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June 13, 2004
Where Were You When...
When I learned about the Challenger explosion, I was standing by the drinking fountain outside the office of my elementary school. It was recess and someone came running out of the office saying the space shuttle had exploded. No one believed him; the space shuttle couldn't explode. That afternoon, after school, we were at my friend Anthony's house for our Cub Scout meeting. His father opened the meeting by asking that we observe a moment of silence for the astronauts. Then we knew it was real.
On April 8, 1994, I was sitting in the back seat of a friend's car, coming back from lunch, when the KROQ D.J. announced that Kurt Cobain was dead. One of the girls in the car immediatley broke out into tears.
In the early days of Epinions, the elevator speech to explain what the web site was all about said "We're bringing word of mouth to the internet." That was the short, catchy way to explain what we thought we were doing. Years later, I still have to give that speech in interviews when the person across the desk doesn't know what Epinions is and sees it on my resume.
It seems to me that the internet really has taken over for word of mouth, though not necessarily in that manner. Yes, I still talk to people regularly, watch the news on TV, and listen to the radio. But for all of the "Where were you when..." events of the last few years, my answer is always that I was sitting at a computer, reading about it online.
I learned of the 9/11 attacks reading emails from friends in New York who worked in and around the towers, which conveyed the same "Was it an an accident? Holy shit it just happened again. It's not accident," sentiment that the news did. I also go the pictures and news from various websites as it was happening. I read about my high school friend Gene's suicide on the web nearly two years ago; it was on a blog before it was on the news. I read about the Space Shuttle Columbia on the internet. At first I read it as an article, slightly late, commemorating the anniversary of the Challenger explosion. I had to read it again before I realized it. I got my up to the minute news about former President Reagan on the web, before it was on T.V. as well.
My mom says that it is different for me, because I am nearly always online. I say that I am nearly always online because everything is there so fast. I agree that I am different from my parents in that way, but I sense that I am not that different from a lot of my friends and colleagues. With wireless internet in my apartment last year, even if I was watching CNN, I was almost always online as well.
I wonder if the way in which we learn the news affects how we deal with it. Not sure entirely where I was going with that, but it's been on my mind since reading about Reagan.
Posted by buddha at June 13, 2004 05:42 PM
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Comments
the weirdest online "moment" for me was sitting at my computer in San Francisco, feeling the room shimmy and shake, saying aloud to myself, "was that an earthquake" (only my 3rd ever), and then checking the USGS site, finding the quake data, marvelling at it for a few seconds and then moving on to whatever I was doing pre-quake. It was a very odd feeling. I didn't really need the internet to tell me I had just experienced a quake, but finding the official data within a minute of the event was rather, um, comforting.
There is a line in a Tricky song that goes something like "(M)tv moves too fast, I refuse to watch." In a way, I feel like TV moves way too slow these days.
At the same time, as much as I lust for a treo 600 or some pda-like device with an always-on connection to the interweb, I also fear the connectivity. I rather like being disconnected from time to time.
BTW, nice entry. I miss the philosophical jubu.
Posted by: shoop at June 14, 2004 11:33 PM
Glad to please. That's really been stirring around in my head for awhile. It just took a good batch of procrastination to put it into words.
Posted by: buddha at June 16, 2004 03:21 AM
Speaking of which, there was an earthquake today. I didn't feel it, but I got two emails about it within minutes.
It seems so 1999 trite to say something happens/moves on "internet time," but every so often it rings true.
Disconnected can be nice. Some of my co-workers have blackberries. I fear that thing. I'm going to do my best to avoid it as long as possible.
Posted by: buddha at June 16, 2004 03:30 AM
Everyone says they'll avoid the new technology.... But everyone ends up with the internet and cellphones and color televisions and blackberries.
And where were you when you realized that Jubu hasn't yet put up his thoughts about the Newdow decision? I aws worried that something might have happened...
Posted by: Chocobo puduu at June 16, 2004 09:04 AM
Lots of people manage to avoid the blackberry, and I'm going to try to be one of them. At the very least, I think I can make it through the summer without it. Some of my classmates are thinking about picking them up.
And where were you when you realized that Jubu hasn't yet put up his thoughts about the Newdow decision?
I was reading about the decision, thinking, gee I bet this has been covered to death by other people whose weblogs I read, so I probably have nothing to contribute. Then I went down the list of links on the left and found out I was right. Professor Volokh pretty much summed the reactions here.
Posted by: buddha at June 16, 2004 12:33 PM
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