No webcam required to see and hear people. Free unlimited messages, high quality video and audio rooms, videochat 1-on-1 with someone. Live streaming audio and video with our live webcam.

http://www.icutoo.com

Back in the early 90s, we were introduced to the magical world of “cyberspace,” a place where you could chat with friends, check “electronic mail,” and even talk to strangers.  “Going on cyberspace” was like copulating with a pack of unicorns — no one had ever done it before, so everyone wanted to know what it was like:  How does it feel?  How does it work?  How can I get a screechy dial-up modem too?

But once cyberspace became mainstream, its better half decided that it would take on a whole new meaning.  In the seedy dark corners of AOL chatrooms, “cyber” lost its innocence.  With this transformation, thousands of curious 13-year olds were lured into predatory situations with creeps who wanted to “cyber”… Yes, like any rogue prefix-turned-slutty-verb, “cyber” became a term of virtual copulation.

So, forgive me for not embracing “Cyber Monday” as a new retail holiday.  To me, it’s as if retailers decided to name a random day “Boom Boom Tuesday” or “Bang Me Wednesday,” then offer 30% off all items in stock.  Sorry, but that doesn’t make me want to buy Ginsu knives, even if they’re 43% off on Amazon.  In fact, I feel less inclined to shop on Cyber Monday, and more inclined to join shady chatroom discussions about Grady Sizemore.

I am surprised that conservative watchdog groups haven’t boycotted “Cyber Monday” yet for its underlying sexual innuendo.  Perhaps they’re too busy snapping up Sarah Palin’s book on eBay… or maybe these “teabaggers” just don’t get the reference.

In the end, there are so many words in the English language that we’ve allowed to die an honorable death, like “beeswax” and “cassette tapes” and “groovy” (although this may still be used to describe Hideki Matsui’s face).  Had it not been for this inane Monday, “cyber” would be with them now.  I would like to call for an end to using this word (though, really, it’s a prefix), and retire “cyber” to Cyberia (apologies).  Let’s just call “Cyber Monday” for what it really is: “Virtual Deals… Monday.”

No webcam required to see and hear people. Free unlimited messages, high quality video and audio rooms, videochat 1-on-1 with someone. Live streaming audio and video with our live webcam.

http://www.icutoo.com

No webcam required to see and hear people. Free unlimited messages, high quality video and audio rooms, videochat 1-on-1 with someone. Live streaming audio and video with our live webcam.

http://www.icutoo.com

“DMT” is our code word for “DungeonMaster typing.” We use AOL Instant Messenger chatrooms for game, which gives no indication of if a member is typing or not. This can be very unfortunate, especially when there’s lots of things going on and everyone is trying to respond.

To a point, you can ask your players to say if they’re typing or not, but that just causes more delays and slows action even more, so it usually isn’t even worth it.

But as the DM, you’re often writing paragraphs.

Especially if you’re like me and get really into description. Case in point:

You arrive in Svelvar in early morning, and the ship is a bustle of activity as sailors dock and prepare the ship for unloading, moving cargo off and helping passengers down to the “piers.” The port is an extension of the city that is built out onto two adjacent cliff faces, so that piers extend outward into open space, though there are several hangars of varying size tucked closer to the stone. The city itself is not a particularly kind looking city, mostly dark wood and stone. Its most dominant feature is the church at the center of the city, around which the city’s buildings and citizens spin like a top. The church is an impressive building, towering over the rest of the city and sprawling over a good chunk of its heart, spires piercing the air like beseeching hands, though from some angles they seem more like the sky-facing points of the spears of an army.

Ew, I know. And that’s just the first paragraph.

But for this past session I performed an experiment: writing DM posts ahead of time.

It’s not the best way, maybe. D&D is so prone to switching at the drop of a hat, especially when it’s so dependent on characters’ actions. You may end up having to cut entire paragraphs, may end up rewriting whole sections. Which is fine. But if you’re like me, you’re prone to getting very attached to certain lines or phrases.

One downside to pre-writing, for me, is the temptation to not want to cut paragraphs, and instead twist the way the game plays out so that I can use what I wrote.

But if you can avoid hemming the players in too much and are comfortable rewriting and editing as you go, pre-writing is a good way to keep things running smoothly and not end up spending half the game session writing instead of actually playing.

“Have you ever played the Wikipedia game?”

After an exasperating few seconds struggling to articulate her mental picture of the Internet — “I can’t fit it into my head!” she protested — college sophomore Nicole Hugo landed upon one of her favorite exercises in procrastination as a suitable analogy for the greater World Wide Web.  To play, she explained, you need only think of a topic, any topic, and attempt to wind your way through the hyperlinked labyrinth of Wikipedia’s three-million-odd articles until reaching, at long last, a page dealing with the subject you’d originally chosen.  The “Wikipedia game,” she claimed, is the Internet writ small: “You can start off one place and end up where you want to go because everything is so interconnected.”

An effortless activity for Nicole, who rated herself a modest 10.5 in Internet proficiency (on a scale of 1 to 10), the analogy suggests an interesting topological conception of the Internet — for cyber-navigators like Hugo, information retrieval is so simple as to be a game; the challenge lies in exploring the geography, covering the terrain from point A to point B in the most creative way possible (her example: from roadrunners to Japanese anime).  In the minds of these college-age students, raised to treat it less as a tool than an environment, the Internet has become a “place” — one they find as comfortable and natural as the world outside the computer monitor.

Leah Jacobs, perhaps the only member of the Millennial Generation to express the wish that the Internet had never been invented, is not one of those students.

“I was always behind on the Internet,” she confessed — “This is embarrassing, but if I heard a song I liked on the radio, I would go on the iTunes search engine and try to guess the name of the song until something came up; I didn’t know I could go on Google and just type in a couple lyrics and press enter.  I only realized this the other day.”

Leah, who sees the Internet predominantly as an instrument of time wasting (at one point she compared Facebook to a drug addiction), approved of the utility of only a select few Internet features: email and Mapquest, in particular, though she still prefers Rand McNally.  While she originally rated herself a 7 in Internet competence, about an hour after the interview Leah must have had second thoughts; she emailed me back with the suggestion that I change her self-evaluation to a 4.  Perhaps the drop to a below-average ranking has something to do with her shaky command of Digital Age jargon, in which she’s not quite fluent: over the course of our conversation Leah groped for the term “flash drive” — “those little things that you put in the USB and save stuff to and take them somewhere else?” — and, when referring to websites she frequents, commonly cited the full URL (“dot com” and all).

Leah attributes her limited proficiency online to a long series of technological deficiencies in the Jacobs household: “It’s definitely how I was brought up — I was a sheltered child,” she said, adding that her family’s falling “behind” extended beyond computers.  As Leah remembers: “It was this big exciting thing when we got one cell phone… until we realized we couldn’t call each other.”

Though she was, like most millennials, exposed to computers very young, these early experiences served mainly to establish the utilitarian view of the Internet she holds today — while her “mom was obsessed with buying computer games,” they were strictly educational programs, and online activity involved nothing but email until high school.  “I think of the Internet as a tool to help me do work,” she said; “Other than that, it’s better to actually do things with people, to see them and talk to them.”

That sentiment was echoed by another Internet detractor, Dana Cooper, who spends her time online in similarly practical pursuits: homework, research, email.  This too reflects a pattern forged in childhood: while Dana learned to type before she could spell her own last name, her earliest memories of the Internet emphasize the academic uses she puts it to today.  “I remember being eight years old, looking up stuff online to do a project for science, on manatees,” she laughed, “And I did it all on my own, like I knew how to look stuff up online” — ten years later, the pride in her voice is still audible.

But Dana, if more adept than Leah at what she termed “the tricks of the trade,” still deplores the amount of time her classmates spend on the Internet.  “I think it’s embarrassing,” she said, citing a recent visit to a friend’s house as an example of the excessive lengths her peers will go to in pursuit of the perfect social networking profile — “She was putting up her pictures online, and fixing them and changing them and cropping them here or there, and I felt like, you can find out way too much stuff about people.  It’s invasive.”

From here, Dana begins to diverge from Leah’s functionalism: while Jacobs considers face-to-face communication the only true form of human contact, Dana indicates that the Internet does provide a setting for real social interaction, even if she isn’t a participant.  “Sometimes I do feel like an outsider,” she lamented; “If I go on some site and see what other people are writing, it’s kind of strange, like, why am I reading this if I’m not a part of it?”

For Dana, reading the posts of an online forum, the comments on someone’s YouTube account, or the wall posts between individuals over Facebook is akin to eavesdropping — the content a person generates online, in this view, is an accurate reflection of the flesh-and-blood human being behind the HTML.  To Dana, you are who you are online, and she, without a virtual identity (even one as cropped and edited as her friend’s), is less than an outsider: “If the Internet was real life,” she mused, “I would be non-existent!”

Nicole Hugo and Britta Kilkenny, another college sophomore and Internet true believer, elaborated on this idea — “Everything I post is true,” Nicole said of her Facebook profile, “So I guess it is does show who I am, or at least who I think I am”; Britta agreed, speculating that “someone could get a pretty good idea” of her personality and daily life if she updated her status more often.

What Dana termed “invasive,” Nicole and Britta see as a means of accurately representing themselves in a new medium, online.  And for Nicole, even something as short and presumably impersonal as a YouTube video comment can extend meaningful human contact — because she sees content that may not include so much as the creator’s name as representing an actual person, Hugo tries always to be encouraging and supportive: “These are usually people that I really enjoy, that I subscribe to, and I think they appreciate it when you write something positive.”  Compare this to Leah, for whom “people” exist only in physical space.

But in cyberspace (at least for Nicole, Britta, and Dana), manifestation as a tangible, carbon-based life form isn’t necessary; one’s virtual identity, perhaps a thing of words alone, is just as real and just as capable of social interaction.  The germs of this mindset as well may have been planted in early childhood — when asked what website they most remember visiting during their first days of Internet travels, all but Leah answered without hesitation: “Neopets.”

Launched in 1999, Neopets was something of an early online community for kids; set on the virtual planet of Neopia, members chose their own pets from a wide selection of chimerical animals and then proceeded to feed, clothe, and entertain them.  Discussing Neopets, Dana’s description highlighted both the independent nature of her early Internet use as well as the sense that the website was more a virtual environment than a game: “You could have your own pet, and it was yours, and you cared for it.  Then I could make money and have all my own material possessions, but on the Internet, you know?”  Britta, too, agreed that “it was pretty intense,” recalling that the website allowed for messaging among “neofriends” and even “battles” between the pets of complete strangers, an online cognate of the then-popular Pokemon card game.

Though she played as well, Nicole Hugo found Neopets rather too tame for her tastes — her online communication with others, even with strangers, proved more direct: chat rooms.

“Now that I think about it, that was probably extra sketch,” she said of these first, daring forays into the online social environment — nevertheless, a fourth-grade girl in 1999 could hardly expect to maintain her reputation without participating in at least one Backstreet Boys chat room.  A self-described “bad kid,” Nicole very early developed a cool confidence on the Internet.  “Because we didn’t have a babysitter,” she explained, free time was spent on the computer in her father’s office; this informal, private practice — “click-click-click, that’s all I knew how to do” — gave Nicole the basic skills she needed to manipulate a mouse, keyboard, and search engine in order to pursue her personal interests as a ravenous fangirl.

It’s no coincidence that Nicole and Britta, who at a young age began to see the Internet as a medium for social interaction, today treat websites like Facebook and YouTube as settings for communication as comfortable and personal as any face-to-face conversation.  Dana too, a Neopets veteran, sees the Internet as a “place,” an environment with its own geography — “Everyone talks about how big the Internet is, and I know, because I can go on for hours and hours and still feel like I’ve never gotten into the core of it.”

Her use of the word “big” here, interestingly, refers neither to popularity nor extension across a physical expanse of space: Dana references the simply overwhelming number of websites, a dense virtual world she can’t penetrate because, without a Facebook profile or other virtual identity, she remains on the periphery, “non-existent.”  And while Dana can’t reach the “core” of the Internet, Leah Jacobs — who described her family as “technologically deprived” — seems constantly out of her depth, floundering with search engines and information retrieval processes digital natives like Nicole Hugo consider so familiar as to constitute a game.

Ultimately, these four millennials represent a continuum in their treatment of the Internet — from a practical tool and nothing more, to a virtual environment in which real human interaction can occur.  The determinant?  Who cut their teeth on mousepads and keyboards, and who had to settle for pacifiers.

This is a slightly re-tooled version of a paper I recently wrote for an American Studies course.  The research is original, though names of interviewees have been changed to protect their identities (especially that of “Leah” who really doesn’t trust the Internet).  Feel free to use my research—just cite your sources.  Because remember, kids: plagiarism will send you straight to the Gates of Hell with the inefficient, the indifferent, and Pope Celestine V.  Or so says Dante.

No webcam required to see and hear people. Free unlimited messages, high quality video and audio rooms, videochat 1-on-1 with someone. Live streaming audio and video with our live webcam.

http://www.icutoo.com

Eine explizite Überschrift, die so einiges an Unterstellungen beinhalten könnte. In der Tat, dies war auch so beabsichtigt… !

Nun, dies hier soll kein Beitrag zur Errettung der Welt (oder zumindest zur Lösung der Klimaprobleme) sein, sondern vielmehr eine kurze persönliche Feststellung und Analyse in Bezug auf mein Internetverhalten. Das ist doch fast genauso spannend, oder ? Doch unter anderem deswegen bietet es sich (ausnahmsweise) auch mal nicht unbedingt an, allgemeine Rückschlüsse oder Lehren aus diesem Text zu ziehen.

Doch es ist nuneinmal so – manchmal möchte ich blogtechnisch auch persönliches loswerden. Heute geht es mir um mein Internetverhalten, beziehungsweise dieses speziell bezogen auf die sogenannten “Communities” die es da draussen so gibt. Die erste Feststellung: was habe ich Zeit verbracht in solchen modernen Auffanglagern für sozial verarmte, geltungsgeile, nörgelnden… gut, ich höre schon auf. Sicherlich gibt es auch immer “positive” beziehungsweise “neutrale” Fälle – so wie ich es einer war. Das schätze ich selbst jetzt einfach mal so ein.

Aber auch ich war eine Zeitlang mit exakt diesen Worten zu beschreiben. Doch darauf folgt die zweite Feststellung: wie frei und gut man sich fühlt wenn man diesen “Status” einmal überwunden hat beziehungsweise treffendere Alternativen in der realen Welt gefunden hat ! Das können soziale Kontakte sein, eine Arbeit die Spaß macht, Geld und Spaß im Überfluss (na na) – was genau jetzt davon auf mich zutrifft, möchte ich nicht weiter ausführen. Doch der eigentliche Grund, warum ich diese Zeilen hier überhaupt schreibe ist: Enttäuschung. Nicht unbedingt die Enttäuschung hinsichtlich des Gefühls “ausgelaugt” gewesen zu sein – denn auch das kommt vor. Meint: man gibt und gibt (und sei es nur ZEIT) und bekommt stets weniger zurück, die Energie verpufft oder es bereichern sich andere daran. Kommt mir irgendwie bekannt vor…

Nein, es ist vielmehr die Enttäuschung, die eine Erforschung der Persönlichkeiten hinter den sogenannten Avataren mit sich bringt. Früher war doch irgendwie alles einfacher: entweder man war ein Eremit aus Überzeugung, oder man suchte sich etwaige soziale Kontakte “live” (noch so ein Unwort) und direkt, das heisst in der wirklichen Welt. Und da war meist recht schnell klar, ob die Chemie stimmt oder nicht. Und noch wichtiger als das eigentliche Funktionieren dieses Experiments ist die Haltbarkeit des entstehenden Produkts.

In der Tat ! Was nützt mir die größte Freude in den ersten Minuten (es können auch Stunden, Tage, Wochen oder Monate sein), wenn sich im Endeffekt doch herausstellt dass die Mischung eine doch eher geringe Halbwertszeit hat ? Von wegen “Nutzen”: davon darf man ja nicht sprechen. Doch seien wir ehrlich: wahre Wohltäter gibt es nicht oder eher selten. Ein jeder möchte für das, was er gibt – wenn auch nur durch sein blosses, irgendwie “aktives” Leben – auch in irgendeiner Form zurückbekommen. Wenn auch nicht in vollem Maße, das spielt keine Rolle (zumal hier persönliche Perspektiven ein Wörtchen mitzureden haben). Es fühlt sich immer irgendwie “falsch” an, wenn das Pendel zu sehr in eine Richtung auszuschlagen scheint.

Was sage ich – ich habe einfach keine Lust mehr auf Internetbekanntschaften, Engagement in irgendwelchen virtuellen Communities et cetera. Mir ist das wirkliche Leben inzwischen wichtiger geworden – hier weiss ich, was ich habe. Das heisst natürlich nicht, dass ich alle der bisherigen – eben über die virtuelle Schiene entstandenen – Kontakte abbrechen werde. Die wichtigsten werden (nach einer Auszeit, in der ich mich gerade befinde) weiter, beziehungsweise wieder gepflegt – und dann im Regelfall weitergeführt. Oder im Ausnahmefall (wenn gefühlt = ohne Zukunft) abgebrochen. In diesem Zustand der “Wichtigkeit” ist nur eine Person absolut fix, und ca. 4 locker. Nur neue werden nicht mehr hinzukommen !

Als einzige Ausnahme halte ich mir diesen Blog hier als kleines Haustier, über das ich mit der Welt da draussen kommunizieren werde. Wie gesagt, ein wenig des virtuellen Geltungsdranges ist auch noch bei mir vorhanden… aber dann mache ich das lieber komplett unabhängig und mit voller Kontrolle. Nun, was bleibt also… exakt 3 Email-Adressen, ein winziges Browserspiel, der Blog hier, Ebay… und das war es dann auch. Das ist wenig, bedenkt man den Wegfall von mehr als einer handvoll Foren, Messengern (wie ICQ oder MSN), Chats im allgemeinen, Youtube (und ähnliches), Flickr, et cetera et cetera… na gut, zur Informationssuche werde ich das Internet natürlich ebenfalls weiterhin benutzen – gibt ja beispielsweise einige Leute die recht gute Filmseiten haben… !

Daran wird sich wohl auch nichts ändern… es sei denn, es entsteht irgendwann einmal eine Onlinepräsenz die mir so gut gefällt dass ich nicht nein sagen kann (unwahrscheinlich) – oder ich realisiere weitere Internetauftritte unter meinem Realnamen – die dann aber höchstwahrscheinlich nichts mit irgendeiner “Community” oder Internetkontakten zu tun haben werden. Diese Maske habe ich abgelegt, und ich habe derzeit wenig Lust, sie wieder aufzusetzen. Ist dies etwa nur ein weiterer Schritt Richtung Erwachsenendasein (nun, sollte ich eigentlich schon mittendrin sein) oder Altersweisheit ? Oder ist es schlicht die Vernunft, die irgendwann sagt: stopp, das macht dir keinen Spaß (mehr) ?

Ich weiss es nicht. Ich weiss nur, dass ich beispielsweise vor ca. einem Jahr komplett dem Alkohol abgeschworen habe – und das es eines der besten Dinge war, zu denen ich mich je entschieden habe. Mach kaputt was Dich kaputtmacht, und werfe den Ballast ab. Das Leben ist zu schön, um es zu “versaufen” oder zu verdaddeln – und selbst wenn es nur die Chance ist, dass es schön sein könnte – nur sollte man alles tun, dass dies eine halbwegs realistische Perspektive ist. Und da stören manche Dinge einfach.

Und dies ist jetzt keine Phase einer Überheblichkeit oder eines über-den-Dingen-stehenden Ikarus Pseudo-Moralapostels, der mal Glück in seinem (Real-)Leben gehabt hat und nun die Internetcommunity nicht mehr “braucht”. Das wäre verlogen, und ein Hinweis darauf, dass ich möglicherweise Plattformen oder einzelne Personen einfach nur kurzzeitig ausgenutzt habe. Doch das Gegenteil ist der Fall ! Ich habe gewisse Sachen im Internet “gelebt”. Meint: ich habe mich sehr reingesteigert. Unter anderem waren das Text-, Audio- und Videoblogs mit dem Ziel der Unterhaltung anderer (Youtube als ein Beispiel) – und davon wissen auch genug. Nur hatte ich selbst irgendwie selten etwas davon, und wenn es banale Dinge wie das Freuen beim Steigen der Anzahl von Klicks auf Videos wären. Daher sage ich: wer sich jetzt noch fragt warum ich “gehe”, sollte sich einfach mal an seinen eigenen Kopf fassen. Da ist einfach viel falsch gelaufen. Nun ja, kalter Kaffee.

Nun, dann wünsche ich noch einen schönen Tag. Und: wer all dies hier bis hierher gelesen hat, könnte einer derjenigen sein mit denen ich in den letzten Jahren Kontakt über das Internet gehabt habe. Ich Grüße – wenn Ihr mich erreichen wollt, dann tut dies bitte per E-Mail (Notfalls) – lieber aber per Telefon. Denn das ist eine Erfindung, die eigentlich kaum Nebenwirkungen mit sich bringt.

Ikarus (18. Oktober 2009)

A trip down memory lane… on the information superhighway.

I recently conducted a series of interviews for a paper discussing how children who grew up online use the Internet today, as opposed to older generations—maybe the old folks invented the Internet (a round of applause to Al Gore, everyone), but the millennials are the ones who live there.

That’s not quite as figurative as one might imagine.

Something that interested me was just how often my interviewees tallied not only in how they think about the Internet or use it for today (read: Facebook), but what specific websites they visited way back in the late 90s and early 2000s.  One word: Neopets.

I remember Neopets—in fact, I was such an incredibly active and gifted member of the Neopian community that I won third place in a poetry contest back in 2003… it was something about an abandoned JubJub finally being saved from the pound by some kind-hearted child.  I could probably find that poem if I was motivated, but I’m frankly terrified to look.  I think it might have been written in the second-person present tense.  Scary?  Yes.

But I didn’t expect so many of my former friends and classmates to have been Neopian citizens as well.  Neopets, it seems, was the Facebook of 1990s fourth graders.

Some of the features are common to most social networking sites—an internal message system, the ability to “friend” someone.  Members were  able to form “guilds” based on shared interests, like the groups of Facebook.  And interaction between complete strangers was even possible in a number of ways, most notably, perhaps, being in battle—pet owners could take to the arena and sick their armored chimeras on each other like cartoon gladiators.  That may be more akin to Pokemon than Facebook, but I distinctly remember a feature involving typing messages to your opponent during battle.  It was a bit unnerving to be a pre-adolescent kid getting virtual threats via a computer game.  And yet, exciting.

One of the individuals I interviewed who remembered Neopets commented on this sort of interaction between strangers:

“Yeah, pretty weird, right?  I do remember being little and being… you know how they had big guilds that a lot of people joined?  I never joined those because they weirded me out a little bit.”

She, of course, is the one who still thinks Facebook is comparable to a drug addiction.

But this website was where she comments that she learned “the tricks of the trade” of the Internet—in particular “refreshing the page” (simple operations like this, she still helps her mother with).

I think it’s significant that these basic Internet and computer skills were learned (by at least this handful of now-college-age students) on a website that allowed social interaction, however limited.  (Based on my research, more direct communication between strangers was also facilitated by Backstreet Boys chatrooms.)  And I have a hunch that Neopia has something to do with the spatial—almost geographical— descriptions of the Internet I got from a number of interviewees.  Cyberspace is perhaps a better word than the Internet for what they (and I, I have to admit) experience online.

The word was coined by cyberpunk novelist William Gibson in his novel Neuromancer as a “consensual hallucination” facilitated by computers and networks and “constellations of data.”  A conceptual environment in which we interact.

But unlike the “real world,” in cyberspace you can’t project any sort of physical form—who you are is what you write, post, upload.  User-generated content, user-generated identities.

The denizens of Facebook get that.  Comfortable online after years of use (particularly years of use as very young children), they don’t think anything of listing the books they read, the movies they watch, the pictures they take, or even the thoughts they’re having at that very moment.  Status updates update who they are online.  If it’s a “place,” you have to make your presence known.

Neopets might have planted the seeds of that spatial metaphor—it was, after all, a virtual “world.”  I was there from the very start in 1999, and I used to follow the Neopia “news” rapaciously.  Members could build their own houses, own their own shops and sell goods to other members (even strangers) in a competitive market.  On the international front—new continents were constantly being discovered; a space station was built; and wars and global conflict unfolded (at one point I enlisted my Nimbo to defend Meridell, and later defected to Dr. Sloth).  I visited the “map” of Neopia online today, and was shocked by how many new “places” there were—but of course, it’s been nearly a decade since I last visited.

Today I “travel” the Internet like I traveled Neopia, and the responses I received throughout my interviews made clear that at least a half-dozen others from my hometown think the same way.

Maybe the best example is one I got from an interviewee explaining how she likes to procrastinate online:

“Have you ever played the Wikipedia game?” she asked.

“You think of a topic, like anime, Japanese anime, and you click a random article, like, I don’t know—road runners.  Then you find your way from road runners to Japanese anime.  I guess that’s kind of like how the Internet is.  You can start of one place and end up where you wanted to go because everything is so interconnected.”

She learned the “tricks of the trade” a long time ago, and she’s comfortable in a virtual social setting—the challenge, now, is just exploring the terrain.

• RoomsChat
  Good varied chatrooms.
  (tags: Chatroom Chat roomschat social)
• irc.2ch.net
  2ch – Japanese IRC chatroom active with many people.
  (tags: Japan Japanese IRC Chatroom Chat community)

One of the issues with Myspace and internet safety is the people that use it love to have really big friends lists. Unlike facebook which is mainly for people you know, Myspace is a hunting ground for sexual predators, fake guys and girls.. and  freaks in general. That said, there are genuine people on there.. I’m just a bit more sceptical than most.

Blackmailing is often done using Myspace, or other social websites. This might be new to some and blatantly obvious to others, but it’s really common if you’re apart of chat rooms where you interact with a lot of users at any one time.

If a girl or boy is recorded on webcam, or pictures were given out of a sexual nature to the wrong person. The blackmailer gets access to that users Myspace friends list and threatens to tell everyone about what they get up to, or at worst, posts the media they obtained.

My only advice to anyone that’s been involved in blackmail such as this.. The blackmailer has whatever information/media he has on you, there’s no need to give him more ammunition. Block the person, report him on whatever chat platform you use. Make your Myspace friends only, don’t add anyone from the chat rooms you use because a lot of them are fake, videos or weird people that pray on the innocent for a sexual fix. Also, inform your parents. They will be a little bit hurt at first but they will be able to help. And finally, for internet safety, keep logs of ALL your conversations.

For parents, visit and read up on this useful blog Parents Safety Group

http://chatroomsafety.blogspot.com/2009/08/myspace-keeping-it-for-frends-only.html

To add spice in your chatting experience, do drop by in any Punkai.chatrooms to have
more thrill and meet new people to be your friends.  Check out the following rooms and
hold on tight to see how it works for you!

Punkai Lounge- This is your destination if you want to unwind and meet interesting
Punkai.com members.

Newbies Room- New to Punkai.com? This is your place to be to meet new members just
like you and eventually find friends.

Gimikero/Gimikera Room- If you love the night life and always painting the town red,
night owlers this room is for you! Talk about your awesome memories as a Gimikero/
Gimikera.

Estudyante Room- Share what is up with your life at school and how it is like as a
student from your experiences with  terror teachers to the dreaded examinations.

Love and Romance Room- If you are in love, falling in love or in full spirit for romance,
this room suits you best.  Exchange sweet talks with other members and your
unforgettable memories about love.

Broken Hearts Room- They said sharing bitter or painful  memories is the best way to
let go of the emotions of having a heavy heart.  This room is designed for people who
are broken hearted and need someone to understand and give them pieces of advices
to let go of the excruciating pain.

Taga Visayas Room- Do you love Cebu, Siquijor and Negros? If so, then chill in this
room because this room is created for Visayas region lovers.

Taga Luzon Room- If you like anything about Luzon from its historical landmarks,
bustling metropolis to scenic tourist spots, you can talk it here.  This room is fashioned
for people who came from Luzon and someone who has interest about the archipelago.

Taga Mindanao Room- When you want to know about the culture, tradition and its
people, join in this room as this is for Mindanao!

International Room- You can meet here global chatters from different walks of life
across the world.

Gamers/Players Room- Are you a follower of online games? Then, be a part of this
room since it homes only the buffs of online games.

Internet Addicts Room- Want to know who loves to stay up late because of the internet?
Meet internet fans here!

Pet Lovers Room- Share tips and advises on how to take good care of pets or talk
about what pet you own with your fellow pet lovers in this room.

Food Aficionado Room- This is the room for gourmands, food lovers or cook, discuss
anything about food either it is a local cuisine or international
dish.

Travelers/Adventurers Room- Have you been into one of the most beautiful tourist
spots in the world? Share it in here in the Travelers/Adventurers room and meet other
travel enthusiasts or someone who craves for adrenalin rush.

Punkai.com webchat provides to almost anything under the sun.  It houses interesting
chatrooms to cater almost your needs based on your interests or hobby.  Explore and
make use of this latest webchat feature and be ready to make avalanche of friends!

that is why you fail (whale)

Much to the annoyance of most of my friends, I’ve been using Twitter for about a year and two months now. It started out as a thing I did for work, and so I could follow the once-personified Rittenhouse Square. Then I added lots of websites’ twitters, because I enjoyed the serialized news format more than Google Reader (I know I’m probably alone on this), and then finally a few friends joined. Most of my closest friends, however, still prefer updating their Facebook status, or perhaps their Tumblrs, as their chosen method of self-broadcasting. These are decent ways of furthering their personal brands, but I think they’re missing out on something we’ve not been able to fully utilize on the Internet up to now, something that’s so integral to living with roommates, coworkers, friends and even people you don’t know: passive-aggressive messages. Lots more after the jump.

Back in college, it’s difficult to go all four (or more) years without at least once returning to your room to find a post-it stuck to your keyboard with some request from those you live with, like don’t leave your room with the TV still on. Understandable. Sometimes the passive-aggression is a little more aggressive; one time a housemate of mine hadn’t done any dishes in months, and had been hoarding them in his room, then he came down and left them all in the sink. As a result, another one of my fed up housemates cleaned all the dishes and hid all of them. Wouldn’t it have accomplished just as little, and been much easier to just write a scathing tweet with an @reply to the oblivious roommate? This is how we are starting to operate in 2009.

After Alberto Contador won the Tour de France the other day, he spoke out that he has never admired his now ex-teammate Lance Armstrong, and never will. Armstrong, being a good American, responded in tweet. The seven-time winner, and one-time bronze-medalist twot:

“Hey pistolero, there is no ‘I’ in ‘team’. what did I say in March? Lots to learn. If I were him I’d drop this drivel and start thanking his team. w/o them, he doesn’t win.”

There was a time when sports personalities would settle disputes at news conferences, or in the ring. Now we have Twitter, the easiest way to not have to act like a man. Yesterday, someone stole one of my bike’s wheels, and I think the first thing I did when I sat back down at my computer was to tweet about it, instead of, y’know, calling the police or doing anything about replacing it. I’m not sure I know what this means, beyond that Twitter has become the easiest and quickest way to vent one’s frustration, especially if there’s no one around. It makes a post on something like LiveJournal feel like writing War & Peace every time you use it; your thoughts can be broadcast globally as quickly as your Joycean stream-of-consciousness mind can spew them out. Sometimes not thinking before we tweet gets us in trouble, as was the case recently with one Chicago man. He insipidly wrote:

“Who said sleeping in a mouldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon Realty thinks it’s okay.”

Granted, it’s a bit of an overreaction, but that realty company is now suing the guy who wrote it for $50,000 for defamation. It’s good to see that even on the Internet, passive-aggressive acts will often still be met with aggressive responses; we’ve not devolved entirely into a race of meek non-confrontationalists yet.

For the most part though, we’ve really just returned to the mid-90s AOL chatroom state. There’s a lot of gesticulating and posturing on Twitter, a lot of “hey why don’t you say that to my face” and “yeah come here and say that”, and not a lot of actual fighting. It’s not unlike when my friends and I, delving onto the net at about age ten, would go into chatrooms we definitely had no need to be in (“Mothers and Grandmothers of Idaho”, “Conservative Party Central”, “Hot Babes Here”, to name a few), and we’d say something blindingly witty, usually along the lines of “you guys suck”, and we’d watch the inevitable fallout, sixty-five individuals telling us how wrong we were, until we were eventually kicked out. Twitter is no different, other than perhaps it’s even slower. Even with applications like TweetDeck for your computer and phone, there’s still very few instant reactions on Twitter, none of the immediacy of chatrooms of old. Obviously, there are still some chatrooms I could go be annoying on, if I ever have a reunion with my middle-school friends I probably will, but it’s Twitter that the ten year-olds of today will remember in a decade or so.

The internet will never become stale, as long as we constantly come up new ways to tell people they’re wrong on it. Twitter’s shelf life is probably nearing its end, seeing as it’s over-saturating its audience in ways that would make spammers and infomercialists proud (is there really that much of a difference between being constantly hounded by CNN reporters to tweet them, and being told to buy Slap-Chops and ShamWows and Forman Grills all day?), but some new way will come about. Another way that we can disconnect ourselves from our problems and hope that anyone else is interested. Considering there’s even a market for watching others being passive-aggressive, I have no doubt that an even weaker way of dealing with eachother will soon come about. I just hope the iPhone app has a good interface.

So. I’d like to rant about something… that bothers me. As always.

Chat rooms.

First off, they’re for chatting. Which nobody ever seems to understand. People are silent.

And when they start to talk… ugh.

No commas, no periods, no capitalization. Numbers in places they should not be. Extra letters in places they do not belong.

Dull, uninteresting statements; “im bord”, “my bf jus dumpd me”, “talkk ppl!!”, “sexi boys im me”

Where is the grammar? Where is the spelling? Where are the greatly planned, well thought out, interesting points?

Nowhere.

Because America sucks, and can’t teach kids anything.

Where are your brains, people?
Find them.
Use them.

Trust me. Life is more fun that way.

<3 Absolute Manifesto <3

OMGPOP (formally iminlikewithyou) chatrooms are perverted! I went in, BTW my name on OMGPOP is Mr Slam (if your interested in playing with my haha) anyways so i entered the chatroom that my friend was in, (Asians only hehe) and after a brief conversation with my friend on it, somehow it turned into a chatroom about sex… and somehow the conversation got to the point where they started to use my name with the sexual comments, for example “i like to slam girls”, anyways the chatrooms are so random…

That was my blog about the random chatrooms haha

so, chatrooms with random people are somewhat interesting… if you want to waste time and meet the weird crazy ugly interesting fun perverted side of people, its a good place…

anyways thats about it for tonight… i guess since its like 3:17 already haha good night err morning err night since ima go sleep eventually haha

-out-

beboskins, chatrooms, youtube vids, me