The Printed Internet

February 27, 2013 9:45 AM

The Printed Internet: One man's attempt to recreate the internet. On paper. And publish it on the internet.
posted by no regrets, coyote (18 comments total)

I work with people like this.
posted by mazola at 9:47 AM on February 27, 2013 [8 favorites]

That was much more interesting than I expected.

Somehow it wouldn't work nearly as well if he hadn't done the print-it-out-and-cut-it-up-and-photograph-it part.
posted by ook at 9:52 AM on February 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

This takes me back to my youth, when I carved War of the Worlds on stone tablets and read them on the radio.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:54 AM on February 27, 2013 [4 favorites]

We had a long conversation on a message board one time by writing out our comments & scanning in the paper & posting the images. Quoting got complex.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:58 AM on February 27, 2013

The OKCupid post might be a good starting point if it doesn't make sense right away. I laughed and laughed.
posted by no regrets, coyote at 10:03 AM on February 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

Why didn't he call it the printernet?
posted by davejay at 10:08 AM on February 27, 2013 [8 favorites]

It gets better and better the farther back you go. Where is this man's internet? I want to be on it.
posted by not_the_water at 10:08 AM on February 27, 2013

He mentions in his first post that he doesn't own or know how to use Photoshop. I realize that this could easily be done digitally, but somehow I like it better this way.
posted by dobi at 10:58 AM on February 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

I thought this was going to be the sum of the internet and an examination of mental illness. As it is I think this is great.
posted by cjorgensen at 11:01 AM on February 27, 2013

Why didn't he call it the printernet?

I thought of that too, but figured he didn't want to have it in any way possible share mindspace with 'pinterest', which sounds similar.
posted by FatherDagon at 11:36 AM on February 27, 2013

I wondered about doing this for MetaFilter once.
posted by Toekneesan at 1:17 PM on February 27, 2013

I still don't get it. Really.

I might have overstated my case. I don't think I "get it" either. But that was the one that got me to keep reading.
posted by no regrets, coyote at 1:38 PM on February 27, 2013

If he had faxed it before posting, the result being all grainy, he could call himself a real estate agent.
posted by telstar at 2:37 PM on February 27, 2013

I don't really get it either, but I think it's kind of funny and I'm enjoying it, so I'm going to keep going forward with it and more-or-less act like I do get it.

Holy Shit, I just described my life.
posted by benito.strauss at 3:10 PM on February 27, 2013 [5 favorites]

I'm not really sure the point of this concept, but it's interesting. And I found the grizzly bear post hilarious (to the point that I created a separate FPP for it, not realizing that this post had already been created).
posted by asnider at 5:36 PM on February 27, 2013

Whoa, there is some seriously good writing in here. The Paris Review Franzen interview and Buzzfeed 16 Pictures of Dead Cats from the 90's are so funny that I don't even care if this is a tumblr-to-book play, heck, I'd maybe buy the book!
posted by hap_hazard at 7:47 PM on February 27, 2013

dusting it off:
[this is good]

this might actually be some of the best of the web
posted by es_de_bah at 8:50 PM on February 27, 2013 [3 favorites]

I wondered about doing this for MetaFilter once.

I'd buy a nicely bound heavily edited (err, curated) annual metafilter thingie to put on my shelf. Either the one in the library, or the one next to the toilet, at least until I'm finished.
posted by DigDoug at 5:58 AM on February 28, 2013