Last year, with algorithms funnelling people into ever more specific corners of the internet, users found empowerment in their niches - from ButterTok to r/LiminalSpace. In those smaller spaces, they looked for the kind of pure authenticity and unhampered creativity that defined the early days of social media. Niches were meant to rescue social: to bring it back to its un-commodified roots.

Enter 2023. Offline, a cost of living crisis put everyone’s minds on their wallets. But looking back to their screens for some respite, users didn’t see a space free from commercial interests. Instead, even in a fragmented landscape, profit was loudly informing play. Platforms like X would verify anyone for a price; brands raced to hop on quick-moving trends, from goblincore to rat girl summer; algorithms surfaced lukewarm-but-palatable content rather than fringe creativity; influencers sang the praises of Shein’s fast fashion factories.

‘Eat the rich’ might have been pop culture’s favourite storyline, but there was no denying it: money was being made on social. For nostalgic users, this was cause to mourn the lost innocence of the early days of MySpace and Tumblr. But for future-facing ones, this meant staging a new kind of revolt: one that reframes how creativity can coexist with a ‘sellout internet’.