My Love Affair.

With the Internet.

But more specifically, social media.  I think it started a million years ago with Prodigy. Oh, you remember Prodigy, or *p as the kids called it. Or was it p*? I don't think I've ever been hip.

Prodigy.

The online service provider,

I almost just remembered my login id!!!
I think my password was just my last name or something.
I've pretty much always been bad at the internet. 

not the guy with two mohawks.

I'm a fire stahtah

Oh my god, Prodigy how I loved you. I don't care about your problems. I love you just the same. You can read my mail anytime you want. 

So yes. I was OBSESSED with Prodigy bulletin boards, most specifically, the kith bulletin boards. And kith stands for Kids in the Hall for any of you clueless nerds. 

By the way, I tried to look up Kids in the Hall google images and I got lost for about 15 minutes so if this blog does manage to get finished, I need about 100 congrats messages for my will power and command of getting a job done, m'kay.

What was I talking about even? Kids in the Hall! Oh, no, bulletin boards!!! The kith bulletin boards on Prodigy.

See? I made it back.

Okay, so I would log on, well, dial up--I'm scared to think, but there might be people who don't quite know what that means? Quick lesson if you don't know what the crap I'm going on about in my old age. Your computer would dial an 800 number, like a fax machine kind of. And if the line was busy because before call waiting, lines were busy and after call waiting, turn that crap off or you'd get logged off when the call from your dad's bowling buddy would rudely interrupt your on-lining, so if the line was busy, you'd have to tell your computer to dial another number. You had like 7 to choose from.

Okay, so now you were in.

And off to the Bulletin Boards I'd go.

I could spend an entire post, pages and pages of one, reminiscing about Prodigy, but I've got a point I'm trying to make and I'll never get there if I do. I did find a super good post about Prodigy if you want to read a not ADD post and feelings about it that totally get where I'm trying unsuccessfully to go. Click here.

So in high school, it was all about Prodigy. And then everyone started jumping ship and going to AOL. So I went to AOL because don't leave me!

All my online buddies were there!!!!! And we chatted and we danced. (we didn't dance) And it was magical and wonderful.

I stayed up ALL. NIGHT. LONG. chattin' up people. But this time it became weezer chat rooms.

I don't even know what we chatted about but there was none of this looking stuff up on google crap. You kind of had to know the web address, the whole http:// thing to get any info on the World Wide Web. Eff that noise. So you'd talk to people that called themselves "paperface" who claimed to "bake cookies for the boys" (codeword weezer) and that's how you got your info.  Because you were talking to people who KNEW weezer. Nobody lies on the internet.

I just realized that I was probably being catfished :(

And then I moved from Denver to Los Angeles without a computer and the internet was ripped from my life. And for years I didn't even care about it. It was probably about 6 years before it had me in its hold again.

Because MySpace.

I thought MySpace was the coolest thing EVER. I had my own webpage. Holy crap! I didn't have to search for people, they could search for me. I became like the queen of the internet in my mind. 

And then people stopped coming by my page because facebook. I already had a facebook but I never used it because the only person I knew on there was my sister-in-law in college and I wasn't in college anymore, I was like a 30 year old woman or something so no one wanted anything to do with me on the facebook. And then everybody did, so I adapted because, don't leave me, guys.

Now I tweet. I tumblr(rarely anymore). I pinterest. And I facebook. Holy god, do I facebook. 

The internet for me has gone from fun times and meeting cool people that I think longingly about with a smile on my face to narcissistic nonsense and cattiness and either feeling bad and sorry for myself or wanting to punch a "friend" in the head. This takes up a great deal of my time.

Everyday. 

This is not healthy. I understand this and yet I can't look away. Every like and funny comment drags me back in like a sparkly vampire.

Team facebook!

And I try to justify it because of all the great people I know and want to keep up with and the majority of them aren't even on facebook anymore. They're on Instagram. And I'm losing my facebook community and I'm kind of hanging back on the ship watching it go down.

So now I'm at an impasse. Do I wean myself off social media or do I reactivate my instagram account that I have because I downloaded it a couple years ago thinking it was the hipstagram app?

I've had Instagram before you ever heard of it. 

Pros and cons to Instagram.

Cons- it's more social media and it seems even MORE narcissistic and self gratifying than facebook. I hate looking at pictures of food. And the only thing I really take pictures of are my kids and my family and I already have too many of those on the internet for my level of comfort. And they're all confined to facebook. And also, I waste enough time online. And I should just blog. And most of what I do on facebook is tell dumb stories that I think are funny and too long for twitter. Instagram doesn't sound like my gig.

Pros- Um.... everyone's there.

What do I even do? Actually, I know what I should do. I shouldn't join the dark side. I should blog if I have crap to say. It's my own webpage! (yay dolphin glitter!) AND well, I don't know. I thrive on comments and "likes" and funny. 

VALIDATE ME AND LOVE ME!!!!