Getting Older: The Internet Has Passed Me By

In 9 days I will be turning the oldest I have ever been in my life. Over the past year and a half I have felt very old, one of the things that is making me feel older is the fact that I no longer have the interest in screwing around on the Internet that I used to.

I first got the Internet when I was 14, actually it wasn't Internet, it was WebTV. That kind of sounds like the HBO tagline but instead of meaning it was better than tv it would be the equivalent of promoting the WebTV as "it's not tv, it's a flipbook flipped really slowly." so webtv on a dial up Internet connection viewed on a 13" tv, now a days giving a child this would be grounds for having social services called to take your kids away. But I loved the internet, to the point of tying up my parents phone line for the years of 1997-2001 when I left for college vowing never to return.

But today I have a 6meg cable Internet connection in my parents house (I returned to live there almost before I had finished vowing never to return), and yet I have very little ambition to use it outside of stalking women* and Jon Purdy. Here are some of the reasons I have lost interest in the Internet in my later years:

Too many people are using the Internet:

While it wasn't quite the BBS days, my early years on the Internet at least had a bit of exclusivity. Only the most unkempt and socially awkward 26% of the world was actively on it. If you wanted to tell the world about yourself, you couldn't make a facebook profile, you had to make a geocities page. Oh I had a geocities page alright, one of looping gifs, midi background music and fonts that made your eyes bleed. Content included paragraphs on my love of Dawson's Creek and offering my services in tracking down rare Beanie Babies.

Today 500 million* of us have been herded on to a single site (*source: that one movie poster) and to butcher a quote from Mark Twain, "I wouldn't want to be in any club that would have my trashy next door neighbors sending my friend requests and farmville invitations." As the barrier to Internet entry got lower became more of a reflection of society, and that is a turn off in my old age, because if I turn on my computer to escape society.

Internet piracy has been rendered irrelevant

keep this site a secret ok? just between us.

One of my greatest joys in high school and college was downloading digital versions of music, movies and other media that I had no intention of consuming. I would just archive it to my Iomega Zip drive and tell myself I would get back to it. But recently stealing is no longer worth the time or money it costs to steal. With the crash of the DVD/CD markets, entertainment producers have reduced the price of most of what I actually want to the price of free. Everytime I see the NetFlix instant streaming section the Scruff McGruff crime dog on my shoulder wants me to report them to the MPAA.

Yes I understand that you use the technology of the Internet to stream this legal free stuff, but that's like corporate Internet, not the independant-casualencounter based Internet that I used as a child.

There are no actual women* on the Internet

A wise man once said "you know what they say about dating on the Internet, your odds are good but the goods are odd." That man is hilarious but he is also a liar, because after 13 years of research I can confirm that there is not a single woman* on the Internet.

You: "But wait blogger, my friend ____ is on the Internet and she is beautiful, especially in her red dress."

Reality: Lies. Either she's lying to you about being on the Internet because she wants to you to think she's nerdy (when the hell did nerdy become a good thing?) or most likely she is a man.

You: "But wait blogger, I am a woman* and I am offended by what you are posting about because I am a woman and I get offended by things as part of my natural cycle."

Reality: You would have to have read over 500 words in order to make it to this point of the post. Which means you would have had to pay attention to me for more than 5 minutes when I wasn't buying you things, which means you are not a woman* because that has/will never happen.

You: "Charlie, it's Jon. You need to stop posting about me on your blog. Also I need you to stop writing things on my Facebook wall and coming by my parents house in the middle of the night. Also last time you hugged me you rubbed my back a little, I don't know where you learned that from but you need to stop it because it makes me and others around us uncomfortable."

Reality: I WILL NOT BE IGNORED.

So those are just a couple of reasons why I feel that I am growing out of the Internet. If you are still enjoying your time on the web then I want you to cherish each website/blog post/video/and anonymous racist comment as if it were your last, because you never know when your love is going to fade.