Monday, June 26, 2006
Internet in the Olden Days
My first exposure to the Internet was in 1992, right after I moved to Los Angeles, when I would get online at work to email coworkers and do research for my boss. Not long after that I got AOL at home so that I could stay in touch with my friend, Kat, three and a half hours away in Visalia.
I hadn't lived in LA very long, didn't know many people, and wasn't much of a sleeper, so getting online and chatting helped burn up the time. Besides joshing with Kat, I was able to get a glimpse into the lives of people I never would have communicated with otherwise, in a completely safe environment. I learned other points-of-view, talked about Gilligan's Island, have Is My Baby Normal? sessions with other parents…whatever I was looking for I could find it, anytime.
In the early days of AOL it cost $3 an hour to be online. A newly divorced mom with a baby, I had to ration out my online time carefully so I scrutinized every cent I spent.
At the grocery store before I would put, say, a box of cookies in my cart I would stop and think, I could spend an hour online for the same money, and put the package back on the shelf. Anything to add a little extra AOL time for those hours when my daughter was at her dad's house and I wandered from room to room wondering what to do with myself.
It was always fun to run into other AOL members out in the real world. If you heard a complete stranger mention AOL, it was so rare you would always take notice.
"Ohmigod, you're on AOL?"
"Why, yes, are you?"
Then we would exchange screen names, no matter whom the person is, just for the sheer novelty of being able to chat with someone you have actually seen in person.
When AOL switched to a monthly flat-rate fee, I thought it was a dream come true. Imagine, being able to spend time online without watching the clock!
Not long after that, the chat rooms started to fill up. The days of jumping into just about any chat room and being able to find an interesting conversation was over. When you were paying three bucks an hour, you made dang sure you had something to say. When it costs the same no matter how long you are online, I found out that there are people out there who have nothing better to do than going around screaming "WHAZZUPPP???!!!" Little by little, chat rooms became the Den of the Horny and Retarded and I gave up on them for good.
Message boards seemed like a fun place to communicate with people of a like mind, but instead I just got a startling look at the psyche of the American population. According to the message boards, the world is made up of a bunch of ignorant, narrow-minded people who never learned how to use their spell check. If you do happen to find a good conversation, there is invariably one or two people who only participate because it affords an eventual opportunity to get up on the soap box and start a preachin'!
The worst were the religious/spiritual message boards. There is always the guy that gets on there and does nothing but quote the bible. That would seem sensible except I have never visited a Christian message board. Some people feel compelled to go on alternative religion message boards to quote the bible to the members, missing the point that if someone is say, Wiccan, they probably aren't going to give a rats ass what the bible says. Apparently the Christians who are educated enough to make a good theological argument without quoting the bible aren't the ones doing this.
It's also a little disconcerting to know that there are people out there who have nothing better to do than to write quizzes. People, self-absorbed by nature, just love taking quizzes, because it's really important to be able to share with the world which Sex and the City Character you are. Not that I don't dutifully do all of the quizzes that show up in my Inbox, but who sets up the criteria? Why am I orange and not yellow? Who says my personality is a carnation?
What about the people who make up the modern myths? My friend's cousin got his kidney stolen when he was in Las Vegas, that sort of thing. Are there people out there who are typing up the newest Urban Legend while laughing maniacally screaming, "FOOLS! FOOLS!" or do they sort of build up gradually like a game of Telephone until someone actually believes it and feels obligated to warn everyone else?
I can't avoid mentioning spam here either. When we still had to pay by the hour, spam was a rare occurrence, now I'm engulfed in letters from folks concerned about my mortgage rates and penis size. Who actually responds to spam? These people must be out there, if spam wasn't lucrative then they would have stopped annoying us by now. As a rule, I will not do business with anyone who knocks on my door, calls me, or sends me unwanted email. Even if it's a Girl Scout selling cookies.
I guess it's gone forever; the Golden Age of the Internet, although I'm sure there are nice, cozy little pockets out there I will never discover. I abandoned AOL long ago when they didn't keep the Mac software updated but still kept charging us the same price as the PC users. I now have lots of friends here in LA, and if I feel like chatting in the middle of the night, I just wake up my (new) husband or call one of my insomniac cronies.
I hadn't lived in LA very long, didn't know many people, and wasn't much of a sleeper, so getting online and chatting helped burn up the time. Besides joshing with Kat, I was able to get a glimpse into the lives of people I never would have communicated with otherwise, in a completely safe environment. I learned other points-of-view, talked about Gilligan's Island, have Is My Baby Normal? sessions with other parents…whatever I was looking for I could find it, anytime.
In the early days of AOL it cost $3 an hour to be online. A newly divorced mom with a baby, I had to ration out my online time carefully so I scrutinized every cent I spent.
At the grocery store before I would put, say, a box of cookies in my cart I would stop and think, I could spend an hour online for the same money, and put the package back on the shelf. Anything to add a little extra AOL time for those hours when my daughter was at her dad's house and I wandered from room to room wondering what to do with myself.
It was always fun to run into other AOL members out in the real world. If you heard a complete stranger mention AOL, it was so rare you would always take notice.
"Ohmigod, you're on AOL?"
"Why, yes, are you?"
Then we would exchange screen names, no matter whom the person is, just for the sheer novelty of being able to chat with someone you have actually seen in person.
When AOL switched to a monthly flat-rate fee, I thought it was a dream come true. Imagine, being able to spend time online without watching the clock!
Not long after that, the chat rooms started to fill up. The days of jumping into just about any chat room and being able to find an interesting conversation was over. When you were paying three bucks an hour, you made dang sure you had something to say. When it costs the same no matter how long you are online, I found out that there are people out there who have nothing better to do than going around screaming "WHAZZUPPP???!!!" Little by little, chat rooms became the Den of the Horny and Retarded and I gave up on them for good.
Message boards seemed like a fun place to communicate with people of a like mind, but instead I just got a startling look at the psyche of the American population. According to the message boards, the world is made up of a bunch of ignorant, narrow-minded people who never learned how to use their spell check. If you do happen to find a good conversation, there is invariably one or two people who only participate because it affords an eventual opportunity to get up on the soap box and start a preachin'!
The worst were the religious/spiritual message boards. There is always the guy that gets on there and does nothing but quote the bible. That would seem sensible except I have never visited a Christian message board. Some people feel compelled to go on alternative religion message boards to quote the bible to the members, missing the point that if someone is say, Wiccan, they probably aren't going to give a rats ass what the bible says. Apparently the Christians who are educated enough to make a good theological argument without quoting the bible aren't the ones doing this.
It's also a little disconcerting to know that there are people out there who have nothing better to do than to write quizzes. People, self-absorbed by nature, just love taking quizzes, because it's really important to be able to share with the world which Sex and the City Character you are. Not that I don't dutifully do all of the quizzes that show up in my Inbox, but who sets up the criteria? Why am I orange and not yellow? Who says my personality is a carnation?
What about the people who make up the modern myths? My friend's cousin got his kidney stolen when he was in Las Vegas, that sort of thing. Are there people out there who are typing up the newest Urban Legend while laughing maniacally screaming, "FOOLS! FOOLS!" or do they sort of build up gradually like a game of Telephone until someone actually believes it and feels obligated to warn everyone else?
I can't avoid mentioning spam here either. When we still had to pay by the hour, spam was a rare occurrence, now I'm engulfed in letters from folks concerned about my mortgage rates and penis size. Who actually responds to spam? These people must be out there, if spam wasn't lucrative then they would have stopped annoying us by now. As a rule, I will not do business with anyone who knocks on my door, calls me, or sends me unwanted email. Even if it's a Girl Scout selling cookies.
I guess it's gone forever; the Golden Age of the Internet, although I'm sure there are nice, cozy little pockets out there I will never discover. I abandoned AOL long ago when they didn't keep the Mac software updated but still kept charging us the same price as the PC users. I now have lots of friends here in LA, and if I feel like chatting in the middle of the night, I just wake up my (new) husband or call one of my insomniac cronies.
