Digital Autobiography.

My ability to be creatively articulate starts and ends with critical writing, so this will be largely chronological. I have been using computers basically for as long as I can remember. I was around four when my parents acquired a computer with Windows 95, and I would play games on it, though what I remember most distinctly is that I would change all the setting from “shut down” to “restart” or “sleep,” primarily because I liked playing with the drop boxes. When I got lice in kindergarten and my mom had to comb through my hair for what seemed like hours, and very well might have been, we did it in the computer room, so that I could play games to distract from the pain and tedium.

I don’t remember how old I was when we got dial-up, but I know we had a very early version of AOL, and I was always proud that my parents would select age groups in parental controls that were higher than my actual age, with the promise that I wouldn’t go in chat rooms, and I almost never did. I went to a math, science, and technology magnet school, so I was proficient in all Microsoft Office programs by the age of eight, to the point that I could have made a spreadsheet or an animated PowerPoint presentation, had I been so inclined. The computers at school were Compaqs and I’m pretty sure I had a secret distaste for them, though I couldn’t say why now. The early stirrings of technological snobbery, I suppose. In seventh grade, I transferred to the first of a series of private schools, this being the most affluent by far, and my parents bought me a Gateway laptop, as the possession of a personal computer was compulsory starting in middle school there. At this point, having a computer was not a big deal to me and I could have done without it if circumstances required, though I was very proficient in its operation.

I suppose it was around ninth or tenth grade that I began to use the Internet as a tool for discovery. I had previously had an Encyclopedia Brittanica on CDs, but eventually, the Internet became one of my primary resources for hours of searches, the compilation of seemingly useless information. It enabled me to take a vested interest in music that no one I knew liked. I didn’t go to shows yet and it was a very personal thing that I contributed to the formation of my identity. Certain musicians, especially, at the time, Bob Dylan, became larger than life to me, and given that neither of my parents have a decent record collection, or even listened to music very much as young people, I took pride in my ability to seek things out from their generation and beyond on my own. I started with iTunes artist searches, a rather primitive and less than ideal medium, by current standards, and at the time, I actually digitally purchased music, which I would never dream of doing now, even with the removal of DRM. However, that was an ethical dilemma, when I eventually realized my spending habits were overwhelming, considering the breadth of the world I was discovering. I would never have been able to wade through it all at that rate, and eventually, I was able to convince myself that my outside consumption habits (band merch, vinyl, tickets to shows) offset that I wouldn’t be contributing to album sales, or rather, the bloating of entities that have nothing to do with the artists themselves. I know this doesn’t seem like identity construction, but it was to me because music is a huge part of my life, so my ideology about how to be an informed consumer is as well.

Of course, I had Myspace and Facebook, but neither have ever been particularly valuable to me. LiveJournal didn’t work for me either. It felt silly and self-indulgent because I’m too self-conscious about emoting to do it publicly very often. Yet the summer after I acquired my college laptop, which I quickly became joined with at the trackpad, I started regularly posting on the Tumblr I had made the year before, and I suppose at that point, micro-blogging became my “thing,” if you will. I’ve always loved the Internet and it was the perfect outlet, a seemingly small group of like-minded people, sharing all that they found interesting about themselves and the world around them, and I’ve found great friends as a result. I even met my boyfriend, whom I’ve been dating for almost a year and a half, through that medium, and so I can’t imagine anything else so abstract impacting my life so deeply. My entire future has been irrevocably changed because I ran out of things to do two summers ago and started blogging about music and stuff of that nature.

I wouldn’t say I “construct” an identity separate from the one I employ in what most would call “real” life (partitioning things as real and imagined based on a supposed dichotomy between the Internet and the physical world seems to me to be a very dated ideology). On the contrary. Rather than challenging any preexisting identity, my blog has become a place for reveling in what I’ve already accepted about myself. Most bloggers I know are very quick to cop to the narcissism of the entire practice, and I’ll acknowledge that right up front, but it’s not always a pretty picture of some person I idealize myself to be. Sometimes, I use it as an outlet for blowing off steam more than anything else, which of course isn’t a side of myself that I would want everyone to see. I’ve learned that it becomes increasingly difficult territory to navigate as my follower count grows, especially when numbered among it are many people I know personally. Even with that pressure and a run-in with a vicious hacker, a student at UCF who gained access to my computer god knows how or when, I’ve made it a safe space for myself, for the issues I care about, and for my honest, unfettered world view. My digital literacy is very indicative of my privilege, but more importantly, I think, it’s my most ready way of not only discovering knowledge, but continually making strides in creating it.