What, then, was the moment the web clicked for you?

I have always been drawn to the web in a way that felt naturally occurring. Like gravity. It just is. I can barely remember what life was like before it.

I’ve told the story of my first website before. It started with a school-wide ban on hoodies in my high school. In an act of juvenile — and ultimately futile — defiance I hopped into the computer lab after hours and put together a 30 second Flash animation poking fun at the rules. If you’re trying to visualize it, this was in the days of Homestar runner and Newgrounds. Something like that, but more amateur, and less funny.

Still, I thought my friends would enjoy it and I needed a place to put it. I opened up a Notepad doc, quickly searched for how to embed a Flash file, dropped the <object> tag on an HTML page, threw it up on some free website hosting server somewhere, and sent it to some people I knew on AIM. And that was the first website I built.

Before that, I had already had a fairly long history with computers. My parents let me build my own computer and keep it my room. I was lucky. I was one of the only kids I knew that had that. I used it for games. And I surfed AOL. And I used AIM. And eventually, I found my way to different parts of the web. I didn’t quite know what to make of it.

That is, until I put together that bit of amateur animation, stitched together with HTML, and served over a 56k dial-up. It was the first time I had used the web to actually create something that other people could see. A bunch of my friends saw it. A bunch of kids I didn’t know saw it. It was an inside joke of sorts, something that revealed a little bit of who I was, my sense of humor, how I liked to express myself creatively. But even people who didn’t know that side of me got to see it.

And that’s the moment it clicked.

Within a year, I was making websites all the time. I made them for bands I was in, and school clubs, and local non-profits. Whatever I could do really. I even have vague memories of starting up a “web design agency” with some person I met on a message board. I think we did like one site. I still don’t know that person’s name.

What I found was that the web is most comfortable to me when it’s personal. I’ve used it to create a scattered map of who I am and what I’m interested in through a wandering path of blog posts and half-finished projects and artistic pursuits left behind like a trail breadcrumbs. It’s all there. History. Code. Interesting conversation. A tad snobby about film. Bits and bobs that, together, make up me. Sometimes it feels like I’m most myself on the web, in posts like this one.

The web lets me be more of who I already am. To maybe belabor a metaphor here, the web clicked when it allowed me to click with other people.

I think that when we old-timers start to get nostalgic about the web, it’s that part that we’re remembering. A time when the web was deeply personal. Not in the up-to-the-minute status updates that social media eventually became, but in a way that allows individuals to lift up their veil and give others a peek at their soul. That was it. Write a personal blog or toss up some scattered thoughts and recipes or make a convoluted fan page devoted to the most esoteric TV character planet or rant and rave endlessly about things only you care about.

That part of the web hasn’t been lost. It has, however, been distorted. And it can be difficult to see through to the other side. But I don’t believe it’s going anywhere. I’m a true believer.

Which brings me to my next question: