#I had this fucking tumbler account 4 years ago

[wistful-pigeon]

it's 2am and I have plans for tomorrow (today at this point) and yet instead of being asleep I'm just laying awake, setting my phone aside to give sleep another try only to grab it again and aimlessly read fanfiction

So. Typical Sunday night for me

[theroguequeenaniki]

Questions 2009 -> 2021

This is from my Facebook. It popped up on my memories page thing. I originally answered this in 2009 when I was 15, it’s now 2021 & and I am 27, so I’m gonna do it again. Leaving the original answers. Original answers will be italicized. Commentary on the original answers in parentheses & crossed out? Lol. (I’m not gonna tag anyone, but, like, I guess if you want to answer these random questions from Facebook 12 years ago, go ahead lol) 

Questions

Can you fill this out without lying? You've been tagged, so now you need to answer all the questions HONESTLY. At the end, choose people to tag. Don't forget to tag me so I can see your answers! To do this, copy this entire message, then go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, delete my answers, and type yours. Easy! Next, tag people that you think may enjoy this (in the right hand corner of the app). Click publish (at the bottom). Have fun! :) 1.What was the last thing you put in your mouth? My cup with my Big Red in it The straw to my Kate Spade tumbler to drink my HEB Cola Lol.

2.Where was your profile picture taken? I got it off the internet. it's a random anime girl. My bedroom. 3.Can you play Guitar Hero? Never played it. Probably wouldn't be good at it. Not to good at video games. But I am good at Mario Cart, both 64 and the Wii. plus I'm good at some Sonic games. Still never played it. Idk if I’m any good at Mario Cart or the Sonic games anymore, I haven’t played either in years lol

4.Name someone who made you laugh today? Doctor Who TikTok. My cats.

5.How late did you stay up last night and why? Umm, probably about 10:00 cause it took me forevor to get into bed. Uh..Past 4am. Lol. B/c my sleep schedule is fucked. I was in bed by 3am though, but I was playing games & watching TikToks on my phone. Lol.

6.If you could move somewhere else, would you? Yes. I'd move to either New York or Sweden. I don’t know. Part of me says yes. But part of me says no..b/c even though Texas has it’s faults (a LOT of them), I cannot imagine living anywhere else long-term..

7. Ever been kissed under fireworks? HAHA. Yeah right. I've never even been kissed! Still nope. I have been kissed though. He just didn’t kiss me under the fireworks the one NYE we spent together...

8. Which of your friends lives closest to you? Um, I think R, but D might also. D is accross Stasney from me and R is a couple blocks down (I don’t talk to these people much anymore & I’m not going to share their names on Tumblr) Uh. I think Maybe Raven? B/c they’re the only one who lives in the same city still. But, Sarah might technically be closer distance wise? Hold on. Ok, yeah, Sarah’s closer, even though she doesn’t live in this city anymore.

9. Do you believe exes can be friends? It all depends on the situation.(I totally stold M's answer but it's true) (I don’t talk to this person anymore & I’m not gonna share their name on Tumblr) I mean, yeah. Two of my best friends are each others exes and they’re still friends. I haven’t stayed friend with my ex, but, uh, he ghosted me so? Lol.

10. How do you feel about Dr. Pepper? I love it. I still love it. Lol.

11. When was the last time you cried really hard? I can't remember. I don't think it was that long ago, I had a light cry on Saturday, but I don't remember the last time I cried really hard. When we got back from our trip in July. Had a full on breakdown that night. Overheated all weekend. Overwhelmed. Anxiety. It was not a very good vacation..I cry a lot though.

12. Who took your profile picture? I got it off of google. I did. 

13. Who was the last person you took a picture of? Umm, either myself, or one of my family members. Aside from myself. I think my dad, on his phone, b/c there was a cicada on his shoulder and he wanted to ask the family group chat if he could keep it. Lol. I take a LOT of pictures of cats though. Lol.

14. Was yesterday better than today? Hail yes! To much drama today! And I couldn't avoid it cause I was in the middle of it! (Oof, what drama was 15 yo Linda dealing with that she couldn’t avoid? Lol. I mean, I guess, Sophomore year was a bit full of drama lol) Anyway, I mean, they were pretty much the same. One wasn’t better than the other. One wasn’t worse than the other.

15. Can you live a day without TV? yeah. Now Music there is something I can't live without! Yep, Do it almost everyday. Sentiments about music remain the same. Lol.

16. Are you upset about anything? Yes. I'm annoyed about something and it's making me upset. (I assume this has something to do with the the drama mentioned earlier lol) Always. Anxiety & depression are a bitch. My rooms a mess & I can’t get myself to clean it. My shelves are still a mess.

17. Do you think relationships are ever really worth it? yeah. though i havent really had one yet. I mean, yeah. Even though I haven’t had one last, aside from friendships, but they’re worth it. 

18. Are you a bad influence? I hope not. If so, let me know.(again I took M's answer but it's true) Probably. Idk. Lol.

19. Night out or night in? Depends on what's going on and how I feel about it. Night in usually. I do like going out sometimes, but, like, to dinner. Maybe a movie or a show. But, you know, we’ve been in a panini press, the only thing I’ve been comfortable doing is going to dinner (fully vaxxed & masked). But I also prefer staying home anyway. (Like I usually just go to dinner with my family lol)

20. What items could you not go without during the day? my computer. my book. my journal and a pen. My phone. My journal (b/c I write in it every night, as a diary, 14yo Linda wrote stories). Uh. I didn’t take food or drinks into account in the og, so I won’t in those. But, yeah. My phone & journal. I can go a day without my laptop if I need to. (Went the whole trip in July without pulling it out, though maybe that’s not a good example since my anxiety on that trip was so high..) I want to say a book, but I’ve been in a massive reading slump so...I wish I read as much as 15yo Linda did..

21. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital? I don't remember. I think it was myself.(if you want to know, ask me in person) I honestly don’t know. I don’t remember the last time I was in a hospital. 

22. What does the last text message in your inbox say? "Mrbobbybones:  wish ted would finally meet their mother already. geez. get to it. However, I see myself in that character more and more each episode." yeah. That's what it says. It's from Twitter. (Huh? and I can’t even go check b/c my inbox doesn’t go back to 2009 on Twitter?? (I haven’t had my account that long) Wait wait wait just remembered I used to get tweets to my phone as text messages lol)

Facebook messenger: “ Cool” From our group chat. Lol.

From actual text messages on my phone: “ heeey! Just put up the Tuesday PDS just for you  it’s a big one.” From Phillip Defranco’s text line Lol.

23. How do you feel about your life right now? I'm loving and hating it. but hey nobody gets out alive right? Uh..I mean. I’m alive. I have WiFi. Food. Family. I haven’t seen my friends in 2 years. (Minus Alex, b/c they were here in July to cat/house sit, but I saw them for like, one night..) There’s a lot that could be better. A lot that could be worse. 

24. Do you hate anyone? yes!!! Oof. I mean, kinda.

25. If we were to look in your Facebook Inbox, what would we find? some random conversations. most of my convos on her though have been in chat or through comments. Facebook Inbox is now Facebook Messenger. So you’ll find all my Facebook Messenger convos. Mostly our group chat. And side group chats for secret planning (birthdays & stuff). Plus other chats? Lol.

26. Say you were given a drug test right now, would you pass? I better! (excuse me miss 15yo Linda you absolutely could have passed a drug test you ALSO didn’t drink or smoke or take any drugs lol) Yeah. Absolutely. I don’t drink or smoke or take any drugs so, yeah? Lol.

27. Has anyone ever called you perfect before? 

Yes. But I can't remember when... Yeah. Pretty sure. 

28. What song is stuck in your head? Gee by SNSD(Girls Generation) They're Korean. A few My Chemical Romance songs

29. Someone knocks on your window at 2:00 a.m., who do you want it to be? EDWARD CULLEN! Joke! lol. No I don't know. If it was Edward, I'd call the cops. whoever it is though better have an explaination or they are gonna get hit in the head with my Book of Shadows. (Maybe I wouldn’t mind Edward at my window though? Lol.) Uh. My friends? Lol. Idk if I want anyone knocking on my window at 2am.

30.Wanna have grandkids before you’re 50? I don't know....... Uh. No? Idk. Most likely not gonna happen. 

31. Name something you have to do tomorrow? I can't think of anything right now... Eat. Should probably clean my room.

32. Do you think too much or too little? Way to much! lol. Way way way too much

33. Do you smile a lot? i try to. I think I do. I get told that alot in Theater...

I think so

[purplesurveys]

1149

A

What is your age? 22, but there’s less than a month to go before I turn 23.

What annoys you? Literally every single person who still supports the government at this point. For context, we are back to square one and we’re under the exact same quarantine imposed in March 2020 because of the surge in cases. Nothing has changed and nothing has been done in the last 365 days while people are getting hungrier and poorer. I’m done feeling hopeful for this country and I cannot wait to abandon it forever.

Do you have any allergies? Apparently, grass. Can’t be exposed to it for too long otherwise the skin on my thighs turn red and occasionally even get rashes.

B

Do you know anyone named Billy? Kind of, but they’re girls with their name spelled as Billie.

When is your birthday? April 21st and spending it in quarantine once again this year...

Who is your best friend(s)? Angela and Andi.

C

What's your favorite candy? I like gummy bears and worms. As for sweets, I really like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Butterfinger, Twix, and the Hershey’s Cookies and Creme bar.

When was the last time you cried? Maybe a day or two ago while watching a snippet from Caught in Providence.

Have you been out of the country? Yes.

D

Do you daydream? Not so much these days. I’ve been better at keeping my focus at work.

What's your favorite kind of dog? I love alllllll dogs, but I’d usually be wary of smaller dogs because 87% of the times I’ve met some, they’re aggressive or a bit moody. I don’t like stereotyping dogs as much as possible but because I’ve had direct experiences to back it up anyway, *shrug*

What day of the week is it? It’s a Sunday.

E

How do you like your eggs? Scrambled, poached, or an omelette with lots of fillings. Balut is also great.

Have you ever been in the emergency room? Only when I was born, I’m guessing.

What's the easiest thing ever to do? Idk, what comes easy to me might not be the same for others. But my answer would be to smile, regardless if it were genuine or otherwise.

F

Have you ever flown in a plane? Yeah, many times. The child-like excitement I get whenever I get on one will probably never go away, either.

Do you use fly swatters? No, my mom usually uses old shoebox covers or rolled-up scratch papers we have lying around to swat them.

Have you ever used a foghorn?: Only in video games lol, never in real life.

G

Have you pet a goat? I don’t think I have. I’ve pet lots of animals before but I don’t think a goat has been one of them yet.

Are you a giver or a taker? Giver, but I’ve been allowing myself to take more these days.

Do you like gummy candies? Love them.

H

How are you? We’ve entered summer weather now, so I feel hot and miserable. It’s also Sunday and I am stuck at home, which doesn’t make me the happiest camper.

What's your height? 5′1″ or a tiny tiny tiny bit taller than that.

What color is your hair? It’s black but on extremely rare occasions I’ll catch a single light brown strand when I play with my hair.

I

What's your favorite ice cream? Cookies and cream and chocolate chip cookie dough. My friend Leigh actually started her own ice cream shop recently and I bought her coffee crumble ice cream, and it is sooooooooo fuckinggggggggg good??????? It’s so rare to find coffee ice cream where I live period, so I’m fucking stoked to have a close friend who makes literally the best one and in generous servings too.

Have you ever ice skated? Many times as a kid. I was never formally trained, but it was something I wanted to try from watching other kids play in mall ice skating rinks; and when I did give it a shot, I ended up enjoying it. Luckily my mom was encouraging and actually frequently dropped me off at a rink so I can practice gliding and all for a few hours while she ran errands.

Have you cheated the IRS? That’s like an American tax thingy, right? We don’t have that here and my employer handles my TIN.

J

What's your favorite jelly bean? Not a big fan but if I had to have Jelly Belly, I obviously would want to get the pleasant-tasting ones.

Do you tell jokes? Yes.

Do you wear nice jewelry? Only on special occasions.

K

Do you want to kill anybody? I don’t want to kill anybody but I certainly wish a good number of public officials would finally die.

Do you want to have kids? Yes. I really wish I could still have a future with them. Thanks for the trauma, my real asshole of an ex.

Where did you have kindergarten? Somewhere.

L

Are you laidback? I doubt my friends would use this to describe me. I for sure lean more towards the uptight side of the spectrum.

Do you lie? Eh, occasionally.

When is the last time you sent a hand-written letter? I have no idea. Christmas 2019 maybe?

M

Ever talked in a microphone? Sure. Many times.

Do you still watch Disney Movies? I very rarely get in the mood for them if I’m by myself, but yes, I’d gladly sit down and watch should an opportunity come.

Do you like mangoes? No.

N

Do you have a nickname? 99% of people call me Robyn while my family calls me Byn, but there are a select few friends who’ve stayed long enough with me to catch other names I’ve gotten over the years, which have since become inside jokes/nicknames. There’s Reben and Rolayn, and literally just yesterday ‘Roby’ happened when I ordered food for lunch so that will probably catch on as well.

What’s your favorite number? 4.

Do you prefer night over day? Absolutely.

O

Are you an only child? No, I’m two siblings away from that status.

Do you wish this was over? I haven’t felt that way, no.

What is the closet orange object near you? An orange tumbler my Kuya gave me as a Christmas gift in 2019. There is also orange tape wrapped around the charger adaptor of my company laptop.

P

What one fear are you most paranoid about? Waking up in the middle of surgery and being unable to speak nor move.

Do you play any instruments? Nope.

Do you think you are pretty? Some days.

Q

Are you quick to judge people? No, unless they are already blatantly showing their character like being rude towards service staff, tossing their trash to the ground, or cutting in queues. Whenever those things happen I give myself the space and freedom to guiltlessly judge.

What do you keep quiet about? How dysfunctional my family really is, and the things I really want to say about Gabie.

Do you have any quirks? Food-wise, I like peeling off the breading from fried chicken and placing them on the side of my plate so I can eat them last, because they’re my favorite part.

R

What’s a good reason to cry? Frustration. Crying can be really helpful in lessening stress.

Do you think you're always right? No.

Do you watch reality TV? Not religiously, but I love watching snippets of reality shows on Facebook because they’re all so embarrassing and it’s hilarious to watch hahahahah. Literally last night I was watching clips of Big Ed on 90 Day Fiance.

S

Are you a social person? More so now than I was years ago.

What states have you lived in? I lived in Manila briefly but it didn’t take long till we transferred to another city for a more peaceful life in the suburbs.

What is your favorite season? I wanna say winter because of what I’ve seen from it in movies and shows, but I’ve never actually experienced it before.

T

When did you last sleep in a tent? Sometime in March or April last year.

Do you like tomatoes? Mostly in diced form. Tomato sauce is fine but I don’t really like it in my pasta. Bloody Mary also tastes rather awful.

What time did you wake up? 8:30 AM.

U

Do you have an umbrella in your car? I think so, yeah. I finally placed one in there lmao.

Do listen to Usher? Eh, not really. 2000s R&B isn’t my thing, save for Beyoncé.

Describe the underwear your wearing? It’s light blue.

V

What’s the worst veggie? I never learned to like pechay. I’d still eat it, but only because I like cleaning up my entire plate.

Do you like movies with violence? Some. Like I hate action movies but I enjoyed A Clockwork Orange and Scream lol.

Where do you want to go on vacation? I recently bookmarked an Airbnb in Zambales and the accommodation is basically this super cute line of tipi-styled huts by the beach. I'd love to have a solo trip push through once this Covid mess subsides.

W

Ever been on a wave runner? No.

Where do you work? I work in a PR company.

Do you wish on stars? Just sometimes.

X

Have you ever had an x-ray? Only for mandatory medical exams.

Do you own a xylophone? I think I had a toy one as a kid, but it’s not with me anymore.

Have you watched the x-games? No, not interested.

Y

What did you do yesterday? I stayed at home; ordered food for Angela as a surprise; debated if I should buy a pair of Air Maxes – and ultimately decided I’ve already spent too much this month to deserve a new pair of shows lol; and just settled to buy a new night lamp for my bedroom. I also watched the newest episode of 2 Days 1 Night and ate more of Leigh’s ice cream while doing work.

Do you like the color yellow? Only in mustard yellow. I also like the song Yellow, heh.

What year were you born?: 1998.

Z

Do you believe in the zodiac? No.

Has your bank account been at zero? No. I remember when I was first opening my own account at the bank and the clerk told me to make sure I don’t go below P2,000, and my intensely by-the-book ass has been following the rule ever since, even though my dad has told me it’s absolutely fine to go below it so long as I have P2,000 back in the account after a month hahaha.

Ever been to the zoo? A few.

[ickbad-blog]

The internet and you: look what you've become

Gather round kids, it's time for old grampa Ickbad to tell you a story. Back in my college days, long ago in 2012, I had a speech class where we got choose the topic. I was in college for network engineering, and I had the idea that mankind was not mature enough for the internet (a strange topic for someone in I.T., but I'll get to that another day). I made the argument that the internet, while being generally useful and had a lot of good qualities to it, was also leading humanity down a darker road,

I made the aragument that while as a whole, we benefited from the internet, but the individual would suffer from it, and a day would come when the benefits would outweigh the cost and the internet would be detrimental to us. If your wondering I convinced no one and got a C on the project. If only I could go back and show them what the internet today looks like and what it's done to us, I feel like I could make a better case.

I'm going to step back in time some more, just to preface my argument a little and give some background to where I'm coming from (you can skip the next 4 paragraphs if you don't want to hear about my life). I grew up in the 90's, and I lived out in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere. I had a brother and sister that I fought with, and neighbors we were friends with. I remember running through the woods and finding bottle mines (dump grounds from a long time ago, where most of the garbage had broken down aside from glass bottles) and playing n64 inside. Flashlight tag at night and having bonfires in a fire pit out back. A normal childhood in the 90's (at least I think so, normal is subjective)

But my Dad was also in I.T., and because of his job we had a lot of old computers around and the internet. I grew up playing online with friends, downloading demos and free games to try out. But that wasn't the whole of my experience. I did not spend all day online, and was outside more then online. Then, when I was 12, I moved in with my Mom (they divorced the year before) and lost the internet. I spend the next 5 years not being online and got along just fine without it.

I feel like I was both ahead of the internet ad behind the times because of this split. I had the internet at a young age but not the years that most of my peers were online. I feel like this is why I have such a strange relationship with it, and technology in general, but you can form your own ideas, I don't control you.

Anyway, because I learned computers at a young age I was good at them, troubleshooting games and computer problems gave me critical thinking skills, and that's why I went into I.T. in college. But I never had a want to go online. In high school and college, when I did have the internet, I only had a myspace account to play games, and only last year had a personal facebook account. I used to be very active in gaia online, when that was a thing, but it was in it more to play the games that talk with people.

Back to the point, I feel like the internet is now at a point where it the harm it's doing to the individual is greater then the benefit to us as a whole. The collective of human knowledge and interaction available at our fingertips has begun to divide us and has brought a new age of apathy.

Going back to my story, I remember every Thursday my family would all get together and watch Survivor on TV. I remember staying home from school and watching The Price is Right followed by 7th heaven because that was the only thing on TV. I remember rushing to the bathroom or to do something on a commercial break and channel surfing to find something to watch when nothing was on. But now with youtube, netflix, and other on demand streaming services these things have gone away. No longer does watching something mean scheduling that time. We don't need to worry that there is nothing to watch when we can turn on anything we could ever want. We can stop and come back to something whenever we want rather then being constrained to 2 minutes of commercials. But is this strictly a good thing?  

I like those little wafer sugar cookies, and if I could I would do nothing but eat them. However there are consequences to that path as well, and while in the short term I may enjoy them, in the long term it's detrimental to eat only the delicious wafer cookies. I feel that the same logic can apply to media on demand. Now that we can watch whatever we want whenever we want, does the act of watching something feel less special? Growing up I watched Dragon Ball Z, and I remember everyday at school talking with my friends about what happened on the last episode, trying to guess what would happen on the next episode, and filling in who screamed the most to someone if them missed what happened. I feel like these conversations don't happen anymore. Now we only talk about the series as a whole and the excitement of watching once a week, or the heart break of missing an episode isn't there. And if you want to watch every episode of breaking bad in one go, well I don't think a sane person would agree with you but you have that option to stream every episode one after another. And as they come in to scrape you off the couch at the end and rush you to the hospital for any number major health complication resulting from doing nothing but watching breaking bad for 50 hours, you can tell them how great it was. I think I'll have another wafer cookie.

The ability to stream whatever you want also comes with another major issue (at least I think so), creating an echo chamber. Channel surfing wasn't something magical, but there were times when you came across something that you had never seen before, and you would have another show that you wanted to watch and follow. Watching tv when there was nothing directly you wanted to watch meant either looking for something new or giving up and finding something else to do. It would necessitate expanding your views and ideas to find enjoyment, and while I feel like that wasn't a big price to pay to find something new, I'm finding more and more people are unwilling to pay the price, or that there is no way to achieve this. I wish that netflix or hulu or any streaming site would set up a live TV option so when I don't know what I want to watch, I have the ability to surf around to see, and maybe find something new.

And speaking of echo chambers, I want to hit one more topic before I end this pointless rant no one will ever read, Echo chambers in online communities. There was a time where talking about something you wanted meant bring it up in conversation with people and competing with what they wanted to talk about. You may have had different groups of friends that you discussed different topics with (wouldn't bring up what sick fetishes you were into to your office friends), but there was still a diverse topics discussed within a group of people. Now however, there is a chat group or sub-reddit for anything, but trying to bring up a different topic in one of these forms is frowned on. So while there is a group for anything you want to discuss, there is little flow of new ideas outside of that topic in these places. This results in stagnation of someone's views and may even lead to people becoming intolerant to new ideas.

Let me give you an example; racism happens (at least in my point of view) because people are not exposed to different races and thus believe their race is the only good one while needing stereotypes to base their ideas of others. Then when they encounter these races, they have nothing to base their ideas on but these ideas of stereotypes and differences. Now think about this, the current political climate. I'm in the U.S., and the political landscape is a nightmare, and I have a feeling that it has more to do with liberal and conservatives each being in their own echo chambers to the point where stereotypes and misinformation is the only thing we have to judge each other. One side doesn’t trust the other and any notion of working together is all but gone.

Now, I can't blame the dumpster fire that is politics solely on echo chambers, but I do believe it is one of the reasons we are in this mess. I do have one other example of echo chambers gone out of control, and that is tumbler it's self. Without going into to much detail, I believe the current attitude going around tumbler (you know the one snowflake) is because the echo chamber of something that started out noble but was perverted.

Tumbler was a great place for fans and for the LGBT community to find a home. However, because of the echo chamber effects, things went down hill fast. Touching on the fandoms. People started out with fan pages of shows or whatever (I'll use shows for simplicity, but this is true for any fandom),  but then groups sprang up with different ideas about what being a fan meant. Want to portray someone from the show in a different way then exactly how they are, one group may hate the perversion of the character while another will welcome you with open arms. These sub-echo chambers where only specific views of a subject could be related sprang up and further limited the ideas that were exchanged.

On the other end, the LGBT community on tumbler has grown out of control with it's echo chamber, but I feel for a slightly different reason. People would post what they wanted on tumbler, and this gave LGBT people a voice and a chance to talk about themselves. Because LGBT people are in the minority (and yes, we are in the minority), they were different. When someone is different, there are people who want to emulate that to feel special (See black culture in the 90's and early 2000's). However because of the echo chamber effect, other new ideas were not introduced to give variety to the culture and it stagnated. However, people still want to feel different to stand out from the rest, so rather then taking in new ideas, they reinforced their own ideas. Things like gender identity came into the mix and suddenly everyone had to have their own gender to be different. Rather then taking a mix of ideas and becoming someone out of them, they limited themselves to only a handful, and because of that the differences had to be formed within those areas, creating and mutation views and ideas that further lock them into that view.

I didn't write this to be a comprehensive topic on the negatives of the internet, but just to express my feelings on some of the negativity that has come from it. I do believe the internet is the most powerful invention of mankind ever, but the power swings both ways. I'll come back to these topics at a later date and expand my views then, but I've ranted long enough. My final thought is this, the internet benefits society as a whole but negatively on the individual, and eventually the negatives will catch up.

[ickbad-blog]

The internet and you: look what you've become

gather round kids, it's time for old grampa Ickbad to tell you a story. Back in my college days, long ago in 2012, I had a speech class where we got choose the topic. I was in college for network engineering, and I had the idea that mankind was not mature enough for the internet (a strange topic for someone in I.T., but I'll get to that another day). I made the argument that the internet, while being generally useful and had a lot of good qualities to it, was also leading humanity down a darker road,

I made the aragument that while as a whole, we benefited from the internet, but the individual would suffer from it, and a day would come when the benefits would outweigh the cost and the internet would be detrimental to us. If your wondering I convinced no one and got a C on the project. If only I could go back and show them what the internet today looks like and what it's done to us, I feel like I could make a better case.

I'm going to step back in time some more, just to preface my argument a little and give some background to where I'm coming from (you can skip the next 4 paragraphs if you don't want to hear about my life). I grew up in the 90's, and I lived out in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere. I had a brother and sister that I fought with, and neighbors we were friends with. I remember running through the woods and finding bottle mines (dump grounds from a long time ago, where most of the garbage had broken down aside from glass bottles) and playing n64 inside. Flashlight tag at night and having bonfires in a fire pit out back. A normal childhood in the 90's (at least I think so, normal is subjective)

But my Dad was also in I.T., and because of his job we had a lot of old computers around and the internet. I grew up playing online with friends, downloading demos and free games to try out. But that wasn't the whole of my experience. I did not spend all day online, and was outside more then online. Then, when I was 12, I moved in with my Mom (they divorced the year before) and lost the internet. I spend the next 5 years not being online and got along just fine without it.

I feel like I was both ahead of the internet ad behind the times because of this split. I had the internet at a young age but not the years that most of my peers were online. I feel like this is why I have such a strange relationship with it, and technology in general, but you can form your own ideas, I don't control you.

Anyway, because I learned computers at a young age I was good at them, troubleshooting games and computer problems gave me critical thinking skills, and that's why I went into I.T. in college. But I never had a want to go online. In highschool and college, when I did have the internet, I only had a myspace account to play games, and only last year had a personal facebook account. I used to be very active in gaia online, when that was a thing, but it was in it more to play the games that talk with people.

Back to the point, I feel like the internet is now at a point where it the harm it's doing to the individual is greater then the benefit to us as a whole. The collective of human knowledge and interaction available at our fingertips has begun to divide us and has brought a new age of apathy.

Going back to my story, I remember every Thursday my family would all get together and watch Survivor on TV. I remember staying home from school and watching The Price is Right followed by 7th heaven because that was the only thing on TV. I remember rushing to the bathroom or to do something on a commercial break and channel surfing to find something to watch when nothing was on. But now with youtube, netflix, and other on demand streaming services these things have gone away. No longer does watching something mean scheduling that time. We don't need to worry that there is nothing to watch when we can turn on anything we could ever want. We can stop and come back to something whenever we want rather then being constrained to 2 minutes of commercials. But is this strictly a good thing?  

I like those little wafer sugar cookies, and if I could I would do nothing but eat them. However there are consequences to that path as well, and while in the short term I may enjoy them, in the long term it's detrimental to eat only the delicious wafer cookies. I feel that the same logic can apply to media on demand. Now that we can watch whatever we want whenever we want, does the act of watching something feel less special? Growing up I watched Dragon Ball Z, and I remember everyday at school talking with my friends about what happened on the last episode, trying to guess what would happen on the next episode, and filling in who screamed the most to someone if them missed what happened. I feel like these conversations don't happen anymore. Now we only talk about the series as a whole and the excitement of watching once a week, or the heart break of missing an episode isn't there. And if you want to watch every episode of breaking bad in one go, well I don't think a sane person would agree with you but you have that option to stream every episode one after another. And as they come in to scrape you off the couch at the end and rush you to the hospital for any number major health complication resulting from doing nothing but watching breaking bad for 50 hours, you can tell them how great it was. I think I'll have another wafer cookie.

The ability to stream whatever you want also comes with another major issue (at least I think so), creating an echo chamber. Channel surfing wasn't something magical, but there were times when you came across something that you had never seen before, and you would have another show that you wanted to watch and follow. Watching tv when there was nothing directly you wanted to watch meant either looking for something new or giving up and finding something else to do. It would necessitate expanding your views and ideas to find enjoyment, and while I feel like that wasn't a big price to pay to find something new, I'm finding more and more people are unwilling to pay the price, or that there is no way to achieve this. I wish that netflix or hulu or any streaming site would set up a live TV option so when I don't know what I want to watch, I have the ability to surf around to see, and maybe find something new.

And speaking of echo chambers, I want to hit one more topic before I end this pointless rant no one will ever read, Echo chambers in online communities. There was a time where talking about something you wanted meant bring it up in conversation with people and competing with what they wanted to talk about. You may have had different groups of friends that you discussed different topics with (wouldn't bring up what sick fetishes you were into to your office friends), but there was still a diverse topics discussed within a group of people. Now however, there is a chat group or sub-reddit for anything, but trying to bring up a different topic in one of these forms is frowned on. So while there is a group for anything you want to discuss, there is little flow of new ideas outside of that topic in these places. This results in stagnation of someone's views and may even lead to people becoming intolerant to new ideas.

Let me give you an example; racism happens (at least in my point of view) because people are not exposed to different races and thus believe their race is the only good one while needing stereotypes to base their ideas of others. Then when they encounter these races, they have nothing to base their ideas on but these ideas of stereotypes and differences. Now think about this, the current political climate. I'm in the U.S., and the political landscape is a nightmare, and I have a feeling that it has more to do with liberal and conservatives each being in their own echo chambers to the point where stereotypes and misinformation is the only thing we have to judge each other. One side doesn’t trust the other and any notion of working together is all but gone.

Now, I can't blame the dumpster fire that is politics solely on echo chambers, but I do believe it is one of the reasons we are in this mess. I do have one other example of echo chambers gone out of control, and that is tumbler it's self. Without going into to much detail, I believe the current attitude going around tumbler (you know the one snowflake) is because the echo chamber of something that started out noble but was perverted.

Tumbler was a great place for fans and for the LGBT community to find a home. However, because of the echo chamber effects, things went down hill fast. Touching on the fandoms. People started out with fan pages of shows or whatever (I'll use shows for simplicity, but this is true for any fandom),  but then groups sprang up with different ideas about what being a fan meant. Want to portray someone from the show in a different way then exactly how they are, one group may hate the perversion of the character while another will welcome you with open arms. These sub-echo chambers where only specific views of a subject could be related sprang up and further limited the ideas that were exchanged.

On the other end, the LGBT community on tumbler has grown out of control with it's echo chamber, but I feel for a slightly different reason. People would post what they wanted on tumbler, and this gave LGBT people a voice and a chance to talk about themselves. Because LGBT people are in the minority (and yes, we are in the minority), they were different. When someone is different, there are people who want to emulate that to feel special (See black culture in the 90's and early 2000's). However because of the echo chamber effect, other new ideas were not introduced to give variety to the culture and it stagnated. However, people still want to feel different to stand out from the rest, so rather then taking in new ideas, they reinforced their own ideas. Things like gender identity came into the mix and suddenly everyone had to have their own gender to be different. Rather then taking a mix of ideas and becoming someone out of them, they limited themselves to only a handful, and because of that the differences had to be formed within those areas, creating and mutation views and ideas that further lock them into that view.

I didn't write this to be a comprehensive topic on the negatives of the internet, but just to express my feelings on some of the negativity that has come from it. I do believe the internet is the most powerful invention of mankind ever, but the power swings both ways. I'll come back to these topics at a later date and expand my views then, but I've ranted long enough. My final thought is this, the internet benefits society as a whole but negatively on the individual, and eventually the negatives will catch up.