Tag: history

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Standing Up To Racism part 1

Last month I decided to jump back into Facebook friendships with a few people that I had lost touch with (aka unfriended). Most of these people consider themselves to be conservative. They are also white and middle class. They have all lived in what they consider to be safe spaces and have not had to struggle to survive. Basically, they are living the American Dream as it has been sold to us. So why would any of them be opposed to helping other people reach their full potential? Why would they dislike people who do not look like them? Why would they argue the opposite opinion on Facebook, even if it looks like they are siding with racists, simply to provoke an argument or, what they perceive as, raise awareness? Why would people who consider themselves Christians agree with arguments made by racists?

Here is what I think – There is a core of racism that has festered in this country since Columbus arrived and white people that make arguments that are counter to the struggle to move forward out of this racism are also racist. The core of this national racism is with the white supremacist groups, of course, and they make no bones about being straight up racists. They are honest and do not care if people perceive them as such because their agenda is to make America fully and completely white. So – they are horrible people, but they are honest in their views and how they present them. They fly confederate flags in order to let you know that they are a part of a group of people that hate everyone that does not look like them. They do not hide this hatred.

The second ring of racism that exists, around these core racists are the apologists. People that argue against liberation and for the same policies that racists want to see continued or enacted. This second ring of people are more subtle and, until something happens in the country to trigger them, they stay relatively quiet in the face of racism and hatred. They do not advocate for oppressed people, but they also do not speak up for racist whites, until they either feel the pull of an argument or they are potentially in the crossfire of the march toward true equality.

Here are a few comments that fall into the category that I am speaking of above. Comments that will alert you to the existence of a subtle, second ring racist:

  • “Affirmative action is not necessary. Everyone needs to work hard and pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”
    • This is subtle racism because it does not take into account the systemic oppression of POC within the history of our country. It does not look at the systems that have been set up within education and industry that work against people of color and continue policies of oppression within institutions.
  • “There is nobody left in this country that was alive during the Civil War, therefore the Civil War is no longer a problem. Everything was solved by the South losing.”
    • This statement does not consider the fact that, as humans, we are all descended from other humans. If you had ancestors who were slaves or slave-owners, you would still have a connection to the atrocities that were done to or by your ancestors. White people that have ancestors who were slave-owners have an even greater responsibility to make the wrongs of their ancestors right. They should be standing up and denouncing the people in their family history that committed these atrocities, calling out everyone in their presence that is racist, and fighting for equality for all.
  • “We don’t need to tear down statues of Confederate generals because sometimes we honor things that people don’t like and they just need to deal with it.”
    • I have no words. This is just. Wrong.
  • “The Confederate Flag is a symbol of Southern pride and people should not equate that with slavery.”
    • The confederate flag is a symbol of the South’s contribution to the Civil War, which was to fight to retain slavery. Due to this fact, the confederate flag is a symbol of hatred and racism. If you fly this flag either in front of your house or in your front window or on your basement wall you are a racist, full stop.

These are just a few of the comments that I have noticed on my travels through these new Facebook friendships that I entered into last month. One of these friendships ended abruptly when the ‘friend’ used the n word on one of my comment threads. I asked her to remove it and rather than doing that she tried to explain it away. She said she was ‘trying to make a point’ and she was, but not the point she thought she was making. The point was that she is a racist. So, I removed the comment and I unfriended her the next morning. When she wrote back to me in a private message I ‘broke up’ with her, which is to say that a friend I have known since I was 5 years old is someone I will no longer be speaking to. Some people change, some people don’t. But we don’t have to connect ourselves to racists anymore. We never should have in the first place.

Another thread (which I luckily took screenshots of before it got removed – more to come on this later) involved a comment made by a friend of an FB friend that was blatantly racist. When I called him out on it, he asked me if I was calling him a racist. I said yes, because he is and he asked me again. I assume that if the thread was not removed that it would have devolved into him attacking me for calling him what he actually is. It is disheartening that these types of exchanges are getting removed in order to ‘keep the peace’ when a way to make the world a lot more peaceful would actually be to call them out. And those that hide or side with these racists are culpable. Enablers are also part of the problem. People have this idea that if they remain bystanders they are safe, but they are not. Bystanders need to stand up and speak out. Racists deserve to be shamed. Perhaps that will change their minds. Or it won’t and at least we know who they are. Shine the light.

I will continue to chronicle the racism that I see in my Facebook feeds and stand up to these assholes. I will call them out for their racism and I will not back down from my convictions. We have to make this world better and that means shaming racists until they either change or go away. I’m not clear, yet, on what ‘going away’ looks like, but I am happy to know that the racists are actually not the majority of America. They might think they are, but they are not. And we will show them this fact by pushing them back into their dark corners.

Peace,
Chantale (aka hippiegrrl)

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Changing Things Up

As you can see, it has been quite a while since the last official post here at Rise Up Buffalo. We have been busy working on other projects and getting locked out of our accounts, but we are ready to pick up where we left off, with a few tweaks to the original theme. Rise Up Buffalo was originally created to be a resource for the Buffalo, NY activist community. Our main goal was to inform the activist community on matters of importance. To spur actions and continue the growth of community building in the city. In the past 5 years, we feel that Twitter has become a major source of this type of community building. The opportunities for activist outreach through Twitter are endless. Coupled with other social media outlets, Twitter has been an excellent resource and continues to move change in Buffalo and across the planet. Humans writing pieces on blogs cannot keep up with the minute to minute nature of actions and Twitter was really made for that type of interaction.

Having said this, it seems that Rise Up Buffalo needs a change of focus. Instead of maintaining a standard of information gathering and dissemination for current actions, we feel that it can be a repository for nostalgia in the Buffalo community. So, as we stated back in March, we want to move forward with the writing series listed on the Series Up pages. This will become the main focus of Rise Up and we hope that you will join us on this new leg of our journey. All submissions are welcome! Please read more about this series and contact us with questions. In the meantime, be on the lookout for the first installment of Buffalo, Then, coming in November.

Peace, love, and activism,
Chantale

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2014

20 years beyond 1984. What did we think it would be like? Flying cars? Food pellets? Cars that turn into briefcases? Or just Big Brother monitoring our every move?

Well, we got one of those things. Unfortunately, it isn’t any of the cool, techie things that we thought it might be. We got the monitoring without the flying cars. I guess we can at least be happy there are no food pellets. Yet.

And, in reality, it is a techie advancement to be monitored at every move. It is an advancement that we all bought into, whole heartedly, by purchasing phones with GPS and putting our bank accounts on a world wide network that can be accessed by anyone, anywhere, at anytime.

This isn’t meant to create panic, but just to ask, what did we expect? We want convenience and the ability to communicate at a seconds notice, but without all the extra stuff that comes along with it. Yes, that would be nice, but it just is not possible. At least, it is not possible now. It may have been possible in the beginning, but we let it go this way and now there is no turning back.

So be safe out there. 2014 is a whole new year and whole new year’s are a good time to take stock. To look back on the things we did and look forward to the future. It is also a good time to reassess exactly how much of our lives are online and ways in which we can protect ourselves from exposure.

Do you really need those 8 twitter accounts? How about the 3 Facebook accounts you have finagled? Do you need to use google wallet and PayPal? How much information does Amazon really have and do they need it all? These are all valid questions. Your answers are your own, but it is not the worst thing to at least think on them.

I have many areas of presence on the web and for 2014 one of my goals is to decrease the amount of exposure I have. At the end of 2013, my email was hacked and, with that, so too was my main twitter account. This was annoying and cumbersome to relieve. Although it did not spiral into something more, it certainly made me sstop and take stock of my online presence. It also forced me to make up better passwords. And so, it could be as easy as that. Change up your passwords. Make them so tough that you might not even remember them. As long as you have a method of reset, you are good to go.

So, good luck out there and remember. This is what we wanted, but it does not have to be the only way. We have the power to make our online experience exactly what we want it to be. Just like life, our online presence should reflect who we actuallly are. It should have openness and security at the same time. It should be a reflection of who we are as humans and we should keep it safe. I like to remember that movie the net as my reference for what could be. Let’s not let it get there, shall we?

Peace,
Chantale

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Slackers Unite!

Troy: what happened to your normal clothes?
Michael: wow! Lelaina, look at you. You look…where’d you get that dress?
Lelaina: Oh, um… I don’t know. I just bought it. But I think I’m gonna go change because…
Michael: No, don’t. You look beautiful. You look like… You look like…
Troy: A doily.
Lelaina: I’m gonna change.
Michael: No, don’t change.
Troy: And don’t go thinking for yourself either, Lainie.

[scene from “Reality Bites”, universal pictures, 1994]

The Art Linklater film “Slacker” has been considered the generation-x answer to “Easy Rider”. Although it is not a road movie, it most definitely defined (or redefined) a generation. If this is truly the case, then we must also consider the movie “Reality Bites” as a defining moment in cinema history for gen-x. Both movies depict a world in which the most intelligent and creative among us become lazy and complacent. In “Reality Bites” the main character, the valedictorian of her graduating class at university, ends up having to work a minimum wage job to be able to make ends meet. Her roommate, who has also completed university, works at the gap and their friend, who has only one class left to finish, would rather loaf on a couch than complete his degree. Philosophically, what is the point of the piece of paper? That is the question asked in these movies and, unfortunately, they were not just defining a generation, but also foreshadowing the future. Smart people with no direction.

How can we better understand our current circumstances through movie depictions of our generation. Of course, we are not characters in a movie, but some movies strike right at the heart of real, living, breathing, humans. The characters in “Reality Bites” are not 2-dimensional caricatures, but fully formed characters. People that we, off the screen, can actually relate to and maybe see in others of our generation. Generation-x, that is. Those of us between the hippies and the hipsters. Those of us born in the 70’s who have really tried to make this country work for us. We are the main demographic for advertising now and we actually have always been. We grew up with MTV, but had to work for our media. We are the generation that was raised with sound bites and short attention spans, but didn’t have ADHD diagnoses to blame for our problems in school or life. We were told to try harder, not take the easy way out by popping a pill. If we wanted to talk on the phone we had to dial a number, but we have also adapted to our current surroundings. Generation-x may be considered a lost generation, now, looking back, but we are still here. We carry with us all the debt the 80’s created and the disillusionment of the 90’s. We carry the weight of the baby boomers as they move into social security years and the burdens of the hipsters who steal away our chances at success in new media industries, even though we were on the forefront of those technologies.

An outcome of slackerdom, or simple complacency, is the pull to stay in one decade. For gen-x, that decade would be the 90’s and, believe me, I have that bug. I would love to wake up at noon each day, go to a coffeehouse, hang out and read a good book, walk back home, stopping along the way to pick up a few items for dinner, and then work, after dinner, on a book or a libretto or something creative that pays the bills. Writing this blog and getting paid for it. Making espresso and getting paid for it. Reading and writing and getting paid for it. But getting paid enough to afford the things I need and want, not scrounging. Back to the days of $1.13 gallons of gas and free meals, 29 cent stamps and Fiona Apple. Back to The Counting Crows and Jewel and Puff Daddy. When Kurt and Left Eye, Biggie and Aaliyah, Tupac and Layne were alive. Back in the day.

So how can we make the 90’s happen in the teens? First things first. Find a job that makes you happy. Never settle for doldrums. If you have to scrimp and save and scrounge for a bit to get to where you want to be professionally it will be more than worth it in the end. Working a job you hate just to pay the bills ends you up a bitter person with a sad life. You will look back and only see the paychecks, not good times. Once you are on the road to a better existence though work happiness everything will look sunnier. Each morning will be one that you want to rise to the occasion for, not a struggle to get out of bed.

Next – stop beating yourself up for the things that you have not done or may not do that others wish you would do. Your life is your own and if you do not live it the way you want you will be unhappy in the end. You are living for you, not anyone else, and you have to put your needs and wants first, not those of others. You cannot take care of others unless you take care of yourself first. You cannot love others unless you love yourself first. This includes having children. Children are a huge responsibility and if you are not personally ready to enter into the realm of parenthood it is never a good idea to move forward. Let go of the things that people say or request of you and move forward with what YOU want. Positivity and moving toward goals will bring you everything you really want in the end and the guilt of children not being in the equation has to be let go of in order to move forward. You only get one life so you should live it how you want and not how others think you should.

Finally – always make time to be creative. If you have a talent, use it. The spent doing the things you love will make you a better person. Time spent alone, concentrating on a creative outlet wil make you a stronger and more well rounded individual. Always keep your mind open to new things and do not dismiss the opinions of others. You do not have to agree, but you should at least listen. From one human to another, this is all we really want from each other. To be heard.

So, maybe being from gen-x is not the worst thing in the world. We have a good handle on the future, based on the past, and we are able to overcome obstacles. Environmental issues? No problem! We will reduce, reuse, and recycle like rock stars. Bad economy? Please! We will downsize until things bounce back. Need a new tech? Of course! We will be working on the future of the tech that was introduced to us as children, because that is what we do. We are problem solvers and we will not quit until we have found solutions for everything. Moving forward, making the future brighter, this is what we slackers are all about. Don’t think that slacker is a negative nickname. It is the fuel that we need to change the world. And, mark my words, we ost certainly will. We should embrace the titles that older generations have given to our generation. Coffeehouses and grunge music were the beginning of our enlightenment. Don’t worry, Eeyore can still be our gen-x mascot. We will just make the Eeyore in each of us see the future in a brighter light. Eeyore can still be a downer and a doer at the same time. It is possible to be a walking contradiction and nobody knows this better than those of us born between 1965 and 1980. Go go gen-x! Rock it out and leave the boomers and the millenials in your dust!

Peace and Happy Fixing!
Chantale aka hippiegrrl

Links apropos
so maybe the slackers had it right after all
how generation x got the shaft but can still keep everything from sucking
eeyore

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If I Were a Roller Disco Queen

I always say that I want to live in the seventies, but I never explain why. There are many reasons, and so I will be sharing a series of pieces on things I love from the seventies. The first of these is the roller rink… Enjoy and please come back soon to see the next installment!

Now, as you know, I was born in 1974, which actually makes me a child of the 80’s. I did most of my roller skating in the 80’s, but wish I could have been around for the roller disco days. I would have loved to be on a roller disco team, skating to hits of the 70’s. I mean, Xanadu was one of my favourite movies as a kid, so you see where this obsession might come from.

When I attended church (way back when) the youth group used to take us to the Rainbow Roller Rink, in Tonawanda, NY, to skate. I had a pair of roller skates that were mine, but they wouldn’t let me use them there so I had to rent with everyone else. A bit like bowling, if only for the shared footwear.

Here were a few key elements of skate night – rolling up to the snack bar to buy french fries with malt vinegar (good thing that writerchaz was not around then, he would have never chatted me up), ladies choice, trying to partner skate but failing miserably, almost making it into a competition but being yanked out by the mini christian coalition that gave us the bus ride to the event, and trying to pee in a bathroom with ceramic tiled floors – what a silly thing to do to the kids with the skates.

If it were the seventies I would have been able to wear awesome skate outfits (covered in rainbows) and skate semi-professionally on a local team. I would have skated to disco hits and won trophies for my efforts. I would have dated a roller disco guy and found secret areas of the roller rink to make out during “all skate” or “ladies choice”. Instead, I had the 80’s, cleancut christian version of roller skating. We could barely hold hands without one of the chaperones skating up and breaking our grasp. The boys were not too good on their feet, so most of the time the girls would skate in groups. It was fun and boring at the same time. The songs were all 80’s hits, since this was after the point at which disco was announced to be dead. I did learn how to skate backwards, so that was cool.

If only I could have been born 10 years earlier, I would have been a roller disco queen.

Peace – Chantale

Something fun:

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Technology and Disenfranchishement

When I say I want to go back to the seventies, it has more to do with technology than nostalgia.  Yes, I realize that I am sitting at a computer in a separate room from my husband, listening to a Pandora playlist online, while I type this into a word processing program.  Meanwhile, he sits on the couch in the living room, simultaneously watching television, checking the scores for a Yankees game on his iPod and texting his brother and cousin on his cellphone.  Without technology our lives would be empty.  Or would they?

This is a question I have been pondering for the past couple weeks.  Noticing that since I have left school I have less need for my cellphone, more time to read books, and less pull toward the computer.  If I could find a mid-range typewriter, something from 1985, I would be content to type on that, rather than a word processing program.  Heck, I would be content with an Apple IIe, if I could type my thoughts and then save them to a floppy disc.  I have been writing, by hand, in a journal and I am also content with that.  I do, however, notice that my hand cramps up more easily these days, since I am now more used to typing than writing.

I suppose that it has to start from inside.  This year I will start learning how to devolve back to earlier technology.  Making actual files in an accordion folder, rather than files on a flash drive.  Reading books that I can hold in my hand and turn the pages of, rather than reading articles on a computer screen.  Searching for a typewriter to collect my thoughts that come too quick for me to write in my journal.  These are small changes, but they are good.  That way, when the power goes out or the internet is suddenly unavailable, I have a way to collect my thoughts without relying so heavily on technology.  If I can do it, anyone can.

We have come to rely on this technology to live.  Not to actually exist, but to be.  Without the ability to check twitter and Facebook and the absence of email, the silence of a turned off cellphone becomes dreadfully desperate.  Without text messages to tell me that I am still breathing, however will I know I am still alive?

My iTunes playlist keeps me fully grounded in the decades ranging from the 1960’s to the 1990’s, with the exception of very few recent hit songs or underground artists.  By having the list constantly playing, throughout the course of my workday, I can be transported back to high school, Gords, or Rockwell hall at a moments notice.  As it spins to Alanis Morissette, I am reminded of my prom, not the happiest of memories, but a memory nonetheless.  Spinning to Chaka Kahn takes me back to my parents living room, sitting on the floor, as a ten year old, glued to HBO as Breakin’ is broadcast for the masses.  Trent Reznor oozes out of the speakers and I am transported to St. Catherines on a Friday night in 1995 where my best friend and I are in full Goth mode, on the dance floor, worshiping the gods of industrial music while drinking $2 blues and smoking cloves.  Everything is perfect.  Everything is new or different or just good.

Step right up, march, push, crawl right up on your knees, please, feed, greed, no time to hesitate. Trent Reznor

After reading an essay by Chuck Klosterman about The Empire Strikes Back and Reality Bites, I have suddenly realized why my obsession with the latter movie has been so strong.  I also realize that I am not alone in this obsession.  It is not a particularly good movie, but it certainly hits home.  It signifies everything about my 20’s.  I spent the bulk of that decade (1994-2004) in coffeehouses, either working or hanging out, sometimes both.  The beginning I spent in college and the end I spent in a dead end (although somewhat prestigious, in the IT department of a bank, but in the end, dead end) job.  At the very end (right before turning 30) I got married to someone who was in basically the same situation as me.  We were both in jobs that we knew we were not going to maintain forever, but they paid the bills.  We both hung out in coffeehouses and were disenfranchised, to use a sad, yet true, stereotype.  Or at least we felt disenfranchised, which is actually the same thing as being disenfranchised.  Self inflicted disenfranchisement.  This is a symptom of the Generation X group.  We have this in common, even if we do not want to admit it.  Each time a song from the 90’s is used in a commercial (which is beginning to be more and more prevalent this century) I, along with a whole generation of 30-somethings, cringe.  We are less unambivalent about this happening than our parents were.

I distinctly remember discussing this with my mother at the age of 20, the first time Pontiac used Jimi Hendrix (Fire) to try and sell their cars. I asked her, “isn’t that upsetting?” and she responded “somewhat, but what can you do?”  Well!  I say you can do a lot.  Don’t buy a Pontiac, tell everyone you know not to buy a Pontiac and begin an online campaign to stop using hippie (anti-establishment) music to sell products.  That would be my response, but hey – I’m a disenfranchised slacker – so that’s the way it goes.  I will sit in a coffeehouse and talk about protest, but how often do I get off my ass and follow through.   That was the legacy of my parents generation, so maybe they are a bit too tired to fight the good fight against corporate America.   They were too busy, in their youth, fighting for equal rights and against the war.  Obviously, there is a gulf between us, at least from this standpoint.

Well I used to stand for something, but forgot what that could be, there’s a lot of me inside you, maybe you’re afraid to see. Trent Reznor

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The Evolution of the Internet or How I Became a Social Media Junkie

It all began in 1984. Orwell could not have predicted it any better. Generation X was truly the cohort that would bring about the ways in which Big Brother could infiltrate every facet of our lives. That story is for another time though, since this story is about me and how I got to where I am on the chronological timeline of electronic history.

When I was ten years old (1984) I was placed in an accelerated grade five class. The acceleration was based on CTBS scores and such and my classmates and I were placed in what would come to be known as the honours track. One of the bonuses of being in the accelerated class for grades five and six was that we had a computer in our classroom. In the late 80’s this was a rarity. Most grammar schools were without a computer lab, let alone a computer in each, individual classroom. We were the lucky ones, or at least it seemed so. The technology was new and we were to be the generation (X) of students that grew up using these technological instruments. Word Processing would not be available for several more years, meaning that we would have to continue typing our term papers on manual typewriters until we reached Freshman and Sophomore years in college. We could never imagine carrying the internet (which was not for public consumption quite yet) around in our back pockets. Yes, the computer industry would grow by leaps and bounds in the following 30 years, but in 1984 we were happy to play lemonade stand and oregon trail in our grade five class.

As you can imagine, I took to the computer like I had been at it for years. Every gift giving holiday for the next 3 or 4 years I would as my parents for an Apple IIe. You see, this was the computer that we were given to use and we all mastered it in a matter of weeks. The computer was freedom and order all in one. There was possibility in the amber screen but also the ability for teachers to keep students interested and focused. It was a mutually beneficial relationship. We all loved the Apple IIe and from the day it rolled into the classroom I was hooked.

Due to the extremely high price of Apple computers at their first introduction to the market, it wasn’t feasible for my family to obtain one. Instead, my parents invested in a Texas Instruments computer, complete with Atari-like cartridges to play games and learn how to type. My favourite program was the typing cloud. At the age of 11 I was typing 75 words per minute and almost beat the program on several occasions. These computers had no means of saving programs or scores (much like my Atari) and so each use meant starting over again. As a child, I had an inordinate amount of patience and it served me well in the first few computer systems my parents obtained.

The next computer we purchased was a Commodore 128. This model came with a separate tape recorder (yes, audio tapes) that one could save programs on. When “playing” back each program it made a horrible high pitched noise, but we suffered through. At least we had the beginnings of being able to save things on our computer system. I had an old black and white television set as a monitor and with the Commodore I began learning how to code in DOS. My mother would bring home computer magazines from work and I would spend hours on the computer typing in lines of code. Typing in ‘run’ at the end of a 500 line code would give an ASCII coded HELLO! back and I was intrigued. That summer, I went to computer camp at the local community college and sealed my fate as the tech guru of the family, at the age of 12.

Around this time my best friends father purchased a Macintosh, the original Mac computer from the Apple company. It was tall and grey and had a slim view screen. Since there were no pictures to view, at the time, the 3 inch wide screen served the purpose of being able to write code quickly and easily. He was extremely protective of the computer (as he should have been for it’s high price on the market) and would not allow us to touch it when he was not supervising. My friend was somewhat uninterested in the computer, but I was obsessed. Going to her house began to be simply to sit and watch her father use the Mac. Sometimes he would let me use the mouse (a mouse on the table, really?) and showed me how to code in this somewhat different environment. My friend began to be jealous of the computer and told me that I could no longer come over unless it was to play with her. No more Mac. I complied, our friendship ended a couple years later when we hit high school.

As we moved through Compaq and HP and other IBM compatible computers, I continued to yearn for the ellusive Mac/Apple that had been my first contact with computers. To this day I am still using an IBM compatible laptop, but someday a Mac will be mine.

Getting back to the history…

When I began my freshman year of college I had moved my computer unit (a Compaq, still using the b&w television as a monitor, but with a floppy disc drive and a rudimentary word processing (in DOS) program) into my bedroom and discovered telnet. At Buffalo State, the professors were starting to use something they called the internet. It pales in comparison the current day Internet, but for the time it was extremely useful. Having been invented by the military to use as a source of intel sharing, it was perfect for professors doing research. Telnet was the system we used to ‘log in’ to the network. At school we also had access to email on amber screened terminal units. My best friend and I would spend hours upon hours in the basement of Chase Hall chatting and mudding on Olohof or IRC. Every Friday from 1993 through 1997 consisted of classes from 9-3, work from 5-10, Gord’s from 11-2, Towne Restaurant from 3-4 and Chase Hall from 5-8 or 9. Sometimes we would skip Towne, stop off at a mini mart for soda and rice krispie treats and head straight for Chase Hall, full goth persona, to login to Olohof until 5 or 6am.

I must stop here again to stress that at this time the internet was still just terminals hooked up to phone lines with people talking. No pictures, no websites, just chat. This was enough to keep us interested. In fact, I had been calling the school telnet line from my home computer for a few months before my mother decided she no longer wanted to see the $500 or $600 phone bills due to the 5 cent per minute charges I accrued. She told me to curb the phone use or get my own phone line. I opted for a personal phone line in my bedroom and continued to pay $500/month phone bills just to get on Olohof. It was an addiction, but not labeled as such, continued on until the World Wide Web appeared.

In 1998, I logged on to a new website called iVillage. On this site they offered free personal websites and I decided to go for it. They had templates that we could use to setup the site and I created my first online persona – bubbles fletcher (my drag name, if you must know). From there I began buying books on HTML and AOL in order to learn how to ‘code’ and ‘surf’ on the Internet. Next up I purchased a domain name, hippiegrrl.com, and started doing all my code from scratch in notepad. Templates were nice and easy, but why would someone with so much computer experience half ass it, right? To this day, I still feel that way and that is why I maintain my sites and blogs with notepad rather than Dreamweaver. Using programs to code is just a crutch. At least that is how I personally feel.

As the Internet grew, I grew with it, joining the Backwash community (in 2002) and becoming an online writer and admin for a site that boasted the tagline ‘Backwash – the Internet organized by personality’. I was in good company and we were trying to make this new phenomenon more user friendly for those who did not grow up with the technology, as most of us did. Writing articles and adding links for more information was the basis for my current day journal, all learned from being a member of the Backwash community. Fellow alum are now doing great things in the Social Media environment and I believe that the bulk of their expertise was driven by being early members of Backwash. We were not only building writing portfolios, but also learning how to manage online communities and comment feeds that would assist us on future sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

As I continue to journey through my life, I obtain more knowledge of computers and the Internet.  When I look back on all the changes over a very short period of time, I find it mind boggling how quickly everything has changed.  I began my computer life learning how to code in DOS and now I can write HTML code from scratch for a website.  I have learned how to maintain a database, how to use content management systems, how to create beautiful sites, with and without tables.  I lived through frames and javascript and flash that was faulty.  My career began in web design the day I started that iVillage page and has not let up since.  I may not always get paid for my designing, but I continue to learn and grow in the field.

Next year I will celebrate 20 years of being online and in 3 years I will celebrate 30 years with computers. I am squarely in the technology generation. Generation X might not be “the greatest generation”, but we are certainly the most malleable and the quickest to learn new things, especially when it comes to new technology. For those of us in our 30’s and 40’s the future looks bright, if we can continue to harness the greatness of the technology that we grew up with. If we can drop the petty arguments on Social Media and make it a place to truly share ideas and problem solve we could really make the future brighter for our generation and those to come after us.

Peace, Chantale (aka hippiegrrl)

appropriate link:
Internet Archive – jump in the wayback machine and take a ride to Internet days gone by.

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