It is strange in a way to have watched the Internet communication grow like this. I can remember telnetting to FreeSpeech bbs to post replies on various subjects and wait for responses. There was something exciting about those evenings. It took me forever to build my courage up, I was sure that my opinion was not worth anyone's time. I was a high school dropout but I was engaging in philosophical and political debates with adults. It was the first time I felt as though someone was listening to me. I wrote a heated piece about abortion rights and was given nothing but well-thought out responses that agreed and disagreed, there was finesse to the debate. People would rarely disagree with the entire argument. Instead, people picked apart the logic and feasibility of the proposed ideas. Something was built out of my argument where there had been nothing but a child's words. Being part of that process was like a drug and I craved to be taken seriously.

Being young, I was not gifted with a tremendous amount of patience. I was convinced of my correctness on all things to a point of mania. This was what destroyed my ability to be taken seriously on the bbs. Instead of writing my own piece to be responded to, I began responding to other posters. Incapable of giving them the subtle intelligence they granted my piece, I railed against them in vitriolic and highly charged personal attacks. "Only a moron would...", "I guess if you like sounding like Hitler...", "Hey next time you want to masturbate your ego try to keep the residue off of my screen". It was after about five of these posts that everyone, including myself, realized that I had lost it. They blocked my account from telnetting to their bbs.

Like I said, it was like a drug from me and being blocked only enraged me, I began setting up new accounts to circumvent being blocked. When those were blocked I would use friend's accounts. I did all of this just so that I could flame on other posters. FreeSpeech, to their credit stopped trying to block me and allowed the community to handle me. They ignored me. No matter how much rotted filth I left in response to their posts, they never engaged me. I was cut-off from all of the debates. So I began going to other bbses and flaming on their discussion boards and message boards and real-time chats.

It turned out that I was not alone. There was an entire community of angry youth that had internet access. We would exchange slams on each other. Accessing the usenet boards we roamed like hordes, eventually, flaming out other posters. It got old, after a while you realize no matter how clever you are in communicating that somebody is unintelligent, you are still stuck communicating that they are unintelligent. There was no point to it. Having someone react when attacked felt like it gave me some power but it was empty. What I had really wanted all the time was to be reacted to as if I was worthwhile and as if I had something of value to share, like my first posting ever.

I faded off the 'net and watched as the tone of discourse was set by people like me and not like those who first helped me years ago. It occurred to me that I was right to be nervous when posting to the 'net. I was unable to appreciate written communication and the power that people can have when they come together with a mindset of settling an issue and not a mindset of destroying each other. So in a way this whole blog is a form of repentance for being such an annoyance back then. To those of you who still flame on, I will see your comments and I will think about you in the same way I think about my younger self ... I know you have more to say, your cry for attention can be constructive, I hope people don't stop listening before you get a chance to share it.