For My Next Trick, I Shall Take Over The Internet
11 Jul
What am I doing up at 4 in the morning, browsing the Internet?
I haven’t a fucking clue.
I was planning to go to bed at 1, after spending a good three hours re-watching Titanic for the 200th time. That movie tugs at my heart strings every time. Anyway, I came to check the downloads on my computer before going to bed, and now, three hours later, I am still here, blogging no less!
For the last three hours, I’ve been Facebooking and browsing through a lot of blogs, or if you prefer the more sophisticated term, “personal sites.”
Have you ever stumbled into a personal site that reminded you so much of yourself (present or past) and been completely creeped out? That happened to me twice tonight, and I couldn’t bring myself to comment at all because it was just too awful. The tacky, mainstream layout, the emo, desperately-trying-to-be-serious-and-meaningful entries, the random bolded phrases in the middle of entries, and the smilies that stick out like a sore thumb. God, as if I didn’t have enough things to give me nightmares. But really, I’m not criticizing the design skills of 13-going-on-14 year olds. I’m merely struck by the molds that so many of us are bred out of. Even the blogging style and the content of their blogs reflected those entries that I’ve desperately tried to deny ever writing. I’ve been so caught up in trying to be an enigma that I haven’t really considered the other side. What if people are really like each other? What if I really am part of a group that can be stereotyped within a 10 percent error range? What if I’m not memorable?
What if, what if, and so what? I’ve been so obsessed with the idea of originality that maybe I haven’t seen the bigger picture. Even if I can be stereotyped within the global gene pool and all that, within a given individual’s life or world, I can still be one of a kind, can’t I? I can still be the only neurotic, geek girl that eats coleslaw and crepes with ketchup, as far as my friends are concerned, right?
Still, no matter how hard I try, the truth of the matter is, in this day and age, it’s easy to be connected to the rest of the world. It’s called The Internet. Someone could just Google me up and decide to take on the whole coleslaw-and-crepes-with-ketchup bit, and BAM!, there goes the deciding factor of my individuality.
I suppose that means The Internet is a threat to my self-concept, and as one knows, any threat to my self-concept must be dealt with quickly and swiftly. Forget world domination. It’s me against The Internet now.
So it seems, after years of worshipping modern-day technology, it has finally come to back to bite me in the ass.
Fuck you Google, Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, and every other website that is ruining my chances to be one of a kind!
Haha I know how you feel. But imagine going to your friend’s blog, and then find her writing similar to yours. Once I wrote something, and then a few days later, I read something similar on my friend’s blog, with almost the same words, just that she rearranged the words around to make it seem like they’re her words. Anyway when we were all young, we were obsessed with smilies and our layouts were all amateurish. But we grew out of that phase, and its just the beginning for those who just turned 13 or 14.
Actually I don’t even know what I’m talking about. Just ignore me.
I’ve always thought that our domains are supposed to help define who we are. MySpace, Xanga, whatever – those are for annoying trend-following teenagers who just want to be noticed a lot of the time. Well, that is, if they write only for others, not themselves. We discover who we are by writing about our experiences. I mean, looking at your favorites page, I see a lot of random, rather creepy similarities with myself. I’ve read The Way to Your Heart, and I loved Serendipity and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Notting Hill and… I’m probably not like you. Plus, blog-writing is a great way to meet new people who like you for who you are (if they actually read your blog) or who do have the same interests. Most of us probably have a blog for the same reason, maybe to vent about our day or post random thoughts that would seem pointless to say out loud but, in the end, that’s how other people can understand us . No one can be like us – no one else has shared the same moments. So remember that! :)
well, i was actually thinking that the internet provides a really easy place for us to find people who are similar to us. how many people did you really find that are or were once like you? hopefully not that many, but all that you saw, maybe that’s all that is. the internet turns the world into such a small place, in a way.
er, maybe, that is. :) because i’ve actually seen lots of websites that fit what you just described. oh well, but those people seem to move with the flow, they keep up with what’s trendy, and they’ll always be alike, i think.
i hate myspace, by the way, haha. what tom tried to pass as blogging and having a website is just another means of stalking.
(by the way, i think you’ll be pleased to know i’ll search and/or make a set of new smilies today, hurray! the freaky ones i have right now were preset, and i was too lazy to change. laziness is a terrible thing, don’t succumb to it or you might end up with terrible smilies!)
Hmm. I try not to think about this type of thing xD The world and everything larger than it kinda freaks me out, so I try not to dwell, lest I scare myself. I suppose these kinda doubts that we all have at some point are because we’re not truly content with ourselves or, how I hate this phrase, we haven’t “found” ourselves. The fact is, once you figure out who you are inside your head and just accept it (acceptance is not liking, by the way), you’ll stop wondering if you’re an individual because you simply won’t care. Once you hit that point, you’ll realize that even if you are categorized, all of those people in the group still haven’t led the life you lead, met the people you’ve met or gained all of the values you’ve gained in a plethora of ways they haven’t even thought about.
Yeah, so don’t worry. You’re totally an individual, even in your stereotype group. There might be five ketchup-on-crepe girls in there, but only three wear glasses, and two of the three like coleslaw, and one of them is you ;) (That is, if you wear glasses… I’m assuming, don’t ruin it, I’m on a roll!)
And MySpace can die for all I care. That thing is an absolute WRECK. I hope it DIES. Slowly. Painfully. In completely tangible-to-the-world torture and agony. Yes, I will be happy the day comes…
I’m sure everyone – even non-bloggers – have diary entries that they can’t help but cringe at when browsing through old yearbooks or journals. I have some old archives that are pretty cheesy!
And individuality *is* relative isn’t it? Even before the internet.. were we ever really one-of-a-kind?
I used to copy my older sisters… or different mannerisms from my friends… and I guess when you add up all those different idiosyncrasies that you pick up from other people, you *do* become unique because no one else copies the exact same people as you.
Did that make sense? lmao. Probably not :P
Hey there! Thanks for the nice comment you left at my blog. It was such a surprise since I never really get comments from people other than a couple regular visitors. Now I see you as this big mystery, lol. Or “enigma” as you like to say. That’s because I really don’t know who you are or how you found me. But again, thank you for the comment.
However, after reading your past six entries, I can honestly say that your own blog is one that I would definitely visit regularly. Your thoughts and your fingers seem to be very closely connected and you just type what you think/feel. And I love that. It’s so honest.
About this entry and the Internet molds/styles idea, all I can say is that we’ve all been there and done that. At first, yeah, it can be creepy coming across a blog that reminds you of yourself. Especially if it’s your past self. It’s like watching your little sister or brother go through something you went through when you were their age. You can’t help but say to yourself “Hey, I remember when I got through that.” So really, it can be quite comforting to realize through someone else’s blog how much you’ve grown as a person. We all kind of need to be the same at one point to recognize how we can be different now and later on.
And hey, you never know if there’s someone else right now reading our blogs, saying, “I remember when I wrote about a site that reminded me so much of myself. This is creeping ME out.”
Okay, maybe not quite like that, lol. But like I said, you never know.
I came upon your site in the wee hours of the morning, a little while before I churned out this entry. I had been trying to visit every single page on the Internet – or something like it – so I was madly clicking links that led me from one to another, and eventually, to yours.
You’re absolutely right, it is sort of an ego-boost to see how far I’ve come in comparison. But really, I’m just trying to pretend that it never happened. Haha.
And thank YOU for your generous praise!
Although I certainly agree that we all conform more and more as we grow up and become a more integrated part of society, I don’t think we’re born “weird.” But certainly, we are much more an individual when we are first born because we haven’t been influenced by anything but genes, and so, the only people we could possibly be alike to are our parents, but since that’s a combination of two people, we are not completely one or the other.
I’m going to take advantage of your post to go off on a tangent of sorts.
I think everybody is born what society would qualify as “weird.” We all have inherent quirks and oddities. It’s just a question of who conforms to what extent to society’s mold of an acceptable person. Thus our intrinsic characteristics are constantly being affected by society’s mold, restrained or completely oppressed or whatever. Thus no two people are really more alike than any other two given people, just that the way society shapes us forces us into categories and groups and lists.
That’s my theory (if it can be considered such) on this ubiquitous issue of “individuality.”
Considering I have no degree in web design or anything, I’m technically still an amateur. But anyways, I detest ninety nine percent of teen websites.
And I just as randomly browse the internet. It’s all good.
I think I can pretty much completely agree on this one. It’s pretty delightful to see that some people on the internet actually don’t have to blog about their damned emo lifes every day. Yet that sad thing is that they get all the hits? Maybe some people just enjoy attempting to comfort the poor soul who are writing their heart out. My advice to them would simply be ‘go get a life’, but I guess they’d accuse me of being heartless.