While growing up, the internet was one of the best things that could have existed for all teens everywhere. In the midst of the homework, peer pressure and mixes of puberty, the Internet and all it offered served as an escape from reality. We were finally able to play numerous games on the Disney Channel website, have Pokémon battles against one another, surf the web for never ending information, search the hottest hits of the 2000’s and listen to our favorite bands. While the Internet became the window to a whole new adventure, the greatest feat of its existence during our adolescent years was the creation and usage of Myspace and AOL instant messenger, popularly known as AIM. The internet has changed the way we can communicate with one another and meet people with similar interests based on the sites we use. Our parents always warned us about the potential dangers of the internet, trying to monitor what we put online and limited our hours. Some of us listened to our parents and only added people to our friends list that we knew, while others decided to be as public as possible and welcomed anyone that wanted to be our friends. I happened to be one of the kids that did listen to my parents -- they taught me who I should and should not share information with, but that did not stop me from creating an alter-ego account.
MySpace was a popular site during my middle school years, used for keeping up to date with your favorite artists. Through MySpace, many kids my age prided themselves on being the first to discover hipster bands, making them the “cool kids” on the block. Myspace also made it possible, especially for kids who didn’t have cell phone access yet, to kept in touch with friends and classmates. It was the greatest feeling changing your layout with a trippy obnoxious color and pattern that best represents your personality, matching it with the best song and profile picture. I was one of those hardcore fan girls that had their own personal account as well as my fan girl account. I decked out my second account with Panic! At The Disco lyrics, pictures, quotes, videos, playlists, and anything else you could think of that was P!ATD related.
My mom ingrained in my head that I should not add random people because of the potential dangers of being “catfished” -- talking to someone online who is pretending to be someone else when they could potentially be 40-year-old serial killers or pedophiles. That did not stop me from discovering other people that have the same interests as me, having our love for P!ATD as the common denominator. My best friend and I created separate accounts and ended up with hundreds of fan friends. There were very few people that we truly connected with and those are the select people we gave our AIM usernames and personal MySpace accounts to to continue our communication and strengthen our relationships. Having the synchronous communication though AIM versus the asynchronous communication through MySpace allowed us to develop a deeper connection and understanding with our virtual friends.
Over the past few years, I have kept in contact with one girl named Vanessa through Instagram, SMS, Skype and Facebook thanks to MySpace. We bonded over our love for Panic! At The Disco and it developed into a great relationship where we check up on one another every once in a while. Because of the lack of nonverbal cues in the beginning of our relationship, we were able to become more personal through rich media. So it is ok to open up a bit more over the internet but with caution. We do not want to give away too much information with someone that we have not developed a strong enough bond with or visually seen in order to protect ourselves.
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