What can I do better; what makes me special, how am I different than anybody else?
AOL was the first thing that I felt truly exceptional at:
it wasn’t lucrative and there wasn’t competition, but the nightly ritual, of meeting friends online between 7pm-11pm, typing abbreviations at warp speed, suited my temperament and behavior. I was exceptional at it because I was happy to do it. Many of the big ticket items of millennialism, like: meeting strangers while traveling, weeding out weirdos on dating applications, and participating in a society with no clear ground rules, like on every launch of a new social media platform ever, was something I didn’t think twice about. Maybe, I was naive, or maybe I just liked the unpredictablility.
When I look back at my education, one of the things I hated about it most was that it suits a particular type of individual. Take my brother for example, he could read A Tale of Two Cities at the age of fourteen, while I could barely finish a Sports Illustrated for kids article. Christ, did anybody have to read Dandelion Wine? It’s semi-anthological and chapter two is like a five year old and ninety-year-old hiding in the addict together, it was the most unreliable thing for a fourteen year old, how was I ever supposed to pay attention?
While on AOL, with the name of SnowboarderShub, I was never bored because there was always a new exciting corner to turn down, whether it was chatrooms with Age / Sex / Location or planning a late night flirt sessions with SurferHottie1989, it was always fresh, spontaneous, and when it got boring, I could sign off.
This question of what made me unique, was that I could go for hours into the early morning. As my friend’s list dwindled to the dredges of 2am, I was still awake duking it out with LimeWire download suggestions and mentioning high sores on Ebaumsworld video games.
Exceptionalism wasn’t about somebody else telling me I was good or bad at anything, it was about feeling comfortable. There was no authority barking over my shoulder and grading rubrics were simply keeping the other side of the conversation entertained.
Somehow, I always wanted that to be, the future.
