April 11th, 2019 @ 12:05 am

today’s inspiration: I MISS MY PRE-INTERNET BRAIN.

i often think about when i was a kid, and days/months/years felt like forever.  i am currently 37, but i feel like i’ve been around for 100 years.  i try to think back even to 15+ years ago, when i was working at a video store, and i felt like i had all the time in the world.  i worked 40 hours per week, but i didn’t have a commute.  even so, that’s still only tacking on about 2/3 hours per day now.

how was life so different then?
i used to work a full week, i went to night school to finish off two credits i fucked up on in high school and yet i managed to spent infinite amounts of time with my two best friends, my boyfriend at the time AND managed to code for hours on end at night.

HOW?!

OK first off, having ridiculous work hours definitely helped.  not having a 9-5, M-F job definitely helps break up a monotonous life.  i loved working weekends and having weekdays off.  being an adult and not having flex hours really fucking sucks.  but i digress.  my original point: is the internet really making our attention spans and time feel that off?  if so, why the fuck do we keep using it?

it made me think of how our attention spans were molded to how we currently use apps vs. how we used to use websites/services.  going home to use AOL or myspace was super different than opening your phone and using IG or facebook.  i feel like i’m almost romanticizing it, but they weren’t as invasive, they were for actual fun and meeting people.

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AOL: you went into chat rooms to chat in a group, you had a profile, you would i.m. someone if you were interested, you had to email someone a pic – you didn’t just see one in your profile.  you could just ignore someone messaging you, you probably gave it a good block of time (late at night when your parents were sleeping – you weren’t checking it every four seconds).

AIM: once AOL was over, you were left with this – online chatting with people for hours, easily, comfortably – not awkwardly making small talk on your phone.

myspace: your profile could be private, you had photo albums, profile comments, top (XX) to make your friends feel *~*speshul*~*, private messages, bulletin posts (these were actually quite helpful), groups, links in interests showing other profiles of people who liked the same shit as you, you could fancy it up with colors/backgrounds/HTML layouts, you couldn’t see what other people were doing on other profiles (leaving comments, etc), you didn’t have an invasive ass wall.  if you wanted to be a creepy, profile scouring asshole, you could without anyone knowing.  sure you probably spent a good chunk of time on it, but you still knew how to pace yourself, and there was no app for it – you just sat down at your computer for a bit here and there.

fb/IG: everyone is arguing, your parents/aunts/uncles/grandparents might be on there (ew), it’s invasive as fuck – everything you like or comment on is visible (ew), you probably check it several times per hour, people comment like imbeciles that don’t know the english language, you follow someone and barely speak to them (and when you do it’s usually nothing of substance), SELFIES, dogs, sunsets and clouds, motivational quotes, engagements, weddings, babies, ugh…  i could go on forever.

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i am pretty good about not constantly fucking with my phone.  i honestly leave it in another room, on another floor of my duplex or it just sits over there somewhere.  my sister makes it a point to unplug everyday, which i commend her for.  not a lot of people are willing to do that in this generation.  a lot of my friends are glued to their stupid phones.  when my boyfriend and i are on the couch watching tv, if i bitch at him to put it down, he unknowingly grabs for it like 60 seconds later… it’s ridiculous.  i always bitch at him to not touch the phone in the car either.  imagine these kinds of people having to deal with answering machines, lol.  it’s like one decade full changed the world (again).

it’s kind of funny, thinking about how different it was in 2009, 1999, 1989 – those were the 10 years i can count back.  each obviously had it’s own major changes, but i still feel like they were paced better.  they weren’t SOCIETY ALTERING.  in 1989, our house had a corded phone with an answering machine.  in 1999, i had a beeper and a bedroom phone with an answering machine.  in 2009, i had a flip phone and – no iphone yet – and here we are today… everything is just built into one hand held device that is all going to make us go blind because the screens are so fucking small, lol.

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i don’t selfie.  most of my user pics are ridiculous, not showing my face or sometimes even a couple of years old.  my newest IG user pic is mainly of my large, green hair vs. my face…  i just don’t understand selfies.  this is hypocritically coming from someone who used to have a site with a “webcam” on it (i never streamed it, nor was i nude or anything), but i only had it up to bring people to my website.  we were a little community of people that would see each other’s images from other websites, and would click into our sites to get to know someone more.

looking back, it’s cringe-worthy, but there’s not much i can do about it now.  i was just trying to grab people’s attention so they’d end up on my site.  i also met a lot of people online that way that i’m still in touch with today, and all of that coding practice left me with a career path, so i can’t really complain too much.

i only really use twitter and IG, and it irks me that whenever i go on there, i’m looking at chicks staring into my soul, trying to look some kinda way.  i try to have patience, but i just will never understand it.

maybe someone’s feeling themselves, or their makeup or hair and then i’m just being a dick for pointing it out – but why does that person need that type of validation?  why does that give someone confidence (if they actually get that from likes/views)?  i feel like if it’s not for artsy purposes, and it’s just that sultry look BS, it’s weird and/or sad.  we can all do better than that.

i just miss brains before they were like this.
i miss having actual convos and not small talk.
i miss being unattainable and lost in NYC.
i miss stretching time.

so much comes along with all of this new technology that i loathe.  stores closing, life changing, people changing, etc. and not in good ways.

i know people also find the internet is also for the better in some ways.  people don’t feel so alone now – they have others they can find in the same situations.  well, those people were always there or around – it’s just that some of us had the brains to find others like ourselves before apps.  the miserable, the depressed, the freaks, the nerds, etc.  —  i feel like maybe instead of depending on the internet for that stuff, society needs better communities, better parents and nicer, less hateful people and they wouldn’t even need the internet for support.