The Internet is Made of Demons
According to one theory, the internet is made of demons. Like most theories about the internet, this one is mostly circulated online. On Instagram, I saw a screenshot of a Reddit post, containing a screenshot of a 4chan post, containing a screenshot of Tweet, containing two images. On the left, the weird, loopy lines of a microprocessor. On the right, the weird, loopy lines of a set of Solomonic sigils. Caption: ‘Boy I love trapping demons in microscopic silicon megastructures to do my bidding, I sure hope nothing goes wrong.’ In other versions, the demons themselves are the ones who invented the internet; it’s just their latest move in a five-thousand-year battle against humanity. As one four-panel meme comic explains:
The king’s pact binds them. They cannot show themselves or speak to us.
1) Create ways to see without seeing
2) Create ways to speak without speaking
Pictures of more Solomonic sigils, progressing into laptops and iPhones. The fourth panel, the punchline, has no words. Only a giant, mute, glassy-eyed face.
This theory is—probably—a joke. It is not a serious analysis. But still, there’s something there; there are ways in which the internet really does seem to work like a possessing demon. We tend to think that the internet is a communications network we use to speak to one another—but in a sense, we’re not doing anything of the sort. Instead, we are the ones being spoken through. Teens on TikTok all talk in the exact same tone, identical singsong smugness. Millennials on Twitter use the same shrinking vocabulary. My guy! Having a normal one! Even when you actually meet them in the sunlit world, they’ll say valid or based, or say y’all despite being British. Memes on Instagram have started addressing people as my brother in Christ, so now people are saying that too. Clearly, that name has lost its power to scatter demons.
https://damagemag.com/2022/04/21/the-in ... of-demons/