[floatingslowly]

whudditchu say, sonny?

I cunt hear you.

[Savage Clone]

I like talking Nerd Talk with people interested in the same Nerd Sphere I inhabit. I'm not terribly social in the meatworld, and I certainly am not good at parties or talking to strangers. I didn't get this way at an advanced stage of my life either, but I didn't have the internet when I was a kid.

I think this stuff has way more to do with personalities than with age.

[Toilet & Bowels]

The internet is a good place for misfits of all ages

[Derek]

The internet is a good retreat in times of sadness and boredom.

[Everyneurotic]

i use it because i love typing "lol" and "omg" ten thousand times a day.

[Johnny "Magic Fingers"]

Well geeze.... I suppose I'm too old to hop on the ol' Zimmer frame and slowly amble my way to the sex shoppe.

 

So I gotta do all my perving on the ol' internet-thing-a-ma-jig.

[nomadicfollower]

By old I simply meant that you grew up without the internet and when it became more accessible you might have flocked to it. It just seemed to me that perhaps growing up without internet would harbor more positive attitudes about the web. The communitites I find here - which comprise the interweb - lack any....honesty, I guess (mainly a lack of true personality). Such a thing seldom corrupts those who've only been a part of it for the last 15 years or so, but those who are part of it and lack strong will power (majorities) will forget themselves -- scifi unintended.

[nomadicfollower]

Originally Posted by pbradley

Becuase it is hard to get a number of people together to have an engaging conversation about a single topic outside of a classroom or at a bar.

How often have you had an engaging conversation on here? How many in actual, real life? How many more opportunities for unengaging conversation present themselves here than with your friends (not you cyber-personalities)?

[Savage Clone]

The board I use most is a local board where I know most of the people, or at least who they are. That board has led me to many an interesting discussion and widened my social contact in my own area far greater than I ever could have done on my own. I don't meet people in Real Life very often, because I don't tend to talk to people I don't know. I have yet to encounter too many pathological liars on that board, because everyone knows who everyone is.

I don't think growing up without the internet had any impact on my attitudes toward it. It's not new enough to be "newfangled and weird," and thus intimidating, and also it has no "novelty" factor to get all jazzed about either. It just is what it is.

[floatingslowly]

Originally Posted by nomadicfollower

It just seemed to me that perhaps growing up without internet would harbor more positive attitudes about the web.

or perhaps, that it would simply give one a realistic view of just how bad it could suck without it. maybe it gives Users a chance to know beings outside of their potential bio-sphere (without having to stow away in the bilge of an ocean liner).

don't ask me though, the internet has always been with me.

/bbs.r.i.p.

[floatingslowly]

PS: the sound of a modem connecting is sechxy.

[Savage Clone]

You still use a Kaypro, right?

[floatingslowly]

USSRobotics.

[Savage Clone]

Originally Posted by floatingslowly

USSRobotics.

And one of those cup modems that you just jam a phone receiver into?

[floatingslowly]

Originally Posted by Savage Clone

And one of those modems that you just jam into the socket behind yr ear?

yes.

[floatingslowly]

don't touch me. I mean it.

[atari 2600]

Originally Posted by nomadicfollower

It seems alot of "older" (for you old people's sake) are attracted to this forum and perhaps enjoy the breadth of the internet, but I, a young-un, see it as a horrible sin that I should subject myself to this world - hence my lack of participation. I wonder if this queer coincidence spawns out of aged people's search for ease of use, or my distaste for all those children who should not be subjected to this...place. First hand I see all of, what I believe to be, the ill-effects of prolonged internet use and thus curse its existence.
What is the internet's appeal to you?

I just wrote this the other day in a huff and then deleted it.
Here it is again in excerpted form.

---

Believe it or not, I tried to keep this brief. As it is, it's way too lengthy. In a nutshell, it's essentially a somewhat goofy "we can do better" speech.

What I view as the primary obstacle is that, on the whole, worthwhileness (I realize my term is nebulous) just doesn't seem to really be in the mix these days. At least not as much as it should be present.

A quality of worthwhileness in ones' posts smacks of too much effort and too much of a belief in the future. And apparently, that just isn't cool.
And thus it isn't cool, in turn, for myself get upset at things that others have little to no conception what in the hell is so upsetting about it.

And what I mean is that people are generally apathetic and conduct themselves with a certain sense of hopelessness. How else is one to explain that the regular members are entertained by a message board such as this? There are extreme bright spots for sure, and they keep me coming back. And sure, there are a lot of minor (in the ultimate sense) reasons that can be sufficiently enumerated why people routinely post. But please allow me to explain in a few admittedly oblique words that I'm referring to life's largest questions, you know...reality.

Sure, for instance, I'll laugh at Seinfeld. The writing is funny and the characters are entertaining. The characters, at times, do (mostly borderline) despicable things. But Seinfeld is a television comedy. And comedy has its place in life. A hugely important place. It has its place on a message board.
Please don't be too disturbed if I shift tone a little, but if I wanted a preponderance of excessive comedy content or excessive cynicism then I would visit an appropriate website or get the entertainment from another medium altogether. But hey, that's just me, the somewhat reluctant idealist.
(And Seinfeld was, in many ways, a springboard for the predominant "cringe factor" comedies proliferating today.)

The internet was, of course, originally conceptualized as a vehicle for the rapid distribution and sharing of information. Inevitably, entertainment, of course, to a large degree has taken over the medium.
I maintain, however, that, say, an internet message board's paramount function is facilitate the communication of concepts and ideas. One must acknowledge that on some level at least that a message board has the possibility to be such a vehicle at times.

This message board is, of course, a fan site for Sonic Youth. many of the posts naturally tend toward an affinty for a certain aesthetic sensibility accordingly. Often posts will be within that framework of context. One of the advantages of participating in an online internet message board such as this one is that it provides, at least in an ideal sense, an online community of Sonic Youth fans. And it follows, that it should, at least (again) in an ideal sense, be a some sort of sounding board for ideas and creative discourse. And, at least on some level, we get that here. But far too often the standard seems to be who can act the most aloof or the most hip, and who can put on the most attractive mask. The tragedy being that since people are not being themselves in the anonymity of the internet, there is not a whole lot of chance from learning on much more than ultimately a superficial level.
Now these don't have to be grand ideas expressed grandly all the time. I may be an idealist in this case, but I'm not completely off my rocker. Great ideas can be expressed in even the most basic of terms. And they bleed though someone's genuineness of expression.

What's troubling, and I am, again admittedly apparently far too much of an idealist, is that the prevailing point of view from what you read on an internet message board goes back to the general apathy and a certain sense of hopelessness I wrote of earlier. And I state this in as far as people seek not real connection, but rather relish in impish detachment.

Allow me to build on the ills of apathy and loss of hope and add loss of shame. That's what I see here constantly. It's like the dildo copter beng flown in Garry Kasparov's face as he's trying to be the best man he can.

The internet is certainly an entertainment medium, but it's a medium for many other things including, of course, information...real information that isn't on the news. It's just very sad to see yet another generation "blow it."

And to collectively fail now, especially at this point in time, is most ill-advised. I hope to communicate a sense of the urgency here. Those who I'll refer to as simply the "historical revisionists" have proven how mighty they are. Only education and communication can possibly have an impact on these ultimately dire circumstances. At the very least, an even more sickeningly homogenized world looms ominously on the horizon, and one where human rights count for significantly less.

[terminal pharmacy]

Originally Posted by nomadicfollower

By old I simply meant that you grew up without the internet and when it became more accessible you might have flocked to it. It just seemed to me that perhaps growing up without internet would harbor more positive attitudes about the web. The communitites I find here - which comprise the interweb - lack any....honesty, I guess (mainly a lack of true personality). Such a thing seldom corrupts those who've only been a part of it for the last 15 years or so, but those who are part of it and lack strong will power (majorities) will forget themselves -- scifi unintended.

the internet is a by product of computers and those of us who are older saw computers become available to every household early on. way back in the vic20, c64, bbc era of computing. i was 6 when i got my first computer, that was at a time when to play a game you had to go and buy code books and type all the code into the machine, then save it on magnetic tape so you could play it again at another time. it was a time before the gui existed and everything had to be done in code. you make it sound like older people don't understand the technology when infact i'm sure those on this board are proably far more aware of the technology and it's consequences in a deeper way than the younger ones on here.

[nomadicfollower]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

The tragedy being that since people are not being themselves in the anonymity of the internet, there is not a whole lot of chance from learning on much more than ultimately a superficial level.

This I agree with and it stands to reinforce my point. This anonymity allows great opportunity for inflating a constructed alter ego into a synthesized self in which the mind can not distinguish truth from superficiality.
Granted, however, my sight is very narrow, and I may be expressing quite general human traits. I'm like you then: an idealist; a romantic who lives amongst literature in which honesty prevails.
Lately I've done nothing but wring my hands over the "problems of technology". Maybe actually seeing life will prove my worries were focused too sharply on a scapegoat that only applies to a small part of reality's dishonesty.

[nomadicfollower]

Originally Posted by terminal pharmacy

you make it sound like older people don't understand the technology when infact i'm sure those on this board are proably far more aware of the technology and it's consequences in a deeper way than the younger ones on here.

If this is true, I did so unintentionally. I meant to say that older people are less likely to be "corrupted" by the internet than those who have always been a part of it.