A brief history of the internet and me.

1999 (aged 11-12): I frequented thespark.com, taking vaguely sexual surveys that didn’t pertain to my life but appealed to some kind of budding, weird, confusing pre-pubescent sexual fetishism. Spent a lot of time in their chatroom with my best friend, pretending to be ‘sexy 17 year old twins’. We talked to guys who expanded our knowledge of obscure sexual acts infinitely. We thought were ohmygod-so-mature in their mid-20s. They were probably actually ohmygod-47-years-old. HA! Yeah! Gotcha! You thought you were having cybersex with a couple of barely legal hotties?! WELL YOU WERE ACTUALLY TALKING TO 6th GRADERS! NOW WHO’S LAUGHING??!
…uhhh.
…and this is why my children will never be allowed on the internet.

2000 (aged 12-13): Having got all that out of my system, I used my first year of high school to return to simpler, more innocent pleasures. In the form of Neopets. I was the Neopets queen of the universe. I dreamt about Neopets. I skipped school to play Neopets. I spent my lunchtimes in the library playing Neopets. It was my life and my world. I’m genuinely surprised my actual pets didn’t die of neglect during this time.

2001 (aged 13-14): I started a Sailor Moon fan site. I was also vice-president of the anime club at my high school. Not my finest hour.

2002 (aged 14-15): I realised that Sailor Moon was not my calling. I’d become much more interested in the journal I kept as a sub-section of the site. I discovered the wonderful world of teen girl personal sites, my favourites being Dusty’s Universe and Jenverz. I established my own, personal, self-indulgent space on the internet. It contained surveys, beauty tips stolen from other websites, articles I’d written about important world issues like ‘Why 15 Year Old Girls are Dirty Skanks to Each Other’ and ‘Why Homework Really Sucks’) and endless galleries of photos of me and my friends at sleepovers, parties, school camps and shopping malls. This was pre-facebook. If you wanted to pollute the internet with 8000 photographs of yourself making funny faces, you had to do it by hand, bitches.

2003-04 (aged 15-17): My interest in website ‘content’ waned, and my interest in myself (and ‘Self’) reached new heights. I switched to a livejournal, where I got to focus exclusively on my own deep and meaningful thoughts about love and life and identity and passion and emotion and angst and pain and doom and BOYS. Lyrics to Dashboard Confessional songs helped this process along nicely.

2005-2009 (aged 17-22): I realised my life didn’t really suck that much, and that I wasn’t quite the philosopher I’d hoped to be. I sporadically updated my livejournal with random life events and photos, but mostly crossed into the realm of myspace and facebook, where I didn’t need to pretend I was interested in anything other than looking at pictures of myself being hot. FINALLY.

BRIEF INTERLUDE: 2007 (aged 19-20): I discovered the wonderful world on food blogs. I decided to make a livejournal dedicated to my cooking pursuits. Unfortunately for anyone seeking an interesting read, I was in the middle of my health-freak phase. I tried to healthify every recipe I saw. Chocolate cake? I'm adding beetroot! Shortbread? I'll add apple sauce instead of butter! Caramel slice? The crust will be made of psyillium husks and water! Lasagne? I know! Instead of mince, I'll fill it with flax seeds. I'm sorry, healthy food bloggers of the world. I'm sure your bowel movements are very regular, but it doesn't make for riveting reading. Some things are simply not meant to be wholesome and nutritious. And I think I might be one of them.
BRIEF 2007 INTERLUDE #2 (I think maybe I was having some kind of crisis in 2007): I decided I was an artiste and so established both a deviantart account and a photography livejournal. Lots of poorly executed photoshop drawings and super high contrast photos of myself looking 'arty'. Sometimes they were even black and white!!!!! I pretended I used myself because nobody else would model for me... but really, I just liked taking pictures of myself and making out like it was a legitimate pastime.

2010 (aged 22-23): In a fit of poor judgement and a misplaced sense of my own importance, I decided that facebook alone could not contain the sheer magnitude and wonder of my internet presence. I needed somewhere to be self-obsessed and potty-mouthed. I needed to be able to share my highly developed Microsoft Paint skills. I needed to be able to talk about the terror of tampon string overhang. I needed to be able to purge the demons of my inner ugly-child. I needed to bring eternal shame upon my family. And so here we are.