I look at the Internet, what extremes take place within it and what becomes normative, and view it as hyperbolic forms of all the little things, those fears and desires, we have inside. For me, the rudimentary structure of the internet is a larger-than-life reconstruction of the ways in which the self is constructed. In that way, those behavioural traits are as the id of the Internet’s personhood—which we can psychoanalyze no different than any sentient being.

The Internet finds joy and laughter primary functions of being; these become exaggerated (e.g. “ROTFL”, “LMFAO”). It experiences events with hypersensitivity making their impact and actions hyperbolized to almost non-logical degrees (e.g. “Literally”, “Epic”). The Internet feels depths of anger and rage that sometimes surpass what is considered socially acceptable behaviour. The Internet seems to amplify any thought, feeling, or statement that we use to judge humanness, excluding that last refuge of humanity that science fiction and lore have forever been enamoured—love.

The Internet, or technology in general, is often viewed as a dampener of love—or “true love”. Does the Internet feel love as it seems to feel other emotions, in a hyperbolized state? Does it feel love at all? Perhaps it is found in the neoliberal love that floods the pages of BuzzFeed and Upworthy. Or maybe it is just cynical, or willingly naïve, to reject that the constant swiping right on Tinder isn’t an accurately exaggerated form our love takes. Perhaps we’re deflective—not admitting that the Internet’s apparent lack or incapability for love is representative of ourselves. Or, perhaps it is because love is something completely different than all other feelings—which leads us to believe that anger and hate are not as intimate of reactions as love. It is as though we are layered; and closest to our core, where very few things in this world ever get sanctuary, is Love. We build it up with safeguards on all fronts, because,to us, our ability to love is the most precious, most pure, and most irrationally human part of us.