I miss the internet.
<p>I know this is going to make me sound old – but I miss the internet.</p>
<p>The real internet. The one we used to have. Before it all got so much less – and somehow so much more – complicated.</p>
<p>I went online for the first time around 2001. The 90s had ended, and the world was coming online while I was coming out of my shell and becoming more self-aware.</p>
<p>I discovered myself – the version of myself that could exist beyond the boundaries of my family, my church life, and my strictly heteronormative world – in endless threads on Absolutepunk.net. It was a place where I could talk about music, my passions, who I was, and who I wanted to be.</p>
<p>I miss that internet.</p>
<p>The one that existed before terms of service. The one that existed before social graphs. The one where being a User meant having a degree of respect, not being treated like a retention/churn statistic.</p>
<p><a href="https://joanwestenberg.medium.com/i-miss-the-internet-c7e41544a8b9"><strong>Learn More</strong></a></p>