21 Janurary 2021
My First Blog Entry
Is this what power feels like?
My pages loaded!
It all begins with a simple text:This is my first cool website.
Only a few hours into my ~internet art~ course endows a new technique of creation.
Creation!
Creation at my figure tips.
I AM GOD here.
I may not be infinite, but this is now my space.
I have my own spot.
I couldn't ask to be well traversed, but I do have an ownership now at least. I always felt so restricted by the internet before coding. So restrained to mainstream sites like google and social media platform. The restraints of the site let you leave your name places by making memberships. You pretend, you rent a "spot".
But here, I am.
People can now join me and follow me, become a member of the cult that is ME.
But is this website for world domination?
...maybe eventually but that's besides the point.
I have my own blank infinite page of pixels. Edge to edge of your window, is now mine.
A blank infinite page, space I can put anything on.
I exist now in the digital space. This is my voice. Can you hear me yet. Hello. Anyone out there listening to my words?
Hey you over there? Wanna hang out with me?
Besides my god complex, I can be a pretty interesting person.
My first real introductions to computers was 2007 while I was in kindergarten. Our classroom set up was differ from a dress up/pretend area, to math activities, rug activities and there were two computers set up as well. We would rotate through all the activities probably on a weekly bias. The computer activities were most likely education or maybe even just basically taught us computer functions in an age appropriate way. The two desktops were off to the side of the room. I remember the computers were often the coveted activity, even though we didn’t even surf the web. One of the very first webaccounts I remember making was my webkinz account. My username was Orange with some numbers probably and my password was my sister’s name. Webkinz was such an inventive way to get kids hooked onto the internet. They took stuffed animals that kids of all ages still collect (currently squishmallows are very popular) and connected it to an online gaming site. Not only do you have to make additional purchases which is a good business model, but it also introduced younger gens to online gaming. I did not remember playing webkinz a ton. Our two computers never drew my interest for long as I had to share with my three older siblings as well.
Throughout the rest of elementary and early middle school we would often maybe once to twice a week take trips to the computer labs. My school had hired specific teachers to create curriculums for our computer courses. Throughout the years we did typing programs with a cartoon octopus, a drawing program, and one where we made moving stick figures. When the spelling test continued to illusify me, my mom found a website with some mouse mascot that we could program words into that had spelling tests and games to familiarize me with the words.
In middle school they tried to get us to buy into an email program they had purchases that was exclusive to the students. This program didn’t really work. First of all we were in the fifth grade and we were all starting to get our own cell phones which we could more easily text with. My first phone was a cheap blueberry looking phone that has a half keyboard half screen. I would spend hours texting my crushes on that phone. Around that same time I had an Ipod as well. I would spend most nights up late very late watching youtube. I watched the entirety of the Television Show from the 90’s “The Nanny.” I would watch how to make up, how to know if a guy likes you, etc and even for a time aspired to be a youtube personality. I would talk to myself in my head and even sometimes out loud while applying my eyeshadow and lipgloss. “Hey what's up you guys' ' became the start to all of the inner monologue.
In fifth grade my school purchased a set of ipad and my math teacher taught us a unit with a balancing program, perhapses so we had a better illustration of equality and symbolism with equations functionality. This year as well I was first introduced to mine-craft in our computer class. In Sixth grade we would occasionally get the use of netbooks for powerpoint presentations in our world history class. Although in these early research base projects we would still rely on our library's physical text for research at this point. I was given my own laptop this christmas, and soon began my adventure into the online world of mining. My close friend introduced me to her MineCraft server and I soon encapsulated by the many creative opportunities the program offered. Once included in the group of guys who also played minecraft I soon began to usurp the amount of time they spent with the game. It was a group of maybe 10 people. We would skype each other most days when we were playing. I would stay on the most playing into the night almost every single night for months. I like to brag about getting so good that I could build a floating house in survival mode. This turned out to be very addictive for me and time consuming so I quit playing only a few months later. I still occasionally log on but unfortunately the serves I would play on have since been reset and I now no longer recognize the program as well as I once did.
In seventh and eighth grade when we finally got lockers, we also finally got our own netbooks. Now we were not allowed to bring them home, but we installed spotify and for a time were able to watch netflix during school on them. Once we had small seminars with our dean of the middle school about creating an effective password. Of course we had been taught about cyberbullying on multiple occasions. It was in these years we got better acquainted with MLA formatting and research using academic resources that were later useful for highschool.
Social Media, specifically instagram has been involved in my life maybe since 5th grade. I have had multiple accounts. When I was younger I made newer accounts a few times. I originally was affected by the number and likes and followers, but now about 4 years into it I didn’t really care that much. Snapchat is another app I have had for years, probably 6/7th grade. I would look and see who was on my crush's best friend list and sometimes obsess. I never really fell into the streak trend and I did try for a time, but now I snap only at my boyfriend and occasionally my siblings.
I feel myself currently wanting to distance from the internet. With my school life now online I crave physicality. I recently prescribed to the New Yorker and I feel luxurious reading a magazine and love the lack of the screen. I think that designing my own website will allow me to reclaim my online experience.
Note to self: add a live chat room to my page that would be to just talk to people as the visit the site or even let it prompted like a sorta of reddit page and let it be a project.