AOL Keywords Are Not The Only Internet I Miss

I didn’t get involved in blogging until 2009, but I have been trolling the Internet (before that was a bad thing) since 1994. I opened an AOL account under a fake name that was the combination of Faile, a character from the Wheel of Times series, and BG, which stood for belly goddess.

Sidenote: Belly goddess is not because of my washboard abs but rather because my stomach has always pooched a bit making me forever love the pot belly’s are sexy speech in Pulp Fiction. It also was fuzzy, and after spend the summer of 1994 bleaching it, I was done. So belly goddess was my (and my friends) way of embracing my worst or at least my least acceptable body part.

I would go on to hang out in chat rooms which were fun and funny except when private chats would turn out to be sketchy 45-year-olds sending my finger to “sign out” and AOL shouted: GOODBYE, and my friends and I would laugh at them.

Eventually, I felt like I was trapped in AOL trying to find the real Internet that took forever to load (beep beep beeeeeeepppp) but never-ended in its people and possibilities.

I recall the first TV commercial (Superbowl 1995) that included AOL keywords.

I also remember the first time a commercial included a www.website.com, and I thought: Wow.They found it.They found our Internet.

Us being college kids sending odd emails titled Long Live the Zamboni (I’ve always been obsessed — it’s the Canadian in me) and finding pictures of the largest labia ever photographed.

I remember in 1999 driving with my friend, C, from Rhode Island to Long Island because I had bought a futon off of eBay. It was so cheap that the road trip was worth it. Plus, ROADTRIP! The guy had just switched to DVDs so he also sold me all his VHS for $10. His feedback on my eBay account was, Great to buy from, and then awkwardly added, hot, but I was too busy marveling at how I could bid on a futon two states away to care.

I moved from AOL to Yahoo and spent time in the Yahoo groups making friends with like-minded people who wandered the Internet. We sent each other real letters as well as email because we were old school and craiglists hadn’t killed anyone yet. The fear was talked about by the mainstream, but I didn’t believe the bad people lived in my computer. I knew they lived next door and down the street.

I was at a very low point in my life, and those strangers kept me going when I couldn’t or wouldn’t talk to my friends. They sent me weird pictures and asked if I was okay today.

He got the belly wrong, but the chicken arms are accurate.

I remember in 2004 listening to a story on NPR about weblogs and thinking an online diary sounded stupid mostly because I didn’t want anyone reading everything about me all in one place. I liked to keep my exploits, ideas and problems split up among my friends, family and ex-boyfriends in the hopes that they would never be in the same room together.

By that time, I had stopped needing the anonymity of the Internet to connect with people, and I only saw it as a tool for research in medical school and to email Scott when he was on away rotations for his 3rd year of medical school.  I still remember debating how to sign off on an email in our first month dating. I was a Love, Alex kinda person, but I worried he’d think I loved him. I worried that I already did.

We still have all our love emails printed out and saved before our medical school email accounts were shutdown.

But I found my way to Facebook for friends I missed and Twitter for politics I missed. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I didn’t know to care.

I think I joined the blogging community like a company buying a website back in 2000. I’m not sure that I wanted it, and I certainly didn’t understand it. The only difference is I don’t need it to survive 2+ years later like they did.

But I want it. I still love the Internet 18 years later. Even with the companies and company of most people I know.

The hipster jokes and drunk vloggers and random ideas people create that make me say Why didn’t I think of that? Like the amount of Sh*t {fill in the blank with anything. seriously anything} Say videos on YouTube because of Sh*t Girls Say video. They didn’t create a viral video, they created a phenomenon. One that is fantastic and will be forgotten in a year.

The Internet has all the time in the world for drama and no time at all. It’s soothing that way. Freeing. Confusing.

Unlike television and magazines, I’m apart of it. I contribute in good, bad and boring ways. I read, write and look for the next moment to be blown away. Or to snort coffee out my nose. Or just to sigh in relief that I’m not so unique. And alone.

I miss AOL chat rooms and anonymity and being a belly goddess and exploring the unknown. I’m less free to screw up today, and there are way more commercials.

But I love my blog, my gmail account, and being recognized in Richmond coffee shops. And truth be told, I’m still a belly goddess even if I go by Alex now.

Thanks to Stephanie for the spam to caption,
to Alexandra for reminding me of NPR’s weblog story,
and to my sister for never giving up her AOL email account.