Old Internet Energy
Reflecting on my changing relationship with the internet, and a hesitancy to fully immerse.
I think about the days I lived at home, and I would sit at my desk, which once belonged to my mum, hunched over my teal ACER laptop completely besotted by the internet and what it provided. I would find myself scrolling through the archives of Shine by Three, Margaret Zhang’s (the EIC of Vogue China’s blog), looking at Karla’s Closet (Karla Deras now has her own clothing line) and at times Cupcakes and Cashmere, imagining a life in LA filled with bubble skirts and giant Starbucks like Emily’s (the sites founder, who still has the site along with an online shop). I should say, this was after The Hills and in the middle of reign of the Olsen Twins. I spent hours on The Sartorialist looking at personal style from across the world and learning the faces and style preferences of people like Carine Roitfield, Taylor Tomasi-Hill and Miroslava Duma. Prior to this, I hadn’t seen personal style captured in this way.
At some point, in all of this, I created a login to Adore Beauty’s forum where I would lurk whilst beauty lovers would discuss their favourite products and at one point, share photos of the inside of their bathroom cabinets. The usernames were things like MissPiggy and SeventiesBabe and the forum was moderated by a woman called Celeste, someone, who I just found out after a quick Google, was hired by Adore Beauty due to her participation in the forum. She now has her own beauty marketing company.
Prior to these experiences, the only computers I had access to were in public spaces, shared with and seen by others. The dining room at home had a metal desk with a pull-out drawer for the keyboard. I could sit on the computer and watch Neighbours. This wasn’t encouraged. When I was allowed, I would unplug the phone and plug in the internet for the sole purpose of chatting with people on MSN. I don’t remember doing anything else on the internet at this time and couldn’t have even told you what the internet was for. I tried to play Minesweeper, a game I still don’t understand the purpose of, and would lose hours playing The Sims. At school, the computers lived in the corridor, and we would sometimes use them to practice our typing via this typing game, it had the theme of a circus. If we were to use the computer for learning, we were given strict instructions about what to access and what to find on it. This is in stark contrast now, where I expect my students to find things online, a gargantuan task, with very little direction and then become frustrated when they get side-tracked along the way.
I graduated high school in 2007. This was the same year Tumblr came out. The year before I had created a MySpace page. The only thing I ever did or put on the page was a picture of me outside the State library. I’m wearing a coral-coloured tank top with denim shorts, tights, and turquoise ballet flat Keds. My hair was long and permanently greasy like the hair of a teenager normally is, and I had this thick fringe that was side swept to the left because I had my right eyebrow pierced. I also had lots of acne, I just want to point that out in case there are any people reading this thinking I had the skin of a baby cherub, I did not. You may think I sound like an Emo but my favourite band at the time was The Killers and so I don’t think I was. Or maybe you’re thinking, that’s exactly why you were. I never got into Tumblr, though I think if I did, I would’ve found my people. The closest I ever got to knowing I loved the style and culture of Japan were Gwen Stefani’s problematic Harajuku Girls. I knew I loved the cool London scene because I used to listen to Oasis and The Libertines and sometimes The Kooks. Further proof I would’ve thrived on Tumblr.
I read Harry Potter avidly and sobbed when I finished His Dark Materials trilogy. I would sometimes talk to people about these things, avoiding MSN so as not to see spoilers but it was by accident that I discovered people who liked these things too. And I am talking offline, because it would never occur to me to use the internet to talk to anyone about these things. I had an email, pinkchiccos@hotmail.com which graduated to tasha092@hotmail.com and I am wondering what I ever had to email anyone about. I wish I could remember the passwords for either of these accounts. I didn’t know then what I know now that there are spaces for everyone on the internet, that you can use in lots of different ways.
After my teal ACER days, you could say I entered the phase of my first Apple MacBook. The background was fluffy pink clouds. Again, I mean hello Tumblr. Before this, I was also anti-Apple. I had a Blackberry until they went got rid of their QWERTY keyboard, but then the tide felt inevitable, as it often does with capitalism. Now I am team Apple because I just am, even though they have stopped making all their accessories in Space Grey. During this era, I spent hours scrolling through the Tumblr-esque pages of They All Hate Us, a site now defunct like the friendship of the women who made it. I would scroll through Harper and Harley and try to see people’s outfits on Instagram. I can’t even remember if I had an Instagram, but back then, Insatgram didn’t care. But really, the most notable development with my online relationship was YouTube. Something to this day is probably my most favourite platform, and my least discussed. Outside of this newsletter of course.
Looking back now, I see my participation was always just outside the wave of popularity of certain sites, or generally quite hesitant. I started a blog but was terrified of putting pictures of myself online, it took me ages to get an Instagram and I eschew it for long periods of time before getting back on, posting stories in which I am a complete dag, and not looking at it again for weeks. I refuse to get on TikTok because I am stressed by how much time I will spend on it, and the content I will be encouraged to watch. Even the new updates to Substack herald a level of participation I am not sure I am ready for.
Sometimes it feels like the task of participating online can be somewhat pointless. The internet thrives on the idea of the hive mind, that is the idea that many people create one voice, and it needs lots of voices to function. I am not suggesting my voice should be the loudest but being online can sometimes feel like walking around in a void that benefits no one and in which no one can hear you.
Using Pinterest makes me really nostalgic. The pins I save show a craving for an aesthetic that is slightly out of line with my experience of everyday life. The books I have stacked in piles around the house don’t look just so, my lamp doesn’t seem to bathe everything with the same light and a pair of shoes on the floor just looks like a pair of shoes where they shouldn’t be. I become enamoured with my monthly boards, slowly crafting this theme which starts to infiltrate my thinking. Currently navy and tracksuits and notebooks feature heavily. Says she writing this in tracksuit pants with two navy notebooks next to her. But this image isn’t Pinterest worthy. Perhaps because I know the reality behind this, the stress of writing this piece, the scribbles which exist in those books caused by stress, the life that I wouldn’t promote.
YouTube conjures the same sense of longing. Watching videos that are edited just so makes me think about the lens with which we capture our lives. Recently, I have become besotted with life reset videos. The idea that we can buy an avocado, do the washing and journal whilst in a face mask to realign our lives is so appealing to me. Even though I know it’s not true. I have spoken numerous times about the ways in which content creators have created content which commodifies our lives. Every day is mundane, but content creation and capitalism have taught us that mundane is marketable. They are just like us. We’re just like them.
My older sister hates it when creators ask their audiences what they’d like to see. For her, anyone who is creative should create what they feel like creating because of a feeling from within, not because enough people told them that’s what they wanted to see. But we are slaves to the algorithm, to the thumbnails and videos. We are in an era of people creating songs with catchy lines in the first thirty seconds because thirty seconds of play registers as a play on Spotify. In the Apple Music Zane Lowe/Alex Turner interview[1], they discuss the music only minute with which the song There Better Be a Mirrorball starts. They mock radio play and question who would make songs for the radio. Who would when they need to make songs for Spotify and TikTok edits?
It will be no surprise to most of you that the biggest difference between my online life at the beginning to what it has become now, is the entanglement. This is probably the opportunity to reflect on my generation as a Millenial and look at the implications of the internet coming into my life when it did. Sometimes I feel at once both too young and too old to be online. Self-consciousness features heavily. I respond to every Instagram story with an enthusiasm I don’t hold elsewhere and hate how the default font conveys my message but can’t commit to the cursive. It isn’t me. But maybe it is, like how sometimes I make a PPT with really basic photos in it for work. Sure, these may not be how I want to be remembered, but for that moment in time, they do the job.
The internet is public, and as stated, at the beginning, my dealings with it were in public spaces, on shared devices, yet the consumption of the content felt very private. Now I sit with my phone in hand only inches from my face, I walk around entranced by the iPad and feel strange if anyone uses my laptop to login to something. Now I use the internet to access things that are beyond me in ways I can’t imagine but incredibly basic and feel quite broad. I must still be sour I never wrote on WattPad or had a Tumblr or posted pictures of my 21stbirthday in which I wore a shit-ton of matching jewellery from Diva (which is now Lovisa). My Pinterest is public, Instagram private though there are people who see it with whom I haven’t spoken to in years, or in some cases, never met. My emails may only be accessed by me, but the targeted advertising suggests that someone/thing else is reading them. I don’t like it when people see I am online shopping but will happily chat with anyone I run into at the shopping centre.
Our relationship with the internet and technology is complicated but I long for an opportunity to settle into it, but I am not sure if that opportunity can exist when things develop as they do. Or perhaps I am missing that this very newsletter has provided me with that online space to talk about my feelings and chase my curiosities in a way that MySpace would’ve done.
The title of today’s piece is an idea that was raised by Rachel Nguyen. Nguyen’s YouTube channel is one of my favourites. Yes, I appreciate the aesthetic and the thoughtful editing but also the discussion about online culture that come up every now and then. In this video Nguyen talks about outgrowing the internet, the pace of creating online and creativity. In this other one, Nguyen reflects on digital intimacy via a vlogging series.
I never aim that these pieces are filled with finite opinions. Our relationship with the online world is ongoing, as are my thoughts about it. I question everything to do with it but will input my email into any silly box I can to get 10 or 15 percent off my first purchase. I am always completely against, in love with and at the mercy of the world we create via clicks and screentime
"Our relationship with the online world is ongoing, as are my thoughts about it."
love that and here to explore those always <3