I Miss The Old Internet

When I was in grade 10, I went on a school trip to a nearby university. The trip itself was almost completely unmemorable. I don’t remember why we went. I don’t even remember which university we went to. The one thing I do remember, though, was that we were allowed to spend an hour in the university computer lab.

I’m dating myself here, but this would have been in 1992, maybe? And this was the first time I experienced the internet.

I can’t imagine that whatever I pulled up would have been groundbreaking or even remotely interesting, but that didn’t matter. I remember a feeling of awe, that feeling of facing something new, something incomprehensible but at the same time understanding that this was the future.

I didn’t know what this future would be, but I knew it was coming.

It was another couple of years before I got to experience the internet again. Viersen, the town I grew up in, saw its first internet cafe. The owner’s name was Kandis, but I don’t remember anything else about the cafe. What I do remember is the chat rooms.

I once again was in awe, in awe that I could talk to anyone anywhere in the world. I made an online friend, too, and we talked even after the novelty of the internet cafe and its chat rooms had worn off.

A few years went by, and I built my first website. It was called Dysfunctional and was a place for me to post poetry and short stories. This was long before social media, before likes and sharing, but you know what? You could still make connections even without the loud chatter of modern social media.

I joined webrings, message boards and, of course, had a guestbook on my website. The internet was a lot slower back then, but it was exciting. Now and then, out of the blue, you’d get a message on your guestbook or by email from someone who had, just by chance, stumbled onto your site and genuinely enjoyed what they saw.

You’d strike up conversation, sometimes just a few brief messages before moving on again to never meet again. There were no mean messages. I remember receiving messages with constructive criticism, shared just to be helpful. Or, at least that’s what I’d like to think.

And then social media reared its ugly head.

First there was MySpace. Then Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. Then countless others that I can’t even remember. And I was always right in there. Social media was all about making connections - but on speed. Or at least, so I thought.

But likes aren't connections, and not all things that glitter are gold. I don’t notice it at first, but gradually the excitement of social media is replaced with routine. You’re no longer on social media because you genuinely enjoy it, but because that’s just what you do now. Your friends do it. So you should, too.

There’s a lot more that could be said about social media, the damage I believe it does, but I think that’s a story for another time. Today I just wanted to share why I’m starting this site.

I want to go back to when the internet was fun. And I hope this site will do just that.