EP 68: The Internet Is Dead, Stop Trusting the Feed
The Internet Is Dead. Stop Trusting the Feed.
Why bots, algorithms, and misinformation are rewriting how we connect online — and what designers must do next.
- The Dead Internet Theory is not a fringe conspiracy — it is a lived experience. Bots, AI-generated content, and manipulative algorithms have fundamentally changed what the feed actually is.
- Social media platforms were never built for your benefit. They are built to keep you engaged, sell you things, and shape what you believe. Knowing that changes how you use them.
- In-person and real human connection has never mattered more. As the feed gets emptier, relationships built offline become the actual engine of trust and business growth.
- AI can give you time back — but only if you use it intentionally. The goal is less busywork, more real life. Not more content for a feed that is already full of noise.
- Private communities built around genuine interest and real identity are what is coming next. Not social media. Not another platform owned by a billionaire with an agenda.
The Short Answer
The internet is not literally gone. But the version of it that felt like real human connection — where you posted something and actual people responded, where you found real information from real sources, where the feed reflected what you actually cared about — that version is largely dead. What replaced it is a system designed to divide, distract, and monetize your attention. This episode is about naming that honestly, and figuring out what designers do with that knowledge.
What Dead Internet Theory Actually Means
Dead Internet Theory is the idea that a significant portion of internet activity — comments, engagement, content, even entire accounts — is now generated by bots rather than real people. Reports suggest that in some platform comment sections, close to half of the activity is non-human. Bots arguing with bots. Bots generating outrage to pull humans in. Bots keeping the engagement metrics up so the platform can show advertisers that people are still there.
Jenna is not presenting this as a conspiracy theory. She is presenting it as something she has watched unfold over nearly a decade of building online communities. She watched Facebook groups fill with AI-generated content and fabricated historical stories with AI images attached. She watched LinkedIn become a stream of polished, soulless AI posts from people who want to be seen as thought leaders without having an actual thought. She watched engagement drop while ad costs went up.
"Half of the comment sections are bots. Whether they're AI or some other format of bot — they're there for engagement. Some are there just to tear people apart. The algorithms show you what they want you to see."
— Jenna GaidusekOnce you see it, you cannot unsee it. And once you know it, you can stop taking the feed personally and start treating it for what it is: a manipulated environment that is not an accurate reflection of reality, your audience, or the world.
Platforms Were Not Built for You
This is the part that Jenna is most direct about. Social media platforms were not created so that you could connect with people who share your interests, market your design services, or build a community. They were created to capture attention and sell advertising. Everything else — the groups, the stories, the comment sections, the follow buttons — is infrastructure for that core business model.
The experience of being on these platforms has become ads, anger, and division because that combination keeps people scrolling longer than contentment does. That is not a bug. It is the intended outcome.
When you know that the platform has an agenda that is not yours, you can use it accordingly — showing up when it serves a real purpose, without expecting it to give back what it was never designed to provide.
Jenna is still on Instagram because she wants a record of these conversations in public. She is not there because she believes the algorithm is working in her favor, because she is chasing follower counts, or because she thinks the engagement she gets is representative of her actual audience. She is there on her own terms, with low expectations of the platform and high expectations of herself.
Misinformation, Research, and Your Own Discernment
The erosion of trust online is not just about bots. It is about the ease with which misinformation spreads, gets amplified by algorithms, and gets picked up as fact by people who have not traced it back to a source. Anyone can publish a website. Anyone can create a study. Anyone can put up a social account that looks authoritative.
Jenna's approach: she does not trust information unless it comes from a person speaking directly from their own experience, or unless she can trace it back through multiple legitimate sources. She goes down the rabbit hole. She asks who published it, what their credentials are, and whether the source actually exists. She treats everything she reads online as potentially false until she has a reason to believe otherwise.
For designers, this matters in two directions. First, the information you are consuming and repeating about your industry — AI tools, trend forecasts, business advice — deserves the same skepticism you would apply to anything else online. Second, your own presence needs to be clearly, unmistakably human. Real opinions. Real experience. Real voice. That is the only thing that holds up in an environment where everything else is suspect.
The internet doesn't know what's next. It is a predictive tool — it looks for patterns in what already exists. If you want to lead your industry rather than follow it, some of what makes you different should stay off the feed entirely.
Where Real Connection Actually Happens Now
Jenna has spent the past few years investing more in in-person relationships than in her social media presence — and she is clear that the return on that investment is not comparable. The people who support your work most consistently, who refer clients, who want to collaborate, who show up when you need them, are almost never strangers you met through an algorithm. They are people you met in a room.
This is not nostalgia. It is practical. If the feed is increasingly unreliable as a channel for real connection and real business, then the time and energy you redirect toward in-person visibility, real conversations, and genuine relationships is not a step backward. It is a strategic reallocation.
AI as a Tool for Freedom, Not More Content
Jenna makes a point worth sitting with: AI could actually be the solution to reclaiming time from the internet — but only if you use it to reduce busywork rather than to generate more output for a feed that is already oversaturated.
The version of AI use that pulls you deeper into the scroll — using it to produce more posts, more content, more presence across more platforms — is the wrong direction. The version that gives you back an hour a day by handling email drafts, summarizing research, cleaning up transcripts, and organizing your thinking — that is the version that actually serves you.
"I teach AI. But I do not replace myself with AI. Any interaction with me — I want it to be as human as possible."
— Jenna GaidusekThe goal Jenna keeps coming back to is simple: use AI for the things that pull you away from what only you can do, so that you have more capacity for the human parts of your work and your life. Less time on inbox management. More time in client conversations. Less time reformatting content. More time rearranging furniture because it brings you joy. That is the trade worth making.
A Reset for the Week
This episode is not a call to delete your accounts or abandon your online presence. It is a call to be honest about what you are getting from the time you spend there — and to make different choices if the answer is "not much."
Jenna is the go-to educator for design professionals who want to use technology without losing their creative edge. A designer turned tech advocate, she's a nationally recognized speaker, podcast host, community builder, and custom app builder based in Charleston, SC.
Her mission: make AI accessible, practical, and ethical for every interior designer — from solopreneurs to established firms.
Disclaimer: This blog was written using AI as a recap from the recording then edited by the author for accuracy and details.
