Usenet

 Every now and then I think about the early days of the Internet and how much the very thought of all this technology made everything so much more fun. I don't think that way now--now, I think technology has been apprehended and misused by the terminally shallow, and by that I mean little, self-aggrandizing personalities struggling to be the star of their own show on social media . . . wait . . . is that what I'm doing here? 

Anyway. the first social media seemed to be, or was for me, Usenet, a sort of public email arranged in chains, called threads, and it was immediately put to use as a method of ridiculing other people.  That's not fair, of course. But as something that made the wheel look pedestrian, the Internet fell short of being the salvation of mankind. I'll just say that. It was fun anyway. In my case, it was a way not only to put myself out there but to exercise my writing skills and hone my thinking processes. Writing to a hostile, critical audience, especially one that has a quick and easy mechanism to deliver scathing feedback, one learns to make their writing air-tight. This is a shame, in a way, because air-tight writing quickly becomes harsh and clinical and dry. 

So, eventually, Usenet became stressful. Not willing to give it up, I became philosophical about it, which was a nice quantum chunk of personal growth for me (not to imply that I always veer off in the right direction,) And my writing got better. Additionally, since I like to joke around and I get a rush from making people laugh, I worked on making funny replies to Usenet posts. Eventually I got to (think I) know some of the other people there--always struggling, of course, to remind myself they were just people like me, sitting somewhere at a desk in front of a bulging CRT computer screen typing away on some giant clackety keyboard connected to a big, whirring box by a thick cord--like I said, early days. There was probably also a modem whose speed was measured in baud rate--line changes per second, and since I worked for the phone company, not to be confused with bit-rate. Like, who even cares anymore. 

For all its good points, one being that it gave me something to do in the morning when I woke up before everyone else and another that it helped open up those neural pathways that enable writing in the first place, Usenet finally sort of died. It sort of went away.  It's still kind of there, but it has become truly silly and irrelevant since, it seems, all good things, if sufficiently and cheaply available, soon belong to those with the lowest standards. You could see it happening. 

But I noticed two notable exceptions.  There were two Usenet groups, or communities, that defied this almost inevitable entropy of intentions. I'll be damned if I can now remember the exact name of the groups . . . one had to do with photography in Newfoundland, and the other with Jewish culture. 

The Newfoundland group was great. While members of other groups concentrated on flaming and belittling and generally "pwning" other members, the good people of Newfoundland here were posting pictures and trading comments back and forth.  Not "get a life you loozer" but stuff like, "nice picture. I was there last week and saw those blue barrels and wished I had my camera with me." Super polite, and very supportive of each other, even if the posted picture was actually really, really bad. I stumbled across this group and as silly as it sounds, it was like a breath of fresh air. Real people, polite people. What a concept. 

I do remember the name of the Jewish group:  soc.culture.jewish.  Also not generally negative and hostile in tone, it was characterized by what seemed like a serious intention of relaying information and of discussion. I always found something interesting in there and I read that group often even though I never felt qualified to contribute anything. 

But one day I did post a question. I had recently discovered that Hebrew became the official language of Israel in 1948. I read that it was intentionally modified to modernize it a bit so it could actually be used in the then current era. So I asked the question, why was that done, and just how?  Two people responded to my post. Recognizing, apparently, that I was neither Jewish nor that well-informed, each of them submitted a satisfyingly lengthy post in reply that was clearly and lucidly written, thorough, and essentially helpful. These two Usenet people were kindly and consciously helping me. By the way, I could have taken either reply and turned it in as a college paper and, I'm sure, gotten an A+. And I was genuinely moved by the intent. Here is what the Internet is for, I thought.

Now look at it.