Episode 5 - Changes

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Welcome back. Last week, I confessed to not knowing what I’m trying to do with this podcast, closed out the Wizard’s Tale for good, and began to tell you about the one time I got the Water Plan to work. Also I talked a little bit about being wrong at critical moments. And while it is never all that great, some times are worse than others.

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Which I guess would begin to diverge into a number of potential conversations. Some of which I am woefully unqualified to have. Like not even in the right league, don’t know what type of shoes to buy for the game unqualified. On the other hand, maybe there is something I can talk about. Something I know all too well.

Did anyone else get lectured about the wonders of the internet, pretty much the entirety of their childhoods or was that just me? Boogiemen aside, the internet was the ultimate repertoire of information. It was everything the Library of Alexandria was supposed to be but also able to fit in your pocket. It was this limitless tool for self-betterment and societal improvement. And look, I’m already self-conscious about wasting your time, and here I go rambling. But I genuinely could go on and on. It’s a sentiment I’ve heard a thousand times over.

Which might be inevitable. I mean, my dad worked with computers, and I heard must of this from him. But I guess there was a bias on that front. Computers put food on our table, ergo we needed to have a super-de-duper amount of respect for the internet. I’ll check my bias on that front, it’s okay. But it also made sense. Yeah Dad was over the top, but there’s Wikipedia. 

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Want to know about some obscure historical event or person you heard about once, but don’t have time in your schedule to run to your local library and ask the librarian to pretty please help you? Or do you need to know the basic plot of a movie your boss won’t stop talking about but can’t handle how pretentious the cinematography is? Wikipedia can help you with both. 

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Sure, sometimes, it’s just the most convenient option but not most informative, but there are also citations, links to trace back through to find even more information or ways to save time or anything.

And back then, you had to go to so much more trouble to post things or to make websites. Digital rabbit holes were harder to come by. Misinformation couldn’t just randomly sprout up and  grow legs for casual strolls to other people. You could still lie online, but lies couldn’t build momentum when there was little to no apparatus capable of manufacturing that momentum.

We were inclined to trust it, I guess is what I’m trying to say. It wasn’t even just that there is something in so many of us that is inclined to be trusting. In the internet, we saw a set up that had potential, and we believed in the potential before everything went awry.

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Or we were ignoring a critical detail. That in many ways, interactions on the internet can be thought of as interpersonal interactions in a new and exciting context. And in them, the rules haven’t changed too dramatically. It’s more like a conversation in a bar versus the coffee shop on the corner. Some things are going to change with context. Things always change. However, it is not all that ground-breaking of a shift. The basic rules would still apply.

Specifically, people can always lie to you. Even just by omission or because they don’t know what the truth is. I guess that latter bit wouldn’t exactly be a lie. There’s no intention behind it. Ergo it is technically something else. It might just feel like a lie, however. This person led you to a certain conclusion, just from their curation of information. And that conclusion--that was selected on your behalf--is where the inaccuracy lies. Ergo… something. I don’t know what

But the truth is that everything is so much more complicated than a simple yes or no. Sometimes languages just haven’t caught up. That sort of thing will take time. Linguistic skills can only build up gradually. 

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I went right. After I got the line about crying and water, I went right.

Then it said, “It’s raining. The man is crying. You hear a bang. You are crying too.”

I already told you that part, adding that the game crashed right after I saw that line. Early internet. Unstable website. Blah, blah, blah, it’s nothing I haven’t mentioned a dozen times before. But in the moment, as I was frantically trying to find that line again before I moved and subtle variations of my connection changed forever, there was no such thing as an ordinary crash. There was just panic and dread. There was this all or nothing fear that I had been severed from the makeshift harbor I had clung to in my perpetual storm. 

The Funhouse Hallway was always there for me. It always came back no matter how scary the crash. The Forum was always there. No one could take it away. But in that moment, I couldn’t believe that. Reason aside, I was terrified that when I started my computer up again, it would be gone. Forever. And then what would become of me. 

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I think my insecurities surrounding my online presence has caused me to completely disengage as of late. I haven’t been tweeting. I can’t even muster promotional tweets for any of my shows. And that is a problem. It’s like the opposite of what they tell you to do when you start a podcast, ignoring the issue of (quote) “they” for now. After all, in the absence of an algorithm, you have to push out your own content. You have to be the one to show others your work. Instead, I’m floundering a bit. Or worse than that I’m doing nothing.

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How many condescending thought pieces are there criticizing the relationship younger generations have with their phones? Or the internet through their phone. It’s hard to say which it’s the problem exactly because it’s not like they are clear about what they’re talking about. They probably don’t even know. They certainly don’t seem to know that the internet is not a distant place anymore.

I think I know what the reaction to this is going to be, so I’m just going to preemptively say that I am my father’s daughter. Despite the fact that I don’t make a living off of computers or the internet. I mean, it’s hard to break even on podcasting to preempt an aside. I mean to say, in so many scrambled words, that despite everything, I am still inclined to be optimistic about the internet. It’s not all good, I will be quick to say. But I would call it a chaotic neutral rather than anything else. 

It is what you make of it but with strong undercurrents of unpredictability.

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Here is where you could insert a scene about me freaking out as I desperately tried to restart my computer as quickly as it could go. Which was not that quick. Neither the potential passage or my computer restarting. But honestly, what good would a passage like that do besides filling time or creating the need for a content warning. 

Really, I can’t make you understand. I can try, but I can’t. 

Because some experiences have to be lived to be understood, I guess. And this would be one of them. There’s a sole crushing sense of isolation that can only be understood by being alone, adrift, or the new kid slapped with dark rumors they can’t shake off. No mattere where I went, people… People would decide that certain things about me were true before ever getting to know me. Sometimes the rumors would beat me to a new school, and sometimes I would get there first, but the order never changed the outcome. The whispers would always follow me, and judgment would be rendered, never in my favor. And I would be stuck.

But that wasn’t the case on the internet. The boundary between real and digital wasn’t necessarily harder or stricter. But I could abandon whatever aspects of my life I wanted to leave behind when I entered the digital space. When you log on, you can check your baggage on the door, or you can bring it with you. It’s you choice. You can cast off your name, if you want. In favor of a new one that you came up with. It’s up to you.

Everything is up to you. Everything about your presence on the internet is of your own design. At least at first. It’s easy to lose control of this version of yourself and be right back where you started as the social network you have invested so much of yourself into and likely built can suddenly seize control of your narrative, sweeping you up into the current that you made. 

You designed this world, but you lost control of it. It has gotten bigger than you could ever be. And now you’re right back where you started, right? Powerless and playing into a role dictated by forces outside of you.

Because try as we may, we can never be masters of our fates, can we? There’s always something else out there waiting to get us.

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There’s only so many times a family can move before the child is swept up in the scrutiny, surrounding these deviations from the perceived norm. I don’t know what that number is exactly, but I know we burned through it pretty quick.

My presence on The Forum was a highly curated one for this reason. It really was not because I knew better. I really didn’t. It was because I had wanted to escape the judgment that came from moving so often. I wanted to avoid the rumors that fill the space curiosity carves out. But for curiosity to take root, you have to give it some sort of structure to grow onto. On The Forum, I didn’t do that.

The people on The Forum didn’t know that I moved all the time, but they did know that I lived with my parents and my aunt. Because I would complain about them once or twice, much like The Wizard did. Except I kept my remarks brief. And I would think my grievances had more merit to them, but that might be the bias talking. People would humor the Wizard. They would try to comfort him. But no one knew what to say to me when the topic came up. And after a couple moments of awkward silence, someone else would break it with a post on an unrelated subject. The momentum of the conversation would bebuilt, and I was left behind. In this, the message was clear, and the evidence was left behind in the thread above. The Forum didn’t have a delete function. In time, everything on the website would be lost in a data dump, but for a while--for far too long--I had to live in the presence of the rejection. A rejection that came from almost everyone.

Aishi was different. Aishi cared. We had our own thread on The Forum because of the whole common line thing. And there, Aishi would remind me that they cared. We would talk. Or I would talk at them. And they would affirm my negative emotions. They would assure me that my hurt and pain was a reaction, not a creation of a mind inclined to be miserable and negative. 

Aishi couldn’t offer up much beyond that. There was no fixing my problems. And I could accept that. Just like Aishi could accept me. Better than anyone else on The Forum, which was my place of last resort. 

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The reload felt like it took forever. And time had lost meaning in my dread. But in that time, the computer did reboot. And I threw myself into the internet, into The Funhouse Hallway. I needed to restart to game. I needed to get that prompt again. If right was a deadend, signified by the game crashing, then I needed to go left. I had to go left. Left was the answer, right? No, I mean left. I had to go left.

I had to go left. Full stop.

I don’t know where you think this is going. But maybe your fear of missing out or your need for a sense of completion is aggravated. I’m not going to string you along, playing into this need just to keep your ears on this podcast. We--Aishi, I, the other members of The Forum --never went left. We couldn’t. The game was fundamentally changed when I went right.

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April 13th.

The background is yellow now. The prompts are the same. Now in black. The fonts are the same. Everything else is the same. The background is yellow.

Confused. We are all confused. 

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The game crashed for everyone when I went to the right. We all had to restart our computers, and when we came back, the Funhouse Hallway was a completely different color. A bright one. It was yellow. We ran to The Forum to compare this one, very important note. And there was no deviation.

Aishi was the last to log on. Immediately with the complaint that their game had crashed epically at a rather innocent line. A line they and we all had hit thousands of times before without incident.

I immediately knew that I had caused it. And there was a bit of guilt in that, but I was ready to take responsibility. It was a lead after all, so I told them what happened. That I got the line again. “The room is dark. The man is crying. You are crying too.” Just as we had hoped I would. I went right just before my game crashed. I told them about the line I saw and was able to make note of before it disappeared into the void of technological malfunctions. 

“It’s raining. The man is crying. You hear a bang. You are crying too.”

It took us all of five minutes to agree that their crashes had happened in tandem with mine. And that I was likely the cause. I mean, the chances of it being a coincidence weren’t great. And of coincidence of what?That the gamemaker updated The Funhouse Hallway right then. And it was the sort of update that kicked us all off. We had not seen any sign of life on the other end of this creation, so we really were not inclined to think that way.

Instead, we came to believe that I did it. I remember the rush that came from first thinking that. Honestly, as I recount this tale to you, I feel it again. I feel important. That I did that. I changed the game.

“Level two?” Aishi offered.

Which was not a great We didn’t think the game had levels, but you know, it did have its own set of rules. And maybe, maybe. The bang was an act of creation. Like the Big Bang. It was ushering in a new stage through this intense explosion, through this forceful act. There were other explanations and counterarguments. In hindsight, they were not so compelling, but I felt reluctant to make that decree. At the time, I was reluctant to say anything at all. It seemed inappropriate for me to weigh in. After all, I was practically on trial, wasn’t I? Did I do this? It wasn’t a crime, per say, but I had done something. 

We put it to a vote. And Level Two it was. Level Two and I was in charge. I hadn’t known a feeling like it. I loved it.

But I had four days until I would have to disconnect for a while. And I didn’t know how I could tell them. In short, the conclusion I came to was that I couldn’t. I really, genuinely couldn’t. And that was a crack in the very foundation of my facade. My creation was starting to face winds and currents beyond anything I could handle. The only plan I could make was to figure out what else had changed. And we needed to do it now. Now there was no way around it. Everyone needed to play the game now. Now. Do it now. I kept spamming the thread with that. 

Aishi noticed the change in my demeanor. Even in the text. Even though written words on a computer screen can only say so much. I mean maybe it was obvious. I don’t know. Aishi took it back to the private thread, to ask me what was wrong. But I couldn’t tell them. Not yet. And I certainly can’t say it in this podcast.

We all need our secrets after all. Especially from the internet. No offense.

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Aishi Online is a production of Miscellany Media Studios. It is written, produced, and performed by MJ Bailey with music from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. If you like the show, please leave a review or donate to the show’s Ko-Fi account.