Can one grow out of the internet?

This was inspired by Sarai’s latest entry, and since I have a feeling that it was going to be pretty long, I didn’t want to completely dominate her comments section (I’m known for that anyway).

Can one grow out of the internet? I don’t think so at all. You can be bored of it, but let’s face it–the Internet has been around for a million web years. It’s going to be around for a while longer, and it’s only going to get bigger. Yes, it is possible to be bored. I’m bored now, but I’ll be “unbored” eventually. As crazy as this sounds, I think the internet has saved my life; saved me from myself. It’s an escape from the mediocrity and depressive thing called life. The only other thing that comes close is writing. I’ve met people who I may never meet in real life, but are great people. I’ve gotten job interviews from job search sites. I’ve had a “romantic” (there’s a long story behind that one) relationship that bloomed from online dating. So many surprises came my way through the web waves.

I didn’t expect that I’d be in the blogging scene for as long as I’ve been. Will I grow out of it? I say “no” now, but who knows? As I’ve realized so far this year, real life throws curveballs at you like no tomorrow. It can definitely happen online as well. Was there a time where I wanted to leave it alone? Honestly, yes. There was a point where I said that I wouldn’t renew any domains and just leave it alone. My confidence was compromised greatly. But then I thought about it and I was like “what would I be doing? This is an escape.” Not only that, but just like how I am with message boards, I would have came back with a new blog eventually. So instead of disappearing, I went another route. From two years ago, when I started Crestfallen, my entries have gone from dark, bitter, and angry with a small dose of hatred and contempt, to still dark, bitter and angry, but injected with dry sarcastic humor. My mood hasn’t changed much, but my humor has. I guess it shows.

Speaking of message boards, I’ve pretty much grown out of them. It was just last year where my Firefox was full of tabs leading to message boards. I think I was an active member of at least 10 message boards at one point. Now, I have four boards open, including Catalyst. I’m more of a reader and replier rather than a thread creator (mostly because if it’s not worth creating threads for, then I won’t do it), which is part of the reason why I have a hard time with Catalyst, but I don’t want to go crazy with nonsensical threads. Some boards thrive on nonsensical posts; I believe that everyone else shouldn’t have to live through it. However, the boards I’m on now, such as Snark and Neonglow, have a larger population of 18+ members, and I feel comfortable for the most part. But yeah, it’s definitely possible to grow out of message boards.

I’m a huge microblogging/social networking fiend. I kinda blame Ancyru for this, but I mostly blame my lack of impulse control. If you want to find anything by me, just type in “wtfshadow” in Google. You’ll find me on Plurk, Twitter, Rejaw, IconBuffet (oh shit, I forgot about that!!), Colourlovers, and Sims on Stage, just to name a few. Okay, so most of those aren’t social networking sites. But that’s beyond the point; type that in, and you’re sure to get a Nat Marie connection. Will I grow out of this scene? I think that it’s a big trend, and there’s one coming out every week it seems. Trends die. Some would tell you, though, that it’s the future way of blogging. I’m not arguing it. But as the trend dies, I might end up neglecting them more and more. I also have detachment issues, so I might go right back.

All in all, the I-net is here, so might as well enjoy it now. If you grow out of things that you used to love, it’s natural. Remember in real life when you got your first truck or Barbie doll, and then once you turned 13, you looked at it with disgust? It happens with online life as well. Started your first blog, then looked back and said “what the fuck?”. Joined your first message board, then said “what the fuck?”. Posted your first Tweet or Plurk and then said “was I drunk?” (And maybe that was really the case!). It’s all part of a growing process. I just want to be around long enough to say, “When I was your age, they didn’t have this newfangled thing called SXHTML 8.0. We had XHTML 2.0, and people couldn’t even code properly with that!”

…Any month now.

In other news, I’ve gone yet another direction for this domain. I will be posting what that is soon.