A new era of the internet & the end of pen spinning (as we know it)

Long time no see. RPD here.

The world is upon its imminent destruction.

Is what I'd like to say, but sadly that's not the case. The current situation is much worse: the world not only will continue existing, but we have no knowledge nor tools to deal with the consequences of what's happening now. We're lost and helpless.

One of the most important things I learnt when writing my book is that the social dynamics of the internet completely determine the cultural output of the hobby. I identified 4 clear-cut eras (pre-internet, personal pages, forums, social media) and the hobby looked completely different in each of them (sparse output, trick naming & discovery, tournaments & collaborations, decrease of large projects & increased single-spinner activity).

WC16 wasn't organized due to this change in social dynamics. Spinners couldn't organize in forums, so it took some time for spinners to reorganize in social media until the 2017 tournaments happened. We've seen the same this year with WT23, being the first year without a WT since the tournament's inception 16 years prior.

This is no coincidence. It's hard to speak in historical terms about current events, since that's not history but journalism. However, I'm certain that the era of social media dominance as we know it is over.

Let me explain. Online social networks functioned under a certain, unwritten social contract. You would earnestly read the opinions on politics of users with funny nicknames or fight with strangers about something that you learnt about yesterday under the premise that those users, despite their anonymity, were real people. With the spread of AI this is no longer the case. Furthermore, timeline algorithms and user manipulation has gotten so good and so aggressive that the number of people being aware of the damage the internet is doing to their mental well being has risen dramatically.

This is a problem. Pen spinning requires people to binge-watch solos and CVs for new spinners to improve, to read tons of info in order to acquire the necessary knowledge to participate in the community. It requires a certain amount of obsession and frustration. Old internet dynamics did exactly this: they threw random people into random rabbit holes, for them never to come back out of them. The new internet does the exact opposite: it shows large amounts of useless info to people to create the illusion of them entering a new community, but pulls them out of it before they realize they have to put some effort.

This is good for making money. We see this every day in the SPSC discord. Someone comes from TikTok, they want to buy a mod. They want it cheap and want it now, so they want to buy whatever crap Amazon sells them for $9'99. We explain to them why that is a bad idea, but there's no use, this person will never talk in our forum again. The SPSC discord currently has 2000 members, and about 20 active users. 

Dear, look at this pen. I will show you enough info to understand the inside jokes of our community so you can consume our content. The only condition—don't swipe away. Isn't it beautiful?

It definitely is beautiful, in a morbid way. In the same way that streaming platforms like Twitch evoke the same feelings as hanging out with friends or having a girlfriend, but with completely one-sided relationships (parasocial relationships), modern SNS algorithms evoke the feeling of belonging, in a completely one-sided way.

I have experienced this. I used to watch a lot of Trackmania videos. I know the tricks, the strategies, the big players, hearing some of those names evokes the same memories as hearing the name of an old internet friend. Yet I can't play the game, nobody knows me, I have made zero meaningful human relationships through that community, because I don't belong to it. The algorithm just made me think I do. As long as I consumed content, it would keep the illusion alive for me.

What we need to understand is that tournaments and collaborations were the natural byproduct of former internet dynamics. People procrastinating 15 years ago led to them creating new tricks, creating the CV series that we've come to adore and respect today. Doomscrolling doesn't lead to this—the creation of these cultural products nowadays requires a very conscious effort. It requires someone to exist in the internet, and yet go against everything that the modern internet promotes.

This is why there was no WT23. The oldies are all burn out from swimming upstream in this environment and there's no incentive for the young spinners to take the lead. Several prominent Japanese spinners were saying that JapEn project should be left to rest, while the JEB admin is under constant stress, always in the red and with motivation issues for projects like tournaments, gatherings and the yearly CV. This year, who will organize WC24? Who will organize PSO24?

And maybe more importantly, why?

I believe that the internet will settle under a new form during the next few years and, right now, we don't know how that will look like. I believe that invite-only platforms will gain prominence, as it's the only way to regain the social contract's clause of mutual humanity. The internet will probably divide in two, those who fully indulge in the parasocial relations of the AI-powered platforms and those who just seek information and communication. I think that this new era will be even rougher for pen spinning that the SNS-based one. 

If I'm allowed to speculate, I think that pen spinning will have a resurgence at some point in the future. Early 2000s culture is becoming trendy again and it won't be long until people start to build old-fashioned communities. In the mechanical pencil world, a Reddit user built a separate forum called Knockology, as his way to escape from the Reddit madness. This is a heavily moderated community: alt accounts are forbidden, users who previously troubled others are banned, and needless to say, everybody's human. Google has changed his SEO policy and has started to favour forums and old-fashioned sites, with many filters to detect heavily search-optimized fake sites and AI generated content. Old-fashioned search engines will probably leverage this element of human curation and trust vs ChatGPT's results and the like.

Even if WT and WC are not organized again, pen spinning will not die. Even if all spinners were to quit right now, pen spinning will not die. The result of all spinner's activity to this day is a legacy that lives on the net, and regardless of the new social dynamics, this legacy will live on. Pen spinning will change, and will flourish. Let's let it evolve.