[KillerGremlin]

This thread is an accumulation of a lot of thoughts and ideas I have had recently. Some of these ideas and thoughts have come from news stories I've read/heard, others have come from my ongoing exploration and training in the Psychology field. I'm gonna cut the rambling short and get to the meat of the matter. The meatspin that is. It's spin time.

How "real" is the Internet?

I ask because lately there has been a lot of news stories about online bullying, slander on Facebook (resulting in schools getting involved), and people escalating Internet fights into real life.

For me, the Internet has always been this fantasy land....that is probably why I have always felt very detached from Facebook and eventually deleted it. I've been a part of this "Internet thing" since just near the beginning, or at least back when it wasn't so serious. I remember the AOL days when chatrooms where just a fuck-off place to have a good time. I've been doing message boards since around 7th grade (AGB and this place eventually). I've always kept the Internet as some fantasy world full of media and news and pixels.

Now shit is getting serious though. Between the government coming after people for downloading shit and whatnot it is quite evident that the Internet is serious business. But theft/child porn aside, the rest of the Internet is left for socialization.

So again: How "real" is the Internet?

Evidently, for a lot of people, the Internet is VERY real. Apparently Facebook is serious business. Serious enough to tear rifts into people's social life. Serious enough for schools to get involved.

I mean, am I the only one who reads these stories and goes, "What the fuck?"

Am I so disconnected from reality, so socially isolated (the NEW socially isolated) that I'm not getting it?

I feel like I come from a lost generation that understands what the Internet is...which is just a series of tubes and it is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck! It's a series of tubes!