AI slop and corporate algorithms, while the human element is quickly disappearing from the web.Lee started the event earlier this year after seeing how her friends reveled in hacking old hardware but had nowhere to show off their reimagined contraptions.She said Dead Internet Theory is a space to highlight “artists who don’t see the light of day,” a cyberpunk show-and-tell of sorts.
“There’s a world of knowledge that comes from that person that can share a...