How I Came To Know "The Internet"

The first memory I have of the internet is that horrible dial-up sound, that scratchy, robot-rolling-his-rs-sound. The internet was that thing my parents did for work sometimes.

The next memory is one of third grade, when it became known to my through my good friend that an e-mail address was a cool thing to have. She was moving back to Korea the next year, so it wasn't all that difficult to convince even my anti-new-things-for-children mother to let me get a hotmail. AOL IM, unfortunately, was a different story.

My next significant internet experience: Neopets. Neopets Neopets Neopets. I probably have seven or so Neopets accounts floating around out there with numerous Acaras, Shoyrus, Aishas, Usuls, and especially Xweetoks doomed to eternal starvation.

During late elementary school and some of junior high, my (other) good friend would e-mail me links to entertaining things on Newgrounds, Homestar Runner, Albino Blacksheep, and various other sites. I have a distinct memory of working very hard to get to the end of the Impossible Quiz (which I never did because I realized there may be more important things in life (I may have been mistaken)).

In junior high I also had a massive crush on a boy (big surprise, I know). Being thirteen, inexperienced, and terrible at human interaction, I took to stalking his Xanga page (I didn't have one) and leaving comments anonymously. Because that is obviously how you get a boy to like you. Spoiler: it didn't work and I forgot about him rather quickly.

The final part of the largely insignificant portion of my internet experience is playing Gaia Online. It was certainly fun, but I got bored quickly and realized they wanted me to pay them real money. I just always liked making those cute little avatars.

Now then. Onto the important stuff. The three more defining parts of my internet experience.

#1 - Webcomics.

Sometime in junior high school, my best friend Allie said "You should check out sluggy.com". I did. And I was hooked. I read the entirety of the nine or ten years of Sluggy Freelance that had passed. Then I discovered QC. And Shortpacked! and xkcd and Real Life Comics and countless others that I eventually gave up on or forgot or decided weren't worth it anymore. My current line of bookmarks includes xkcd, Sandra and Woo, Roomies! Redux, Shortpacked!, Dumbing of Age, Buttersafe, Real Life Comics, and Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. And yes, I am an avid David Willis Fan.

Look, RLC even did a comic about my hometown (I swear we aren't Nazis)!

#2 - songstowearpantsto.com

It may seem strange that a single website could be so significant in my internet story, but songstowearpants to was my first experience with online communities and how the internet can and has changed the way we interact with the world around us. For anyone who doesn't know, Andrew Huang (the creator of the site) was looking to make some money and posted some eBay auctions for personalized songs. It ended up being more successful than he expected, so he launched the website and it has since been his job.

He recently moved to YouTube and found even more success there, specifically with the hit song Pink Fluffy Unicorns Dancing On Rainbows. Since YouTube, he's been able to work on stuff he wants to, not just fan suggestions and commissions. And the fun part for me is that I've been able to watch him all the way.

But this is the other significant part of Andrew Huang for me - he was kind of the reason I started doing the whole YouTube thing. Which brings us to the obvious...

#3 - YouTube

Last fall, a funny chain of events occured: Andrew Huang brought me to Gunnarolla, who brought me to vlogbrothers, who brought me to nerimon...and there is where the chain stops, because I became so curious and so enthralled with all these worldwide communities that had existed for years within my reach but out of my sight. I'd seen a lot of these people's videos before, but I'd never wanted to look deeper. So I stopped letting myself be sent places and started sending myself places instead.

I'm not sure if I'm so interested in the kind of interaction that online video has created because I'm interested in how technology and the internet have changed and are still changing the ways we communicate and exchange information, or if it's vice-versa.

But hey, here I am, spending part of my free evening writing a blog post for people I only met a couple weeks ago, and not even in "real life". And it feels like one of the best things I could be spending my time on.

Oh, and here are my thumbs:

Exciting, am I right?