Dear Internet,
I don’t remember when we first met. I have known you for as long as I have been alive, or at least as long as I’ve been conscious of living. I used you on my dad’s boxy white Macintosh to play games on Nickelodeon.com. I spent hours assembling Krabby Patties in the kitchen of the Krusty Krab. I experienced an online multi-player game based on the movie Snow Day (2000). I adopted a Shoyru on Neopets and named it something along the lines of Hotty4747. My friend and I made a website about fairies and became engaged in a heated turf war with a user named ShaggyDog who insisted that fairies were “not real” (killing many fairies in the process).
I grew up a little, discovered forums. There was one called Harmonyland where teenagers with brightly colored hair and gif-laden Geocities pages would trade pixelated avatars and talk shit about their lives. This was how I learned what abortion was. One time I came across a photo of a Hello Kitty-themed vibrator, which was, incidentally, when I learned what vibrators were. I was shaken to my core.
When I was in middle school, I came across online roleplaying. My friends and I would take turns on our parents’ computers, refreshing you obsessively, waiting for replies in our Gaia Online inboxes. Later, I would roleplay on Livejournal, via instant messenger, and then on fandom-specific forums. I made friends I still talk to every day, and I have you to thank for that.
Were you and I ever friends?
Do you remember Molly? How about Shane? I remember them. I remember Myspace Top 8, secret tumblr accounts, Chris and the powerpoint he sent me. I still think of that girl I came across on Xanga who’s page automatically played Crash by Dave Matthews, the posts she wrote about wanting to be small enough to disappear, how devastatingly thin her limbs looked swimming in her rumpled plaid button-down as she stared into the camera with huge, unguarded eyes.
Most of what I know, I learned from you. You didn’t protect me back then, but I think I liked it better that way. Now, things are different between us. You’ve put up a nearly impenetrable shield, and only occasionally do I see a glimpse of the real you. Everything is glossy algorithms and drop shipping, and more people use you for bad than for good. For example, I’ve spent the last two weeks trying to get a Facebook romance scammer’s account suspended so that he’ll stop messaging my mother with promises of love in exchange for Steam giftcards. Facebook does not seem to think his account is breaking any community guidelines.
I mean, seriously, Internet. What the fuck.
Sometimes I’m not sure you even exist anymore. Change has made you unrecognizable. But change is not a finite resource, and when I find a website full of letters to you, or a page with nothing but animated images of rotating sandwiches, I start to think that maybe we can save you after all. I want to get to know you again.
I miss you. Let’s stay in touch.
Love always,
Kelli