Back When the Internet Lived in a Box
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I‘m a special type of Millennial. I was born on a small Caribbean island in a time before the internet.
When I was around twelve or thirteen, I went over to my cousin house to play. Jen mentioned that she was chatting with our other cousin in her room. When we got up to her purple and white bedroom room with posters of pop stars from J-14 and Word Up! magazine, I was surprised to find it empty.
The grandfather of IM platforms
With a smirk and an excited skip, Jen went to her computer. It was one of those funky desktops where the monitor’s back was a transparent, purple plastic. Using her moderate typing ability, she launched a program called MSN Messenger. Then she used a string of characters called an email address to log in and start a chat with our other cousin.
Although our families traveled every year, I’d never seen someone use an email account. The only time I’d even gotten close to the email or surfing the web was while watching Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in You’ve Got Mail. Oh yeah, I also watch that super cheesy video with Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry about how to use Windows 95. (I shouldn’t lie. Microsoft office got cool points for having my favorite Friends explain their operating system.)
Wow, someone with internet access. Our home computer had the option to register with AOL. However, because we lived on a hill, the telephone company was barely able to give us a decent phone connection — let alone dial-up internet.
Aside from her parent’s joint account, Jen’s contact list only had two other people; our cousin and her younger sister.
“If you had an email we could easily schedule our sleepovers. I could have my mom sign my messages, so your mom could agree to the plan.” Jen suggested.
Scheduling sleepovers usually required Jen to invite me when we met at school. Then I would confirm with her mom after school. My aunt would always instruct me to have my mom call her to confirm. Since there weren’t many cell phones back then, I would have to wait for my mom to get home. I often had to nag her to call before bedtime. Even when she did, my mom needed several attempts because my aunt wasn’t always home.
When I think that the incentive for getting an email account was increased productivity, I smile at how much it foreshadowed the future. Every app, platform, and device either promotes increased productivity and staying connected.
As I sat down at Jen’s desk to complete the form for my first Hotmail account, I didn’t fully understand what I was unlocking. Now a near thirty-year-old freelance writer and project manager, I smile knowing that without hesitation my first email address was a first name, last name combination. Not even for a nanosecond did I consider a variation of sexy_anything.
I still have access to that email. I can proudly say I’ve never been locked out or hacked. Knock on digital wood.
That weekend, I dreamed about future online adventures with my new ‘internet passport.’
When I got to school, I hooked up with my friend, Tricia who used to burn CDs for me based on TRL’s countdown. I excitedly told her about discovering email and MSN Messenger. She very casually informed me that she’d already had an email. She shared a list of sites I could visit. After putting me on to chat rooms, she warned me of predators, internet scams, and viruses.
By the end of the day, I realized that not everyone in my social circle had had an email address. In fact, it would be about one year before the majority had email accounts and another two years before a fraction of those had internet at home.
Pre-Google research tools
Before the internet, most students on my island shared the library’s limited encyclopedias for research assignments. My family was rich enough to owned two encyclopedia sets. If we needed more information, I could always visit Jen to use hers.
I lowkey jizzed myself when Encyclopedia Britannica offered an online expansion. Now I didn’t have to worry about remixing in my sentences because I knew no one else — or very few people — had access to those exact words. I also didn’t have to repeat the alphabet because it used a magical thing called a search engine.
When I think about my life before the internet, I wonder how we got anything done. Within the first few weeks of owning an email, Jen and I realized that it was ineffective to send sleepover invites via email when the only time I could check my inbox was at her home. (Insert pathetic self-deprecating laughter.)
When wireless internet (WiFi) became a thing, I told my aunt just to bring her computer to the beach so she could work while we swam. My aunt laughed. “Onicia thinks you can take the internet anywhere. No, sweetie. It lives in a box in the corner of the living room. No one can just carry the internet with them.”
Every so often, when I video chat with her, I open with “No, sweetie. You can’t just take the internet with you; it’s lives in a box.
