The other night, a friend and I took a brave trip down memory lane into our first years with LiveJournal. What we found was, unsurprisingly, horrifying. Eleven years ago, we were completely different people. We over-shared, we over-emoted, and felt no fear in doing so.
But so did everyone else. The internet was a very different place, back then.
Our generation had the unique position of growing up with the internet. As we first began to find our voices, define ourselves and finally venture out into the world, so too was the internet still finding its legs. Not many people even knew what to do with the internet, beyond knowing that they should have an e-mail address (so you can forward chain mail). We ran no risk of running into our parents on social networking sites. There was no worry of your employers seeing the post about your bad day at work. It was rare to even find your friends on-line. The internet was a refuge from all these things.
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