Yeah, IRC was basically the blueprint for a lot of what we still use now — it’s like an early version of Discord/Slack with topic-based “rooms” and live chat. I also think it’s cool how it shifted internet communication from slower, one-to-one stuff (like email) to real-time group conversations where communities could form and evolve on the fly.

Totally — email was basically the OG “DM.” It’s kind of wild that something created back in the 1960s/70s is still a core way we communicate today, just with nicer interfaces and way more spam.

This section makes it click that a “tweet” isn’t just one thing—it’s basically a bundle of lists (a list of images, a list of likes, a list of replies, etc.). Thinking of it that way also helps explain why social media data gets huge fast, because each post can point to multiple growing lists. It’s kind of wild that even something simple like “who liked this” is literally stored as a list of accounts behind the scenes.

This part made me realize how “metadata” can be just as revealing as the main content, even if it seems harmless—like time, location, or who replied. In social media, you can sometimes learn more from patterns in metadata (posting frequency, networks, timing) than from what someone actually said. It also feels like a big privacy issue, because people might not realize they’re “sharing” all that extra info just by using a platform.

The “fake bot” idea is wild because it flips the usual problem—now humans can pretend to be AI to get attention, seem mysterious, or dodge accountability (“it wasn’t me, it was the bot”). That makes trust even harder, since it blurs what’s real automation versus just performance. It also makes me think platforms might need clearer disclosure norms, because otherwise people get rewarded for deception either way.

It’s kinda scary how coordinated bot/troll activity can make a backlash look way bigger (and more “real”) than it actually is, which can totally warp what people think the general public believes. The stat about a lot of negative tweets being politically motivated or not even human really shows why “online outrage” isn’t always a reliable measure of real opinion. It also feels unfair to creators, because they can get pressured or harassed by something that’s basically manufactured.