Sam L Barker (@bemyescapeproject)

I really enjoyed your opening presentation for Internet Real Life. The idea of using the web as a "Tool" and it being its best when used as a blunt, knowing Tool is a very cogent one. I've seen data floating around that teenagers were generally happier in the 00s than in the 2010s or 2025. We had access to the internet as a Tool and we would turn on and OFF when we needed it. Only the most hardcore could live fully online in 2006. When I turned on the dial-up internet to browse Green Day or Pokemon fan forums I was using the computer for a distinct purpose. I did my thing online and surfed the web. And then I turned it off. Teenagers blended irl interactions with the internet all the time and almost as default, and the order and popularity of content was driven by human popularity, not by a black-box guessing what browsers wanted to see. MySpace was defined just as much by bathroom selfies and photos taken of Emos milling around in regional parks than a kind of Second Life type escapism. It was very meatspace with a distinct purpose, and in retrospect that was a good thing.