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Freaks, Geeks, and a Dead Rabbit: Social Networking, 1994
Sure, I had my usual circle of friends, but almost overnight a whole new world had opened up to me, comprised of distinct-but-interconnected circles of people I wouldn’t have met otherwise.
I was now part of a bona fide ‘scene’ that saw me socializing with an eclectic mix of geniuses, weirdos, and party animals, some of whom were a combination of all of the above. I went from a nondescript social life to getting nonstop invites to parties and other gatherings. I was a young man trying to find my place in the world, and all of a sudden I felt like a real live ‘somebody’.
Looking back on it now, it was like a dream, as fleeting as it was magical. Little did I know it was a small candle in the night, about to be outshone and rendered invisible with the pending sunrise of something infinitely bigger.
It all started with a USRobotics dialup modem card being installed in my 386, itself a “beige box” computer assembled in the back room of a family-owned computer shop in my neighborhood.
At first I didn’t know what to do with the modem — my sense of the online world had been shaped by the movie Wargames, as well as whatever heads or tails I could…
