ESL a/s/l?
a WIP multimedia project—
ONE OF THE BOYS
A MEMOIR EXCERPTBefore and around the time I discovered an online community, I found kindred spirits through the Drama Club and Forensics team. I employed the “Don’t ask for permission, ask for forgiveness” approach with my parents to get into these after-school clubs. Neighbor-mom, Sue, would drive me to practices. I don’t recall how I got involved in theater, but I joined Forensics at the nudging of my Speech & Composition teacher after he saw my in-class presentations. Both extracurriculars had a crossover of people. Like the athletic teams our high school was known for, we competed against other schools like a sport. The weekly practices with my coach and theater director gave me purpose and a sense of belonging. I was invested, feeling like a part of a greater whole.
But the theater part didn’t last. My parents felt uneasy that I was hanging out with freaks — characterized by their dyed hair, (perceived) piercings that I’m not sure anyone had, artistic aspirations, and (unfounded) drug use. This was, after all, an extracurricular, something outside of the mandatory schooling that Mom and Dad brought me and my siblings to America for. They pulled me out of the plays, but let me stay in Forensics. Ironic, because the same misfits in Drama Club were also on the team. My sister thinks it’s because public speaking looked more impressive on paper and I was bringing home trophies and my parents wanted to brag about their children’s achievements.
With my time freed up again, I was back to being home alone and there were maybe 10 people online now versus five since AOL was gaining popularity — I guess the aggressive marketing worked. I was spending upwards of 10 hours a day on the computer and often overnight mostly chatting with faceless strangers from all over the States behind screen names like WilliamTheP03t and Jacob.
I knew Jacob from my high school, also in the Drama Club. My first love, soulmate, and creative muse. He was annoyingly enigmatic and soft-spoken in person, a “gentle giant” as others called him, but he was a different person behind the screen. Known for his similarly mystifying visual artistry, this was a very prolific-with-emotions Jacob I’d encountered. He’d tell me he loved me and wrote what felt like the early drafts of an awkward romance novel. I was also probably more vocal on the computer than face-to-face and I also may have penned my version of an awkward romance novel with Jacob as my, uh, proofreader.
The extended time spent online without modern Internet distractions likely increased our vulnerability and is what allowed a deep connection. It reminds me of the popular study by psychologists Arthur Aron, Ph.D., Elaine Aron, Ph.D., and other researchers about the 36 questions that lead to love. The study explores whether intimacy between two strangers can be heightened through asking a set of personal questions. Spend enough time online in a private chat and you’re bound to develop a deep connection.
I’m tired of reliving the heartbreak that ensued so I’ll rip the BAND-AID off and tell you how it ended in one line: Jacob chose a cheerleader from our high school who probably didn’t even know about AOL over me.
This is where my career as an Angry Poet began. I handwrote poems in hardcover journals I got from Borders or Barnes & Noble and transcribed them in AOL poetry chat rooms in search of validation and support. I was trying to win “Likes” before you could even “Like” on the Internet. The feature launched in February 2009 and this was probably 1997. Engagement was high with only five people online because those five people were my captive audience. Chat room etiquette to show support was displayed in phrases bookended by a series of colons:
[TK: Insert recreated AOL chat room scene with sample poetry and crowd reactions]
:::claps::: :::snaps fingers::: :::big hugs::: :::sparkles:::
I doubled down on making friends in the chat rooms. I often found myself in “poetry chat” and other forums like “Metaphysics” or “Pagans Corner” because the New Age way was my religion and I needed to restore my faith in humanity over the fallout with Jacob. My sister’s then-partner and now-husband was also big on the movement and he was always calm. I wanted a piece of that peace he seemingly had within.
I desired connection now more than ever. Within the same chat rooms, I found a cast of regular characters, many of them residing on the East Coast, and with similar profiles: musicians, poets, and writers aged 14 to 17 years old; mostly, if not all, lanky white boys from small towns who were down to Earth and spoke to strangers with natural ease. They were also friends in real life, living in the same neighborhood or down the street from one another and playing in the same bands with a penchant for alternative, emo, punk, hardcore, and indie bands like Minor Threat, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Mudhoney, Nirvana, Sunny Day Real Estate, Helium, and Fugazi.
Logging online now was no longer a default antidote to loneliness and boredom — it was a destination. Teenage life in small towns typically shared a similar downtime schedule and lifestyle. With Pennsylvania and New York being one hour ahead of Wisconsin, we’d find each other online at the same times and easily talked for hours with a rotating cast of friends entertaining me, and keeping me company. If one of the boys had to break for dinner, another would take over (sometimes on the same computer if they were at each others’ houses) and continue talking to me, asking getting-to-know-you questions, and probably marveling at this interesting new technology that allows us to chat while being states away, in real-time.
As friendships formed and deepened, the same boys would also make me mixed tapes of bands I’d never heard of and send them to me in the mail, sometimes with 4x6 or 5x7 print photos of them at home or playing music. AOL chat rooms didn’t have image-sharing capabilities then, so I guess this was their way of showing me what they looked like. (They were CUTE!)
When summer arrived, I would spend my teenage vacations in a Seattle suburb where my older brother Ted lived. It was the only place I could go outside my Wisconsin home during school breaks. Lucky for me, he lived near the mecca for grunge — during the height of grunge in the '90s. Without a driver’s license, I leaned into my virtual resources to look for show buddies with wheels. In March of 1999, insound.com launched. It was an online music store selling hard-to-find items, CDs, vinyl, and band merch and it had an underutilized chat feature. My plan worked! I found willing strangers to pick me up from the suburbs to drive me to Seattle shows. I had more freedom to see and experience live bands during these summers than being home in the Midwest. I also made friends I’m still in touch with today.
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MEMOIR EXCERPTS
preface
LEANING TOWERS
justify my L0v3 <3