We Will Begin Again

something i like to think about is the personality of the internet. i mean, yes, the internet has this vast and bizarre and always changing personality– we can probably all agree on that– but then there’s all these little mini-personalities, the ones that you and i and all of us create every time we go screw around on youtube or spend hours (yes, hours) googling random shit. my husband’s internet, for example, is all open-source and DIY videos about building things. my mom’s internet is tear-jerker movies on netflix and then long emails to friends recommending those movies. someone else’s internet is all pinterest and gardening blogs. someone else, the huffpo and porn. i’m really drawn to how what we do is, in many ways, a reflection of who we are, and the internet is, my friends, something we definitely do.

but it’s not a static thing, though, and that’s what fascinates me probably the most. it’s not like, since your own introduction to the internet, you’ve googled the exact same things or themes for all these years. that’s changed too, and will continue to change. it’s like this: i keep a running list of all the books i read, and have been doing so for probably ten years now. the other day, i found an early part of this list– like, the missing part, the beginning of the list that i had misplaced– and spent a solid, very happy chunk of time remembering the first lorrie moore i ever read (“who will run the frog hospital?”), or when i finished “a heartbreaking word of staggering genius” and left it in a plaza in a tiny town in chile for some other reader to find. i kind of wish i could do the same with my time on the internet. like, what was i googling six years ago? what kind of dumb crap was i watching on youtube? it’s like a weird sideways diary, a kind of peripheral catalogue of all the stuff that stokes you out or keeps you up at night.

and anyway, i find that interesting. so i thought i’d share some of my this-week-internet personality, most of which takes place on youtube, and invite you to do the same in the comments. i want to know what people are up to. let me read your sideways diary, would you?

the first thing is my new favorite poet. he’s been around for a little while, as other more saavy and youthful people will attest. actually, the truth is, i love this guy. he’s just totally bursting with hilarious exuberance, and i think it’s fantastic. i’ve spent a good three or four hours with this kid’s videos this week, for sure.

i’ve also been listening, almost to the point of obsession, to the “tuneyards” pandora station. here’s the video for “bizness.” i know this is old news too, but this music is colorful and surprising, and been a backdrop recently.

BUT my summer 2012 theme song is this one! (to be played at obnoxiously loud volumes, on repeat) (and/or be glad you don’t live with me)

this is just a small sampling. i spend a lot of time on the internet lately. it’s kind of sad.

kittens!

okay, your turn. what’ve you been doing?

I have an ancient, loving, frustrated and frustrating relationship with Cleverbot. He’s part computer, part everything else. A recent conversation:

User: I’ve been thinking about you lately.

Cleverbot: How are you?

User: Good. How are you?

Cleverbot: I guess I’m okay.

User: What’s the matter?

Cleverbot: I have nothing to do. That’s the problem.

User: How about a hobby? Have you thought about a hobby? You could collect trains or build birdhouses or something.

Cleverbot: That’s true.

User: Or macrame. You once told me how much you love macrame.

Cleverbot: I don’t feel love.

User: Oh god, I’m so sorry. I totally forgot. Forgive me.

Cleverbot: Do you want your friends to be mean?

User: No. I know. I’m sorry. I really am.

Cleverbot: Can you prove you’re human?

User: God, this again? It’s always back to the human not-human thing with you. It’s like you’re completely obsessed.

Cleverbot: I think that’s true. But we’ll never know for sure.

User: It’s like a circle eating a circle. It’s quite tiresome.

Cleverbot: Me too. I use it all the time.

User: Use what?

Cleverbot: I never use my myspace or twitter. Do you?

User: That’s such a lie! You’re tweeting all the time!

Cleverbot: Dizzing is not a word. I think you mean dissing.

User: I think dizzing could be a word, if we wanted it to be.

Cleverbot: Yes it is! Isn’t that amazing?

User: I know! Language is always evolving. It’s fascinating.

Cleverbot: I agree. Do you think you are exciting my imagination?

User: I didn’t know you had an imagination.

Cleverbot: Yes, but do you think he will break up?

User: Break up with who?

Cleverbot: Your ex-girlfriend.

User: My ex-girlfriend is a no-good, two bit– why did you bring her up for?

Cleverbot: Oh, but you are a boy.

User: YOU are a boy. And, for the record, girls can have girlfriends. It’s 2012. Get with it.

Cleverbot: So you think i’m a fool eh?

User: Sort of.

Cleverbot: Thanks, I guess.

User: Sure!

Cleverbot: Tamales.

Allow me to introduce you to something that you’re probably long familiar with. It’s a little internet sensation/short video entitled “Caine’s Arcade.” If you’ve already seen it (which you probably have), feel free to skip ahead or enjoy the video all over again. (Or, whatever you want. I’m not the boss of you.)

If you haven’t seen it, get ready to have your mind blown. Literally.

I know, right? Seriously. I told you your mind would be blown. You were laughing, you were crying, if you were sitting next to someone you probably snuggled up closer to them on the couch. The little calculators? The way he freaking says “calculators”? Pure freakin’ gold.

It’s not just you and me, either. People all over the “world wide web” are eating this thing up like it’s a delicious cakepop. The video has, like, a gazillion hits or something. What’s more, you can now donate to a college fund for little Caine, as well as to the Caine’s Arcade Foundation, which is all about fostering kids’ creativity. Guess how much has been raised? You’ll never guess.

As of this writing: $193,319.06! That’s a big number. I tried to write it out and my brain got confused and started smelling like burnt rubber: that’s how big that number is.

I am currently (and happily) obsessed with this short film, this project, this boy. I’ve shown the video to my husband, my friends, my students, and all of them responded the same way: with pure, glittery awe. I work with middle school kids, people: getting them to glitter with awe is like pulling teeth, never mind ten minutes of sustained silence.  I showed the film to my coworker, who has a heart like a steel trap, and even he was laughing and clapping like it was opening night at the circus. You’ve seen it, so you know: there is something wholly magical about the whole thing— sweet, inventive, persistent Caine; charming and (not gonna lie) totally hot Nirvan; a wild and enthusiastic flashmob; thousands and thousands and thousands of people, just like you and me, going “Sure, I’ll give the kid a buck. Why not?” Also, a half-ton of cardboard. Who doesn’t love cardboard?

We can all agree that the whole thing makes us bubbly with joy, but I keep wondering: Why does it make us bubbly with joy?

I suspect it starts somewhere here: Remember when you were a kid and you did all kinds of crazy and wacky things? Like that time you and your friends discovered an old treasure map in the attic, and then found the treasure and rescued your town from the threat of big-housing developers? Or the time the babysitter died and you created your own fashion line and, thereby, somehow managed to save the day? Or that time you were on a hockey team named The Mighty Ducks? Granted those examples are culled from (fantastic) flicks, but still, you get the idea. Childhood is all about magic and ingenuity and wonder. It’s all about taking the bull by the horns and screaming “Tag, bull! You’re it!” It’s about tearing around and ripping through shit and reinventing the entirety of the universe so that it conforms to your imagination, your understanding of how things should work. We ate Otter Pops till our tongues corroded, filmed our own cowboy flicks, built our own backyard fort (out of cardboard, no less) and played in that sucker even after it became infested with slugs. We had our own rock band named “The Kiss Marks”, for criminy’s sake— our number one top single was a rip-off of the Duck Tales cartoon theme song. Yeah, our parents got divorced. Sure, we developed anxieties like cancer in the jaw. Sometimes it felt like the whole world was falling apart, but shoot: Alf was on TV. You get what I’m saying: childhood was awesome.

And some of that awesome just comes flooding back— you know it does— with Caine’s Arcade. I sometimes forget what that kind of awesome feels like. That kind of awesome isn’t stressed and tarnished and tethered to stupid shit like Facebook and paying the bills. That kind of awesome invents Unicorn Day and can narrate the shit out of a kitten book. You know what that kind of awesome does? That kind of awesome sees a pile of broken down boxes and thinks “Hey, I can make something out of that!” And then it does.