In 2000, at the back of my high school physics classroom, there was a computer with access to the internet, and for me, a whole new network of friends.
I was one of the very few people who had access to the password and knew how to navigate a little program we called “America Online.” Sure, plenty of my fellow students knew how to set up a personal AIM account. But I was the only one who actually knew how to use a search engine (thank you, Yahoo! and WebCrawler) to explore a kewl new phenomenon: viral videos.
It was these profoundly useless, morbidly stupid videos — of babies getting attacked by cats, of people getting hit (gently) by motorbikes — that brought me out of isolation and helped me discover community. Read more…
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