I can’t remember a time before the internet. What I can remember, at least a little, was the internet of the early 2000’s. Not the early 2000’s internet everyone else remembers, I mostly just went online to play games on websites hosted by my favorite tv channels. I don’t remember the games being good, I just remember them being fun.
Fun is what I
remember the internet being for most of the time I’ve used it. I wasn’t going
online to talk to other people or make friends. I was going to read what other
people wrote, watch other people’s videos and play games made by people who only
barely knew what they were doing. It wasn’t good, whenever I try to play the games,
I enjoyed in 2010-2015 I’m struck by how bad they were, but it was fun. I don’t
think I need to justify it, I liked it and that’s all I care about, but I can’t
help but wonder what changed that made these games such a chore to revisit.
I can’t deny that
I miss them though. Not so much the games themselves so much as being able to go
to a website and see what they had to play. I stopped doing that around 2016,
mostly because with free phone games the old flash games felt a little barren. I
kind of wonder if flash would be around if it wasn’t for the rise of free phone
apps.
I don’t know what
the internet of the future will look like. It’s lost a lot of it’s unregulated “whatever
you say is fine” nature, and overall, I think that’s a good thing. Saying whatever
you want isn’t okay if what you’re saying hurts people. But I do hope we can
find some way to bring back the simple joy I remember feeling. The sense that
even if you don’t feel like you fit in in the real world, you can still find
your place here. So many people don’t have a place online anymore, and as someone
who went online a lot to cope with not fitting in in the real world, I don’t
think that’s acceptable.
I hope that in the
future, the internet once again becomes a place where who you are doesn’t
matter. You can still find a place for you. I worry that that won’t be the
case.