The (Social) Net

The internet is a virtual digi-cosm of human behavior and relationships. It is a web-verse, a world parallel to our own, mimicking the habits and perversions of what users call RL, as if the emotional experiences we have staring at a monitor impact us any less than being in a physical setting, such as the highschool lunchroom, where the cool kids sit at one table while the geeks sit at another.

I remember a time when the only means of connecting by internet was by email. It was astounding, back then, to be able to send correspondence in a matter of seconds, when the only thing standing between a letter and its recipient was the time it took for a user to find a computer, log on, and click. Then email became a place where groups can meet and exchange ideas. Mailing lists and "Yahoogroups" seemed so amazingly simple. To be able to create a virtual club with a simple click of the mouse and an easy-to-answer registration form, it seemed almost anti-social not to create a community or join one.

But of course, an evolution was at hand, and mailing lists became newsletters, and newsletters became message boards, and message boards became forums. Suddenly, everyone can put up a website, or a "homepage," where real estate meant web space, and web space was like renting an apartment where you can use the space as you see fit within certain limitations, though the limitations were few. Site owners were able to exist within pages of their own script, creating their own worlds where their isolation was the groundwork of their social dream.

It wasn't until the creation of the Live Journal that people began to realize how much more fun it was to reach out beyond the confines of a private space to have a public platform which they can still call their own. At its conception, Live Journal seemed so exclusive and private, but once it opened to the public and everyone can register, it became a haven for sharing and--as the term was coined by Emily Gould in the New York Times, "oversharing." There were no limits to what could be posted on "LJ." From the harrowing truth to the ugliest lies, from individual creativity to community endeavors like Role Playing Games. LJ allowed virtual freedom of thought and experience.

As LJ gained popularity, the internet began to realize the potential of group and community interaction. Friendster was the first among the social networks. It was a pointless endeavor of popularity. To have more than a hundred friends on your friends folder seemed like the main goal, whereas when you reached out to your old highschool and college friends, you can proudly display your plentiful friends. It was only after MySpace, Facebook, Multiply, and Linked In came into the picture that the friends list began to gain real importance. Suddenly everyone is caught and obligated to sign up for accounts, because if you aren't, you're simply out of the loop and unprofessional. Social networking forced us all to list, categorize, and classify our lives; and it made some of us see how sadly inadequate we are in acquiring a social circle. Kind of like highschool.

Wordpress, Blogger, and LJ are the havens of written digital thought. Bloggers have found uses for the internet that used to be the realm exclusively accessed by journalists, published authors, and columnists alone. The internet has changed the scape of publishing. Writers and aspiring writers can post their work in a public venue that gives room for failure, growth, and even eventually profit.

Writers have to have blogs; they should have a web presence in MySpace, Facebook, and RedRoom; they should be in Shelfari and Twitter. It's amazing how much writing an author should do after she's finished writing her book.

I just finished reading When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris. His book, full of delightful tales of everyday embarrassments, read like the many journal entries I've read and written on Live Journal. I'm not saying anybody can write like David Sedaris can. In fact, only a hand full could be so entertaining, so truthful, and so talented as he is, but if he hadn't had the opportunity to be published, he could have been blogging at Blogger.com. He would've been hugely popular, and eventually, he would've gotten published anyway.