my time on the internet
I've been low-key following the basement community author here on bearblog, so I thought it'd be fun to participate in their Basement Community event, writing on "internet usage".
a new technology
When my grandmother first had a video call on Skype, she was completely shocked. She told us: "When I was younger, my grandmother got used to each technology as it arrived. Then, the television arrived and she just couldn't wrap her mind around it. It was beyond her time. To me, the TV felt quite natural, so I always wondered when my time would arrive. This is it, I just can't wrap my mind around this new technology."
Since then, I couldn't look at the TV in her apartment in the same way. The radio was constantly on and she would listen to the radio for hours while cooking or doing chores. Meanwhile, the TV would be reserved mostly for getting updates on politics. She barely used the computer and looked at it with distrust.1
my early days
My parents first got internet around when I was 12. We had just moved to the US and I couldn't speak English, so I had a hard time making friends. Magically, I somehow connected with an old friend from France through MSN Messenger. We'd talk often on and off for 2 years, only through text. In the end, I never saw his face again but somehow our friendship remained.
In those early days, I mostly used the internet to chat with friends and play flash games. I spent a lot of time clicking through all the sites at Pointless Sites.
rebelling on the internet
Like any teenager, I started to question the lessons that I was taught. The internet was the perfect place to explore ideas. I religiously checked Richard Wiseman's blog, learning about skepticism and psychology. Back then, atheism was a popular discourse on the internet and I ate it up. I started to argue with my mom about her religious views.
Sometime later I found out about porn on the internet, in all of its forms. It was really confusing at first, but eventually I started to understand what was going on. The internet played a role in what I found pleasurable. I later found out that it influenced the taste of most of my sexual partners as well. I was ashamed of this aspect of my internet usage for a while, but now I think it's better to be informed and thoughtful about it, especially with respect for all involved.
Even later, I finally got the courage to spend time on omegle. I was old enough to know not to exchange contacts and to maintain my privacy. I would have silly conversations, smart conversations, and smutty conversations. I met college students and professionals, some random people from all over the world. Sometimes I'd talk with someone for hours. It felt a little bad to not share more with someone I made such a connection with, but those rules kept me safe. I'd often participate in extensive roleplays. In this space, I explored my sexuality and then my gender, whereas it still felt taboo in "real life".
socializing
Facebook got big around this time, but I only ended up joining much later. Partially my mom was strongly against it and partially I read xkcd and was becoming an advocate of open source and community-supported infrastructures for communication. At one point, the teacher asked if anyone wasn't on Facebook and only I raised my hand.
Not being on Facebook was a definite tradeoff. As high school progressed, I became more and more socially isolated from my peers. Group projects were extremely confusing, as they'd make a group chat without me and only sorta keep me in the loop. They'd chat with each other and post parties on Facebook and I'd be at home by myself completely unaware.
Instead, I started to explore all the different MMO games. My favorites were the action MMORPG Lunia, the golf MMO Pangya, and the MMORPG Perfect World. (Only Perfect World survived!) Somehow I felt more comfortable interacting with others in an anonymous setting. I suppose this carries on to this day.
learning programming
I don't know what happened, but the later part of my high school years were mostly devoted to diving into programing from all angles. I stumbled upon How to Design Programs and somehow the structures of computers started to actually click. Halfway through, I stopped that book and started going through Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs and the associated lectures from the MIT OpenCourseWare. In retrospect, going through the book and course was the most useful thing I did in high school. It gave me tools to think about and tackle complex problems.
I started researching Lisp and eventually landed on the Hacker News website. As a social recluse, reading that helped me understand about business and startup culture. I still sometimes check it, but I've since realized that Hacker News has toxic sides I'm trying to get away from.
where are we now?
18 years ago, my friends would tell me that, someday, you could order pizza on the internet without talking to anyone! Now I do this routinely. Similarly, I continue to carry everything I've learned from those early explorations. I ended up interacting with people in real life in all the ways I talked with people on MMO games or even omegle. I still avoid big social media where I can't be anonymous. Learning programming was really helpful for me to get a job.
The web is different now.
The corporate machine has created some new horrors. Games and social media are more addictive than ever, while somehow providing less connection with other people. 15 years ago, something that constantly monitored our online activity would be dubbed as "spyware" and provoke fear. Today, internet tracking is so ubiquitous people joke about getting ads that are "too relevant".
Still, I am hopeful! I went through high school in the period between geocities and neocities. I tried learning to make a website about half a dozen times, but each time it felt too complicated and I would give up. The tools and tutorials are better now. This blog on bearblog is the first time I've felt free to fully express myself online. The number of possible games to play is increasing exponentially. We have just scratched the surface of possible experiences here.
I look forward to a time when I can look at a new technological experience, smile wistfully and say: "This is beyond my time."
She did manage to talk to us on Skype for the next decade with the help of my grandfather.↩