Writer's Block: Internet Addiction
Sep. 29th, 2011 11:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Oh God... this changes from time to time. I could probably think back and name dozens and dozens of websites on which I killed a good majority of my teen years, or which websites I spent all of my free time on between classes in college, or what websites kept me up far past any reasonable when I was in high school.
LiveJournal has, oddly, been the most consistent internet presence in my life, even when I didn't post for weeks at a time; with the exception of times during which I had zero 'Net access (which have been very few, and very far between), I have checked LJ everyday for almost eleven years. No other website even comes close. LJ is how my friends and I kept up with each other, where I made some new friends, where I found my penpals, where I discovered the writing challenge that is the basis of my book, where I found out about Muskrat Jamboree, where I discovered what fandom really was, where I discovered that I was not so weird, after all.
There are other sites I check everyday - Facebook. Twitter. Tumblr, which has become an addiction in its own right, and which caters to my "mindless fangirling and pretty pictures" cravings. I'm on AO3 a lot, though there are only three or four fandoms I check regularly. YouTube, quite often (hopefully more often, as I'd love to get into fanvidding again). Archives and sites for whatever fandom I'm into at the moment, so that changes quite frequently. I used to be on FanFiction.net a lot, but with so many other resources for fanfic, I venture over there only if I'm coming up short trying to find particular things else where (and with things like searchable kinkmemes and whatnot now, even that is becoming less of a neccessity).
I don't think any of those places has been quite as much of a time sink (and I use that phrase in a loving way, truly ;)) as LiveJournal. Thinking back, I do remember sinking hours of time on the official Queen site, way back when I was still in eigth grade, still on AOL, still paying by the hour, and still using a 14.4 modem. Oh God. And AOL, being the bastards that they were, would make signing off a hassle and a half - so long as you were paying by the hour. Oh, hell yes. If you were paying by the hour, you could click "Sign off" a dozen times without a damn thing happening. If you were paying the flat rate though, fuck, you'd get booted off if you tapped your keys too loudly. It was ridiculous.
Oh, I think the only place that could rival my time spent on LiveJournal would be Usenet, though of course this was ages ago - between ages thirteen and sixteen at the absolute most. Does anyone remember newsgroups? I frequented:
alt.music.queen
misc.writing (during my time there, I had my age and gender disected in a rather long thread regarding one of my poems)
alt.teens.poetry.and.stuff
alt.fan.lion-king (shut up, I was thirteen)
alt.fan.monty-python
rec.arts.disney.animation
alt.tv.frasier
And of course, there are certain sites I have spent hours perusing: most of the Cheezeburger network, for example; CuteOverload, Failblog, Snopes, The Straight Dope.
Does anyone else have some Internet nostalgia or current sites that you waste hours on?
Oh God... this changes from time to time. I could probably think back and name dozens and dozens of websites on which I killed a good majority of my teen years, or which websites I spent all of my free time on between classes in college, or what websites kept me up far past any reasonable when I was in high school.
LiveJournal has, oddly, been the most consistent internet presence in my life, even when I didn't post for weeks at a time; with the exception of times during which I had zero 'Net access (which have been very few, and very far between), I have checked LJ everyday for almost eleven years. No other website even comes close. LJ is how my friends and I kept up with each other, where I made some new friends, where I found my penpals, where I discovered the writing challenge that is the basis of my book, where I found out about Muskrat Jamboree, where I discovered what fandom really was, where I discovered that I was not so weird, after all.
There are other sites I check everyday - Facebook. Twitter. Tumblr, which has become an addiction in its own right, and which caters to my "mindless fangirling and pretty pictures" cravings. I'm on AO3 a lot, though there are only three or four fandoms I check regularly. YouTube, quite often (hopefully more often, as I'd love to get into fanvidding again). Archives and sites for whatever fandom I'm into at the moment, so that changes quite frequently. I used to be on FanFiction.net a lot, but with so many other resources for fanfic, I venture over there only if I'm coming up short trying to find particular things else where (and with things like searchable kinkmemes and whatnot now, even that is becoming less of a neccessity).
I don't think any of those places has been quite as much of a time sink (and I use that phrase in a loving way, truly ;)) as LiveJournal. Thinking back, I do remember sinking hours of time on the official Queen site, way back when I was still in eigth grade, still on AOL, still paying by the hour, and still using a 14.4 modem. Oh God. And AOL, being the bastards that they were, would make signing off a hassle and a half - so long as you were paying by the hour. Oh, hell yes. If you were paying by the hour, you could click "Sign off" a dozen times without a damn thing happening. If you were paying the flat rate though, fuck, you'd get booted off if you tapped your keys too loudly. It was ridiculous.
Oh, I think the only place that could rival my time spent on LiveJournal would be Usenet, though of course this was ages ago - between ages thirteen and sixteen at the absolute most. Does anyone remember newsgroups? I frequented:
alt.music.queen
misc.writing (during my time there, I had my age and gender disected in a rather long thread regarding one of my poems)
alt.teens.poetry.and.stuff
alt.fan.lion-king (shut up, I was thirteen)
alt.fan.monty-python
rec.arts.disney.animation
alt.tv.frasier
And of course, there are certain sites I have spent hours perusing: most of the Cheezeburger network, for example; CuteOverload, Failblog, Snopes, The Straight Dope.
Does anyone else have some Internet nostalgia or current sites that you waste hours on?
