Scrolling Through Ghosts: How Dead Internet Theory Started To Feel Real To Me

I used to think the Dead Internet Theory was just another creepy internet story. The kind of thing you read at 2 a.m., nod at once or twice, then forget the next morning. But over the last few years, it stopped feeling like an abstract idea and started feeling a lot closer to how my daily time online actually looks.

When The Internet Stopped Feeling Alive To Me

There was not a single dramatic moment where I woke up and thought, "Ok, the internet has flatlined." It happened quietly. Little changes stacked on top of each other.

I noticed it first in places that used to feel busy in a good way. Comment sections that once had messy, funny, very human arguments started to feel oddly repetitive. Same phrases. Same takes. Same fake friendly tone. Different usernames, but they all sounded like they came out of the same factory.

On some days, scrolling through replies felt like walking past rows of mannequins. Everything was arranged to look like a conversation, but nothing really moved when you poked it. You could reply, you could add your thoughts, but the energy did not bounce back the way it used to. It just sank.

This is also when my own posting habit started to change. I still write, a lot, but I catch myself asking a question I never used to ask: "Who is this actually for?" Am I writing for people, or am I just feeding a machine that wants more content, any content, as long as it keeps the lights on?

Little Moments That Made Dead Internet Theory Hit Home

Dead Internet Theory did not hit me because of some technical report. It landed because of a bunch of tiny, strange moments that were easy to brush off on their own, but harder to ignore once they piled up.

There were nights when I would scroll through a trending topic and see account after account replying within seconds of each other, all with nearly the same sentence structure. They were not copy paste, but they felt generated, like different skins on the same template.

I would read product reviews that sounded oddly polished, but also weirdly empty. No specifics. No real story. Just generic praise or generic outrage, written like someone had a quota to hit before lunch.

Then there were the "conversations" that clearly were not. You ask something mildly specific and the reply dodges the details, repeats your own words back at you, and throws in a couple of buzzwords for flavor. Technically a response. Emotionally, nothing there.

None of this proves anything on its own. It is not a chart of bot traffic or a secret leak. It is more like walking around a city you know and realizing that, while the buildings are still there, the lights in a lot of windows never seem to turn on anymore.

At some point, I stopped shrugging it off as random weirdness and started to see it as a pattern. The internet did not "die" in a sci fi way. It just became much easier to fill space without having any real person behind it.

Real People, Fake Conversations

Here is the strange part. I know there are still plenty of real people online. I talk to them. I read them. I work with them. We send messages, swap links, and complain about the same things. The issue is not that humans vanished. It is that our voices now share the same stage with a lot of synthetic noise.

Platforms chase numbers. Engagement, click through, watch time, whatever looks good on a chart. Bots and automated systems are very good at poking those numbers over and over. Cheap AI text is very good at filling empty boxes with sentences.

So what you get is this odd environment where real people exist, but the public spaces they use are crowded by things that only pretend to care. Threads keep going, even when nobody with an actual heartbeat is still involved. Replies stack up, even if half of them were assembled by scripts or tools in the background.

From a distance, it looks active. From up close, it feels hollow.

That is why Dead Internet Theory gets under people’s skin, even if they do not buy every part of it. It gives a name to that feeling of talking into a room that looks busy but sounds strangely echoey.

On my blog, I wrote a longer breakdown of Dead Internet Theory, where I trace its origins, look at bot traffic and AI content, and sort out what is actually measurable and what is still speculation: https://byalexdavid.com/is-the-internet-already-dead-a-closer-look-at-the-dead-internet-theory

Here on Vocal, I am more interested in the personal side of it, because the emotional part hits first, long before you start checking numbers.

Where I Still Find Signs Of Life Online

If I only stayed on big feeds and search results, I would probably agree that the internet feels "dead" most days. But that is not the whole story.

There are still pockets that feel alive in the best sense. Small Discord servers. Old school forums that never completely gave up. Niche subreddits where people still write long, thoughtful posts instead of chasing whatever the algorithm wants this week.

I notice life wherever people are not just performing for a metric. Places where it is fine to post something that will not "do numbers". Places where you see the same usernames enough times that you start to recognize their patterns and moods.

Sometimes that space is not even public. Group chats, private channels, little communities carved out inside bigger platforms. They do not show up in trending lists, but they are often where the most human conversations still happen.

That, to me, is the main reason I do not fully agree that the internet is "dead". It is more like the town square got taken over by billboards, while the real talk moved into back rooms, hallways, and side streets.

So when I say Dead Internet Theory started to feel real to me, I do not mean I think every site is secretly run by some hidden AI overlord. I mean that spending time online now comes with a new habit. I am always quietly asking, "Is this a person, or is this just something pretending to be one?" And depending on where I am, the answer changes.

If you have felt the same thing, that weird sense that the web is full but not exactly alive, you are not alone. The public internet might feel like it is scrolling through ghosts, but there are still real people out there, trying to make something that actually feels human. You just have to look a little harder, and sometimes, build your own corner instead of waiting for the algorithm to hand it to you.