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By Dusty Kraft
There’s
a song I know by Bad Religion titled “21st Century
Digital Boy,” and for some odd reason every time I
hear that, I can’t help but think about myself and
a lot of people I know. I live day by day in my own little
virtual world. Ten years ago when I still was a wee little
hopper only this tall, I never would’ve imagined my
life would’ve taken this path. All I can remember of
my beginnings is the Christmas of 1986, or ‘87 ...
or maybe ‘88. I don’t know for sure. Anyway, my
brother got an 8-bit Nintendo from Santa Claus. From that
day on I was addicted to the TV screen. Day after day I’d
sit and play my Super Mario Bros. That started my video-game
fetish. My future in computers started off a little rockier.
In the
fifth grade, elementary schools started integrating typing
into the curriculum. I sat at the computer and did the “Hunt
and Peck” style of typing and thought to myself, this
sucks. Every other day I’d sit at that computer and
watch a cat meow as I typed. Soon I started getting the
hang of really typing, and it came naturally after that.
I moved up from just typing on computers to playing a marketing
simulation where we’d make and sell lemonade, virtually,
on my friend’s Apple IIE computer; oh the memories
of that computer are priceless. This is still when computers
didn’t have internal memory. Time passed until America
Online came about. When we were at sleep-overs we’d
spend $20 for four hours of online and go into chat rooms
and instant message people pretending we were 13 instead
of 11 so people would think we were cool in the Teen Chat
rooms. After my first few experiences online I was hooked
on it. We got online at my house, but I got it taken away
for some reason; probably did something bad, I don’t
recall. But one of the most pathetic things I did was wake
up at 4:30 in the morning and log online under a friend’s
name and surf the Web and talk in chat rooms until 6:30.
Around
7th grade, we discovered an online text-based game where
you governed your own country called Earth: 2025. (It’s
still available to play with over 100,000 players at http://www.eesite.com.)
We’d ally with each other to virtually attack other
players and have a good ole time and occasionally someone
would try to say their country is better than everyone else’s.
In such an event this person kept saying our countries were
“weak” and “puny.” Now the other four
of us weren’t taking kindly to his ridiculing and decided
to do something about it. We all gathered around the computer
and took turns logging onto the game and attacking this
bully with every troop, jet, and tank our countries could
muster. By the next day this bully had deleted his country
and our posse rejoiced with great spirit for we had conquered
the enemy. Well for us, it was a big victory; now instead
of physically beating someone up, we did it cyberly.
I had
moved to Myrtle Beach, S.C., right after my 15th birthday
in March, 1998 and I was not the most styling guy around
by any means, thus I wasn’t the most popular. So I
occupied my time with online, even though the ocean was
only 15 feet away. I got a job at Ben and Jerry’s Ice
Cream (best job ever) and that’s what my life consisted
of, Internet and scooping ice cream. During that time I
learned how to go about downloading full-version computer
games, downloading music and also learned to speak a little
Norwegian from some people I met via IRC chat. Since the
days of the first unlimited access ISP such as Compuserve
WOW!, I’ve always had a Web page, so at the age of
15 I took some of my ice cream money and got my own Internet
domain. It was www.sectorx.net, which has since turned into
a pornographic web site last I checked, surprise surprise.
Anyway, I was riding the wave of the future, I had my own
domain, and about 20 hits to my site a month, and that was
fantastic. I really had nothing to say with my Web site,
but that didn’t matter, 90 percent of the Web sites
today still have nothing to say.
Still,
day by day, I experience the progress of the Internet and
technology. I’ve been keeping up with the progress
of computers since I was old enough to talk, and I love
it. It’s something that never tires me. I’ve never
gone to a dusty field and played baseball, I’ve never
gone fishing on the docks, and I’ve never done a lot
of things kids used to in generations past, but rather I’ve
traded it for something I find more entertaining.
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