This is the thread that will change your life

Author

Topic: This is the thread that will change your life

Gunslinger Moogle

No longer a gimmick

posted 11-17-2003 03:48:17 AM

You know all those hours you've spent combing the internet, prowling across Google, camping the boards? All that time ostensibly in the pursuit of an elusive mp3 or a new game or a bit of info for homework? You remember days on AIM, the times you'd chat an entire conversation almost offhandedly to an acquaintance whose name you found nestled in among those who'd commented on this or that, while waiting for someone - you don't remember who - to come online and with spidery fingers type the Holy Grail into your devoutly waiting virtual arms? But if there was a Grail in Cyberspace it would just singe you like a vampire wouldn't it, the baleful 404 error or illegal operation or 'DirectX 10.12q' burning its way into bloodshot eyelids.

You know the time you've spent on cute little flash golems where you eat fish or watch a stick figure rap an ode to bin Laden's destruction or run from a current of allconsuming lava? or their more complex twins - downloadble simulacrums of 3D graphics and explosive sounds in the distance? You remember when you cheered with a comrade you'd never see after a victory that was hollow in a world you couldn't touch? Or when you spent hours destroying terrain or bunnies or anything in your path, and the only reason to be alone or with friends was which way would net you more of a little virtual bling?

Do you remember when you looked at the clock, which read 3 AM, and realized you'd been reading blogs, clicking refresh, or playing one mp3 over and over again...since 7? And you thought, just what was I looking for in them? Were you really waiting to see what your digital friends thought of the symbolism of Neo's death or jamming to the rhythms of TMNT? Did you hope that somehow, out of the impersonal aether your name would materialize, and someone would call out to you, "Hey! you! this is what you've been waiting for - this is what all that time spent in front of your computer has lead up to! Pay attention, because this is what you were really waiting for while SWG was patching! When you were hawking wares at Freeport, while you were trading in the backroom brothels of M:tGO, while you were dancing in Mos Eisley, this is what you were really trying to build! And here is the final piece of your masterwork, of the quintessence you have accreted sitting on your ass and leaping through virtual worlds ten at a time, forming tenuous relationships that dissolved the next day when someone had a bad morning at your ISP's office!"

Well, that someone is me. If you have not, indeed, been travelling the net as a means to an end, but have felt as though it was an end in and of itself, this is the end to all ends. This is what you were looking for when one early morning, you groggily typed in all your interests into Google and waited for a response that never came. This is the entry, all about you, that you were hoping you would find in someone's blog. This is instant gratification, instant enlightenment, instant fame, prosperity and longevity distilled into a few kilobytes dancing across your screen. In short, whatever you've been looking for this is it.*

So, I ask you, what now? What nameless, ephemeral something was it you were searching for, what was it you have now found?

*disclaimer: this thread may not be, say, as much a cure to cancer as a combination of sudden creative impulse and procrastination

[ 11-17-2003: Message edited by: Gunslinger Moogle ]

moogle is the 3241727861th binary digit of pi

Disclaimer: I'm just kidding, I love all living things.
The fastest draw in the Crest.
"The Internet is MY critical thinking course." -Maradon
"Gambling for the husband, an abortion for the wife and fireworks for the kids they chose to keep? Fuck you, Disneyland. The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is the happiest place on Earth." -JooJooFlop