Everyone knows the warnings. You’ve seen the posters around your public education institution of choice. You’ve watched the condescendingly threatening commercials in between watching the Disney channel. Your parents have given you the talk: not the interesting one, but the one where you know what they’re going to say and when they do eventually say it, you struggle not to roll your eyes.
Don't talk to strangers online!
Ok. Sure. File that directly under “advice I’m definitely not going to follow, mostly because you told me not to, and partly because you’re out of touch with kids and technology” (a filing cabinet only I seem to have. Interesting.)
My life has been intertwined closely with the internet and its happenings since middle school, when I discovered various online virtual reality websites, including Webkinz and GaiaOnline. My tech-savvy but conservative and overprotective father was quick to observe what sites I was visiting and what I was sharing. Soon after he gave me “the talk”.
Don’t talk to strangers online.
When I was given an iPod touch for Christmas and the house’s wifi passcode, I found a new sense of online freedom.
I discovered so many new things like social media and online chat rooms, the latter in the form of a game app called Tap Tap Revenge. I began to make friends with people who were regularly in the chat room I visited, and emails were exchanged. The conversations were amazing, and I was very happy to have these friends in my life.
Don’t talk to strangers online.
I lost my iPod and with it, at least a half dozen close friends. I was devastated. But then my mother bought me a laptop since my brother had to get one for college. And with it, I had more freedom to delve into social media. I became immersed in a chat room on an art sharing website. I made amazing friends, but unfortunately due to issues none of us could control, those relations fell apart. I was upset for a long time.
Don’t talk to strangers online.
I then poured myself into a web comic called Homestuck. From this, I was thrown into another online chat room with three people I had never met before, however they were also invested into the web comic, and I felt comfortable talking to them. After several hours of chatting in this web-hosted room, we exchanged Skype information, and for the past three years, the four of us have been in almost constant communication.
Don’t talk to strangers online. They might become your best friends.
Our small group of four has seen many things. Family problems, romantic endeavors, in-group fighting, identity issues--we’ve seen everything. They were the ones who helped me through every small issue I ever had with myself. I’ve started turning to them when I needed advice, and they are always the first people to know when something exciting happens to me. Collectively, they are my guidance counselor, my confidant, my sword and shield against my own demons.
I talked to strangers online. I looked out into the void and the three of them pulled me in.
Before you grab your pitchforks and cry bloody murder, I know the dangers. I’ve been given the speech. “They’re old men, perverts hiding behind a pleasant picture, who just want to take advantage of you. You, as a young, malleable, naïve, idiot who just blindly follows the stream of millennials who end up dead in a ditch.” (Another paper for that filing cabinet only I have). And I’m not going to spend hours typing out a thesis paper on why these friends are actually who they say they are, I’d rather sleep. I just want people to know that the internet isn’t scary. It isn’t a place where the monster under your bed hides waiting for you to slip up, waiting to consume you.
The internet is so integrated in our society, that seeing it as a dark fairytale forest where the evil witch lives, is not going to push us into the future.
Be safe when you’re using the internet. Be smart when you reach out to certain people. Protect yourself until you are comfortable.
But don’t be afraid to talk to strangers. They might become your best friends.
