Necroing because i love both this and this project
Would computer related tropes and terms be acceptable.
I'll do something of current Internet Standings and such. Also I'll play with the idea of internet sites because people can use more than one internet site.
Youtube's the India of the Internet world, producing videos for some of the most powerful people of the internet. The Youtube Barons, e.g. the top Youtubers, are some of the most powerful men and woman alive, led by the man of seemingly limitless power, both in influence and in literal actual reality warping power, Pew Die Pie. It's also the India because it's large, dense, and in many places can be an utter shithole after dark (disclaimer, I know very little about irl India).
The major world superpowers include Facebook, the United Independent Social Networks (comprising Twitter, Snapchat, basically everything not named Facebook that's considered one of the other "social networks"), Reddit, and Tumblr. 4chan is also a powerful entity, though as a singlular country it's actual range of influence is rather small.
The seedier parts of the web are nested within the web, literal virtual realities in what I assume is already at least a metaphorical virtual reality. The porn networks on top, getting seedier and seedier until the deep and dark and shadow webs are closer to the center, the proverbial singularity of seediness from whence there is no escape.
The Twitch-Amazon Corp is a global MegaCorp. , shipping valuable videos, materials, weapons, doomsday devices, and other miscellaneous awful things across the globe. The internal company structure has been a mess since the merger with Twitch-Corp, with the CEO himself having been stuck in his own hideout for weeks now, constantly revolving from spinning tile to spinning tile. It stands as its own independent city state floating over the ocean, and tends to drift from place to place (think Colombia from Bioshock Infinite except less racist)
News sites function as traveling mercenary armies, for hire in any senseless war you can dream of. They keep the bloodshed between some of the larger nations like Reddit and Tumblr (and Twitch-Amizon, depending on the direction of the stream at that particular moment) to a minimum, though all out war does occasionally break out. They are essentially businesses, fueling eternal proxy wars between consoles and P Cs, Nintendrones and Xbots, Superwholocks and Homestuck trash, and so on and so fourth etc. etc. Buzzfeed has taken its role as Facebook's permanent army.
Some of the smaller sites, like Game Faqs and the forums of IMDB, serve a similar role as the European countries like Spain and Greece when they aren't in terrible economic troubles every one in a while. Ancient, old, not all that powerful, but still notable.
T Vtropes is a bastion of the world's knowledge and brightness, a proverbial Lighthouse of Alexandria. In theory. In practice it's a vortex of incredible time wasting where scholars debate the merits of cultural gems of self awareness while squabbling over pointless semantics. Mostly harmless.
edited 26th Jun '15 6:50:20 PM by InAnOdderWay
This. Is. Amazing.
Also, I caught that "Superwholocks and Homestuck trash". coughcoughtumblrsmaincivilwar*
edited 17th Jul '15 11:38:58 PM by SmartGirl333
Google and other search engines would probably be ports. They will have plenty of harbors/airports/wizard libraries dedicated to teleportation spells. There would be market stalls lined up along every way in and out of the city, trying to get a sale from travelers.
Web browsers might be represented as vehicles. They help you travel Internetlandia. They may crash sometimes.
Thinking of ideas to use with a literary work that is meant to be WikiWalked through.I headcanon browsers to be philosophies/religions as stated in an earlier post, they would make sense as transport in The Internet City
though. I was thinking that most of them (Chrome, Firefox, Safari etc.) wouldn't have annoying lifestyle restrictions, but IE would- when establishing a new site, the developer has to jump through hoops to make the society hospitable to IE users (mirroring how, in real life, Microsoft made IE not conform to the web dev standards just to be a special snowflake).
edited 24th Jul '15 8:25:43 PM by SmartGirl333
Internet Explorer as a mode of transport would probably be a horse or horse-drawn carriage. Old, outdated, and no one seems to be putting up hitching posts for them anymore.
Thinking of ideas to use with a literary work that is meant to be WikiWalked through.The Deep Web is an Eldritch Location, deeply connected to the Old Ones, and is more of a cosmic entity than a real place. Once you go there, you are dragged towards a Fate Worse than Death.
edited 5th Aug '15 5:06:06 AM by OmniGoat
This shall be my true, Start of Darkness
This definitely fits better in this world than the Internet City, but still doesn't seem to mesh in my mind. It's still like that is the round peg of completely fantasy, City is the square hole of pretty much realistic, and this is half-round half-square. Still, you can have that as your headcanon. :)
I might make a forum adventure of this.
I'm thinking an average guy from this world who was sucked in via his computer (he downloaded some program of dubious origin) as The Hero, but the rest of the party is up to the readers. I will pre-make some possible characters, but which ones- if any- join us is a matter of choice.
edited 2nd Sep '15 1:20:52 AM by SmartGirl333
Our hero wakes up in front of a Facebook Empire town.
I won't post every update here, i will expect you to follow the thread if you follow this one.
in case you need maps, randall from Xkcd make two online comunity maps:
"http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/256
"
"http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/802:_Online_Communities_2
"
so here you are
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

I think the video game site idea would fit pretty well for this world tbh. What would Steam do, though?
Also, going back to the virus thing from page one - Many people are encouraged to learn magic or potion-brewing in order to protect themselves and others from The Virus. Firewalls take the form of actual walls of fire, and anti-viruses take the form of several different potions and the like to stop infection.
i think i mostly want to see what happens when this whole place breaks apart