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On being an internet kid and yearning

10-17-2024

It’s no exaggeration Lorde made the best choice to close Pure Heroine with ‘A World Alone,’ a synthpop track about the joy and sorrow of being with friends. For an album that is undoubtedly the staple of Gen Z internet culture (and just to have a reason to talk about Pure Heroine), Lorde encapsulates the harrowing double-edged culture of youth in the time where the internet was becoming… the internet. It sounds weird putting it that way but that’s how I would describe it.

The first time we ever got internet in our home was undoubtedly the time we got Broadband Sticks¹ and I had the time of my life just scrolling through YouTube after school hours. Then, we finally got the internet connection from BayanTel² and basically, I never heard the end of it. After school, it felt like the dumbest I’ll ever be. I would watch videos of aliens caught on camera, how pop stars are part of the new world order, and basically see video parodies and memes made with the Impact font that my brain cannot handle.

I find it a bit of a shame that I grew up with the internet. Having a bit of unrestricted access did not help me at all. If anything, it really did just make me feel stimulated. I flunked classes even back then but not to the point I was “bad” at school, as anyone would say. Although, it was evident in junior high.

Twitter³ was basically my life throughout that point. I didn’t learn English from my teachers but rather years of accumulating English media on TV and assimilating myself to strangers on the internet. It was around the period where the idea of “Don’t Talk to Strangers” became a bit obsolete and I can easily find people my age running around social media. Then again, this was still around the time Club Penguin was alive and every kid had a YouTube and Club Penguin Cheats Website.⁴ I easily found players on Twitter at the time too. I had to create a Twitter to rant about my day and find people to play with. 

Eventually, I started finding newer hobbies alongside playing Club Penguin. Back then, you either had roleplaying accounts for OCs⁵or an account for your fandom like whether it be for video games, music you listen to, or a book you like. And as you would guess, I had all of that and more. And it was fun! I met so many people across the country and even outside of it. I had fun playing pretend, writing stories, fanboying, ranting, making friends, all of it. Of course came the pangs of it too.

It was depressing how I know I’ll never get to meet some of them⁶ and that the only solace I found was from them at the time. I always felt secluded during my time in high school; that even the friends I had at the time felt very weird with me. I still wasn’t getting used to the bullying but on the internet, I get to be queer and nobody would give a fuck.⁷ But it was isolating, too; to be around with people who’ll never see me in my best kinda made me sad. It got really depressing as well.

Eventually, I kind of developed a habit I never outgrew: isolation. If I don’t feel happy, I deactivate my socials and don’t talk to anyone. I don’t do it that much anymore but it was a sign something was never right with me. So, I made a new Twitter account. I never talked to them. I never got to know what happened to that person after they got too high, they came out as Trans to their sister. I never knew what happened to another person’s OCs and if they died or fell in love. I never knew if that fan of Life is Strange still smoked. I don’t know.

Taking a hot shower and listening to Lorde made me reminisce of those times. There could’ve been something meaningful in all of those moments but I don’t think you’ll get that nowadays. Eventually, these people are adults now with politics and responsibilities; that maybe they’re not the best people for you anyways. But there is this affliction that I didn’t feel until now: this niche feeling of grief and I can feel it creeping up to me. 

How strange is the grief of outgrowing something that was a major part of your life, that you never even knew the last time you ever made your presence heard in a space full of love and free of judgment. You fall asleep in a hot summer day one time and you wake up to the vexing sound of Slack notifications and the weight of generational responsibility in your back. It’s cliche that you never know what you have until it’s gone, but there is horror in the blissful ignorance of youth. Grief never catches up to you until you realized you are no longer blissfully ignorant. Carpe diem, they will say but the same mouths utter C’est la vie. But, as Lorde would put it, “Let Them Talk.”

Author's Notes
¹If you don’t know what that is, you’re either too young or you never grew up in Southeast Asia but these are sticks where you can add a SIM card that you can buy n minutes of internet with it. 
²Apparently, they only work as a subsidiary now but they were competing with PLDT before.
³I know it’s called X for some of you but not for me.
⁴Basically, they give walkthroughs for events and shop items in-game and how to find hidden items, coin hacks, mascot trackers, etc.
⁵Original Characters
⁶I did meet one of them since we studied in the same university!
⁷My sister found out I was bi through this Twitter. I talked to a lot of gay guys at the time but honestly never felt like I wanted to be with them due to CompHet stuff.