The Internet Killed Anticipation

The main thing the internet spoiled for me is skateboarding.

When I was a kid, you would see an ad in Thrasher for an upcoming skate video for what felt like years before it finally came out. You had no idea what it was going to look like. You just knew you were excited.

This was before YouTube, before Instagram, before every skater had a vlog and every brand had a rollout calendar. You would see a logo, a photo, maybe a release date if you were lucky. That was it.

The waiting was part of it.

I would beg my mom to buy me the video from the skate shop when it finally came out. Then I would get home, put the tape in, and see how far skating had come since the last video I bought. That was the only way you knew progression was happening. You did not get daily clips spoon-fed to you on your phone. You did not know what tricks people were doing until you saw them all at once.

There was mystery to it.

You did not know what clothes were cool. You did not know what music was in the video. You did not know anything about the people skating beyond what ended up on screen. They felt larger than life because they were unreachable.

When you saw their board on the wall at the skate shop, you had to have it. You found out what you liked in real time because it was not being sold to you every single day.

The same thing existed in music.

You would hear a song somewhere and have no idea what it was. Maybe it was in a skate video. Maybe it was playing in someone else's car. Maybe it was on the radio for thirty seconds.

You could not just Shazam it.

I genuinely remember telling my dad about songs I heard and trying to repeat what I thought the lyrics were. He would tell me who it was. Sometimes he knew. Sometimes he did not.

That process made discovery feel bigger.

You had to sit with not knowing. You had to ask around, mishear lyrics, hope you heard the song again, maybe go to a record store, maybe ask a friend. Once you finally found it, it felt earned.

Now you hear something for ten seconds, add it to Spotify, and move on before it even has time to mean anything.

I think that is the bigger problem with the internet. It did not kill curiosity. It killed anticipation.

We traded excitement for convenience.

Now there is always another clip, another recommendation, another opinion, another post. Everything is available all the time.

Movies release half the plot in the trailer. Brands show every step of the process. Artists post every thought they have. You can see what everyone is eating, wearing, listening to, and thinking about at every second of the day.

Even people have become less mysterious.

You used to meet someone and slowly learn who they were over time. You would find out what music they liked, who they knew, what they cared about, where they had been, what made them interesting.

Now people build an entire version of you before you even speak.

They know what you look like, where you hang out, who you are friends with, what kind of clothes you wear, what music you post, what you had for breakfast.

I have been referred to by my Instagram handle before someone even called me by my actual name.

That is such a weird feeling.

It means somebody already created a version of you in their head before they ever got the chance to know you.

The internet flattened people into profiles.

Everyone curates themselves now.

People pick the best angles, the best lighting, the best captions, the best version of the story. It is no different than a photographer showing a client the selects from a shoot.

You are not going to show them the photos where you overexposed everything or accidentally moved the camera. That does not mean it is fake. It just means it is incomplete.

The problem is that people compare their real life to everyone else's highlight reel.

I think the only way mystery still exists now is if you choose it.

Travel still feels mysterious because no matter how many photos you see, you cannot understand a place until you are actually there. You cannot feel the weather, hear the sounds, smell the air, or understand the energy of a place through a screen. I remember the first time I went to New York City and felt it.

The same thing goes for music, movies, restaurants, books, relationships, and cities.

You can either experience them yourself or experience everyone else's opinion first.

That is the hardest part now. There are a million opinions on absolutely everything.

Before you hear an album, watch a movie, go to a restaurant, or meet a person, you have already seen everyone else's take on it.

It becomes hard to tell if you actually like something or if you are just reacting to what you were told to think.

The internet is not entirely bad. It made learning easier than ever.

If I want to learn how to shoot a photo differently, fix something, edit a video, or build something new, I can find the answer.

That mystery and curiosity is still there in me. It just presents itself differently.

The mystery is no longer in access to information. The mystery is in what you choose to do with it.

Anyone can watch the same tutorial. Not everyone will make something interesting with what they learned.

Maybe that is what is left.

The internet did not kill curiosity. It killed anticipation.

-MS