glamour inn

katiebakes:

Anyway, like me, several commenters took issue with Glenn’s assertion that the Net Generation “doesn’t remember life before fast computers and Internet service.” (How he could say this about someone born as early as 1974 is anyone’s guess.) “Netters feel more grateful towards the Internet (vs taking it for granted) because we did not have it during our childhood”, wrote one commenter, while another was more verbose:

I think you underestimate our memories of pre-Internet days, though. Similar to our perceptions of the dying industrial economy, our perceptions of the analog era were that of a child growing up with an old dog — we knew we’d missed some mysterious heyday, we perceived it wouldn’t be around much longer, and so we appreciated it. I was born in 1978 and I remember pre-computer-popularity and pre-internet days clearly. I think part of this sub-gen’s enthusiasm for and ability with tech is that we *came of age as it began*, and our psyched are thus amenable to technological adaptation *itself*. We didn’t necessarily create, or watch it begin from afar, but we also didn’t “wake up” already floating dumbly in a sea of it. We saw it start, were given opportunities to merge with it, and did so. And the rewards of that adaptation stamp a kind of optimism and possibility on us that Xers seem to lack, and a kind of appreciation and perspective that Yers don’t seem to grasp.

I was born in 1976, which scarily seems to make me some sort of elder stateswoman of internetters, although since I spend a lot of time with internet-focused academics who are in their 30s and 40s I never feel particularly old unless I’m talking to my students or former students (18-24). I was highly engaged with the internet about as early as it was possible to be engaged. We had a Prodigy account and thus email in 1988. I had my own computer in 1990. I got on the web in 1994. I ran my first webserver in 1995 and my first personal homepage that year— I have had a website online for 14 years. I have run tiara.org for more than ten years.

When I got on the web, it was a playground for nerds and I had to teach myself everything I knew. I got my PC on the network myself on a Mac-enabled campus after 2 weeks of research / phone calls to IBM/Gateway. I taught myself HTML and got my first job at Microsoft (in 1996) as a result. (I am a computer geek, I love hardware and networking. It saddens me that the internet has not made more kids interested in geek stuff. You can use the internet 24/7 nowadays and not know what HTML is. Half my students don’t know what a web browser is.) This DIY attitude has served me very well in my adult life and it always surprises people (especially dudes) when they realize that I am an honest-to-god geek and not just a social media enthusiast.

At the same time, DUH OF COURSE I REMEMBER PRE-INTERNET DAYS, THE INTERNET WASN’T POPULAR UNTIL I WAS 19 YEARS OLD. I hand-wrote two or three letters per week, and mailed them, yes, through the mail, to my friends around the country, from elementary school until I was a sophomore in college. I made mix tapes (which took forever). I did all my debate research using card catalogs and paper copies of the NYT index and microfilm and microfiche (OK, and Lexus-Nexus) when I was in high school (1990-1994). I have a GIANT BOX of 7”s (who even knows what those are anymore). I grew up totally analog, so when digital came around, I jumped on it. It was the newest-coolest and it made everything else so new and cool I couldn’t believe it. I still get insanely excited about new digital stuff, examples of which have included (ahem) Napster, the CDDB, MapQuest, the first gen iPod, Last.fm, a music recommendation technology called Firefly that was bought by Microsoft in 1998, HotWired (my favorite search engine until AltaVista came along), Pitas, Hissyfit.com, the Ultimate Bulletin Board, and about 90000 other obselete technologies. Every few years I go through a lull where the internet bores me for a while, and then something else comes along to blow my mind and I get all stoked on it again.

And that, I suppose, in a nutshell, is why I have devoted my life to studying the internet— because nothing else has interested and excited me so much over the course of my adult life.