Do you remember the first time you learned about the internet?

I do.

I remember the first time I learned about the internet.

It was in 1999, when communication is still MIRC. It costs Php90.00 per hour and internet cafes were stylish, cold, and they serve fancy chocolate shakes with wafers on top.

Do you remember getting your first email address?

I do.

It was back in 2000, as a college student. I learned about MIRC and people keep asking me for my email address. And I was like, what is that? Maybe I should get one. I went to this internet shop near my college dorm, and without asking for assistance, even if I looked stupid, I navigated my way through yahoo. Trust me, google was still just being discovered and yahoo.com used to be the thing.

I must have created 5 different email addresses in one sitting: I have yahoo, hotmail, mailcity, msn and aol. I had fun creating different names for my email address, until I decided to have one email address that I'm going to have for a long time, I still have it now, more than a decade later.

I developed this love affair with the internet. And it became everyone's thing.



I worked as an assistant trainer and my teaching demo piece was about Friendster. While my other contenders had account-related topics and power point slides, I only have a borrowed white board and a marker. I wasn't even expecting that I'd get in because I know nothing about those fancy presentation. I even remember breaking down after my presentation in the restroom, because I was so nervous and I just presented my piece and thought that I made my self look stupid, selling friendster to the top account trainers in our company.

Friendster, through internet, paved way to realization just how small our world is. Everyone is connected to this person and I had a really great time with it. I was on the bandwagon too quickly, then left and moved on to blogging. I discovered blogging in friendster and realized, I really want to write, so in 2003, I started blogging from friendster then to multiply.

I cannot tell you how much fun I had with multiply. It became my virtual home of thoughts until 2009 and until I garnered a following. It was more of stories of my early 20s adventures and misadventures, some people find it funny. I blogged about my flopped relationships  mishaps, funny guys stories and I channeled my inner Carrie Bradshaw of Sex and the City.  I even came to a point where I get asked to be added to a group because they heard my blog stories. Internet was not as popular as today, but a lot of people already has access to it. There were no wifis yet and home connections were dial-up. But internet started to draw and hook people up. Internet was fun and it gives you the freedom to put yourself out there.

My cousin, Chimayne, came to the Philippines few years back when she started working as a manager of a cruise ship. Her digital camera has pictures but with no over the top documentation. But she has really great stories and adventures has been living a really good life outside the virtual world. I always ask for pictures when friends go out of town or abroad, my cousin has been around the world and experience the finest. I just love listening to her stories.

Then that made me realize, I don't want to be this person who seems happy and has fabulous pictures on facebook. I don't want to be this person who's different from my social media profile to my real-life. I want to bank on life stories and adventures offline. Honestly I've been there in the social media fad, I know how pictures lie, because I did it as well. I had a life where it looks so damn good in pictures but it sucks on the inside. When I studied phenomenology last 2010, it was then I knew and learned how people creates their own realities on facebook, and not all of it are true. I even experienced and met people who are so chummy, sociable, fun in twitter and facebook, but are socially awkward in real life and can hardly keep a damn good conversation. Social media should not encourage us to hide behind our computer screens. It should not make us virtual robots with personalities we can only dream of.

So I minimized my online albums, but continued to write/blog because : Writing is my passion, my therapy and I love the feel of typing. I wanted to share information, share tips. I wanted to share experience that's why I take time to write over a few captions. I wanted the real thing.

Yeah, I've always had this thing for the internet. Maybe that's the reason my MS thesis interest is in it.  I'm not saying that social media is bad, I say still use it but don't sacrifice human relationships.