I open Instagram and am greeted by an oversaturated post of a Jesus statue made entirely out of krill. Sometimes I feel like I live inside a simulation built by an intern who got bored halfway through the job. Every other reel feels like it was generated by a blender full of algorithmic dust. I’ve even seen comments under these kinds of posts that make arguably less sense: “Mothers are like this,” “Happy birthday! Try Jesus please” and “Beautiful cabin crew. Scarlett Johansson.” Are people just going brain-dead on the internet, or is there something in particular to blame here?
The Dead Internet Theory suggests that most of the posts and comments we see online aren't made by real people at all. I used to think that was ridiculous; of course people are still online. But then I’d scroll through a thread where everyone is typing in the same recycled rhythm, where every opinion feels pre-chewed, and I start to second-guess. It’s not that we’re all bots, but it is mostly bots in our online environment that we are interacting with.
What really bothers me is that AI is making culture worse, not because the tech itself is evil, but because it gives companies the power to replace human creativity with mass-produced filler. Coca-Cola churns out lifeless Christmas commercials without hiding the fact that machine generation was heavily involved, YouTube channels pump out AI voiceovers reading Reddit stories to ambient lo-fi beats, Instagram accounts post “art” that looks like an oil spill of the corporate color palette. The internet is drowning in content that exists purely to exist, and the more of it there is, the more our brains start to flatten everything into the same dull texture. I used to love discovering weirdly niche corners of the web: forums where people are obsessed over a European artist I’ve never heard of, or behind-the-scenes footage of cult classic horror movies. These were all blogs and videos written by people who clearly didn’t care about follower retention, and with good reason. Now it feels like every inch of the internet has been digitally witch-hunted for Gemini content, strip-mined for engagement; human quirks have been lost to the ether and replaced with aesthetic edits of models that don't actually exist. Someone writes a heartfelt post and the first response is, “this feels AI-generated.” Someone shares a poem, and people jump in asking for “proof you wrote this.” We’ve turned paranoia into a hobby. It’s like the Turing test has been conditioned into our social rituals.
The most egregious part is that sometimes we’re right. It’s not just Krill Jesus — there really are fake accounts posting fake emotions, fake arguments, fake outrage especially. But the hairline division between real and fake is so blurred that we’ve forgotten how to believe anyone. I think the irony is that in trying to spot what’s artificial, we’ve started acting artificial ourselves. The way people articulate and conduct themselves online feels derivative of a mechanism; no one wants to sound sincere because sincerity gets mocked or, worse, mistaken for a bot. So we fill our conversations with layers of meta-commentary until it’s impossible to tell if anyone means what they’re saying.
I’m imagining a more extreme scenario in which the Dead Internet Theory is completely true and if the whole thing really were just bots talking to bots, posting and liking in an endless loop with no humans in sight. Would it even feel that different? I don’t know about you, but when I’m scrolling at two in the morning and staring at another ArtTok masterpiece posted by an account with what I deem to be an abnormally high engagement-to-quality ratio. I’m not saying the internet is literally dead. But it’s definitely undead and slouching along, kept alive by algorithms and nostalgia, feeding on our attention vampirically. Maybe you get a genuine kick out of A.I.-generated humor, and to each their own, but I’m keeping myself off Instagram for a little while.
Marc Staiano is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at mcs382@cornell.edu.
