a lot's been said overall about hypnospace outlaw being really good at writing The Early Internet™️without judgment and it is INCREDIBLY good at that but one thing i really love is specifically how good it is at writing being a child on the internet. and not just in the way that all the child/teen dialogue feels really authentic because it DOES and is one of the best parts, but especially in how it makes the nostalgia you feel for hypnospace as a platform feel real when in-universe you're only there for like three days
i think part of it is because, as a player, like a child you're new to this wacky virtual world and you take a lot of things at face value at first. you learn this universe is just like ours but it's just a little sillier. look at all these weird foods and all these acronyms and all these funny people, sleeptime computing is a strange concept but with how early it's thrown at you, you take it as just a weird bit of worldbuilding, this is just the way things are, you don't really step back and think "huh, this sounds kind of dangerous or unhealthy actually" until the game invites you to
like a child on the internet, you're coming at things from a very innocent perspective because you trust the early worldbuilding and stagesetting and are figuring out the tone of the game still, i for one never considered the fact counselor ronnie was a troll because he seemed like the kind of sincerely cartoonish guy that would exist in this universe, and this world isn't one that really has that kind of cruelty... and then you really remember the fact yup, this is the internet, even a fictional one, of course it does! (can you tell i'm still betrayed?!? T_T)
it's interesting cuz i don't think there's much of a rug pull necessarily, no "a-ha! we tricked you into thinking this game was just silly when it's actually dark and serious!11!!!" moment aside from the jarring nature of the mindcrash, cuz grief and loss and coping with sudden change is a theme that's all over the game, even happening to the people we come to sorta parasocially know. it never stops being silly - counselor ronnie is still funny with the knowledge he's just a guy doing a bit because of the concept of some jackass making fun of kids and parents trolling their way into an educational grant - you just grow to look at that silliness with a different lens. you don't stop feeling the joy of your childhood, you just feel more on top of it
i think hypnospace itself was this way for a lot of people: knowing what happened it's genuinely quite skincrawling to remember how much of hypnOS was marketed towards children and the elderly, hypnospace is cool is a very funny little ditty and the game is of course very good at making you feel the childhood wonder of the internet feeling like a playground, but looking at it outside of that, it also nails the feeling of being a kid not realizing you're being advertised to (the emphasis on merchantsoft partners, the boppos namedrop in hypnospace is cool, everything about coolpunk), or being made fun of (m1nx, the dumpster, counselor ronnie), you're just having fun playing what feels like a cool video game!
i also have to bring up dylan himself in this regard, age is a huge thing in this game and i think dylan being specifically 21 is really telling of a lot of his... everything bwl. obviously he is a grown-ass man responsible for his actions especially as an authority figure who actively failed so many people at many turns long before he actually killed them, but his comparatively young age combined with his position in life as the brilliant and creative "whizz kid" in the form of being head of a tech company paints the picture of a "mature" kid who's become a very immature adult.
he likes mac and cheese and chocolate ice cream, his headband id is 50085D (BOOBS :D I HATE HIM), one of his co-programmers is his childhood best friend (which, maybe thats just me speaking as someone who knows what becomes of roddy, but blurring the lines between your Best Friend and your Employee sounds like a horrible idea beyond the very kiddish thought of "wow i'll get to work with RODDY all day!!") who he spends most of his time programming virtual pets with, he thinks a Cool Video Game will be enough to drive business - obviously adrian being so out of touch with hypnospace's audience hits hard as it comes lategame and we've built this mental image of him as the responsible one, but dylan is equally out of touch. adrian doesn't understand computers and dylan doesn't understand business.
dylan's too old to be a kid - he's a fan of the dumpster, he takes tiffany's harassment with a shrug, he clearly feels no kinship with the teenagers of the game - but he's also much too immature to really coexist with the other adults - he wants samantha harassed for the crime of asking him to be a more responsible boss, he and roddy's friendship crumbles, he tries to seek kinship in m1nx only to come off as a spoiled rich asshat trying to hang with the cool kids. he's got the worst of both in being able to hurt people with reckless undeveloped naivete like tim did AND with the power granted by being an adult with money and legal power of irresponsible habits like chowder man did!
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