As a media student, writing this post already feels like writing an essay. This is not an article or whatever. I just want to talk about how different media/communication services have changed my lifestyle here and there, just for the fun of it.

Neopets
I guess you can argue that Neopets is a game, not a service, but in some ways, it kind of resembles social media, just that everyone is pretending to be an owner of one to four creatures which don't really exist. When I was twelve, I thought I was really mature and that I was pass the age for Neopets although that didn't stop me from playing it, but now, I believe that twelve is kind of the perfect age for it.

People like to argue that games and virtual reality stuff makes people anti-social and ruin lives, but I would like to raise the point that just maybe, it could make people more sociable than they could've been or even save lives. I wouldn't go so far as to say that Neopets saved my life, but it did have an impact. Back when I was twelve, it was something I engaged in during my unlimited free time to get by. It unleashed my passion towards the visual, introduced me to HTML, web-design, and eventually led me to creating my own blog - something I was hesitant to do.

How it happened was this: My classmates were playing Neopets, and I envied how nicely-decorated some of their shops were, so I began looking up ways to make mine even nicer. Back then (or maybe even now), they had websites dedicated to these things. People would design nice text boxes, dividers, backgrounds, and so on for these shops and contain them in some HTML code. Me being the curious person that I was, I eventually delved into it. Some of the websites focused more on the art while some more on the design.

When I finally moved beyond Neopets, I discovered blogskins.com and several other web-design websites centring around animes. After a while, blogging became an outlet for me to express myself in the online world visually, and it still is.

MSN Messenger
The other day, I was just reminiscing about MSN messenger. It was such a beautiful thing. In my mind, I can still hear the sound of the popout which appears when someone comes online. When I quarrelled with someone in primary school, I would mercilessly write shit about him in my Descriptions. I would change my name so often, because everyone else does, and it's hard to get to sleep because bedtime is always the time when my friends started chatting on MSN. Those were fun times.

MSN was the ultimate digital place to chat with your friends, and remain in contact with them despite not being together. I believe it's something that many people my age will remember, especially since it lasted so long.

Friendster
Actually, I didn't care much about Friendster. I just included it to remind whoever reads my blog that it used to exist. Or maybe it still does. I don't know.

Facebook
Along with MSN was Facebook. It's the place where people create groups for their cliques, play games, do lots of personality quizzes, communicated indirectly, poked one another, kept their digital photo albums, and so on. Feels a bit like Neopets to me.

During my poly days, one Facebook group would be created for every group project, of which some would be used and some would not. It's a productive platform.

It also used to be the hub of communication for my secondary school clique. The other day, I revisted the page and found we would write status updates like "Anyone want dinner tonight?" or "Post your poly timetable here". We would quarrel in the group and comment essays on one another's statuses. I actually forgot how we used it till I revisited it.

But then it got replaced by an even more convenient thing called Whatsapp.

Whatsapp
There was this period of time when everyone started using Whatsapp and I couldn't because I was using an outdated Window's phone. It wasn't fun to be out of the conversation. So during that period, everyone would be talking in Whatsapp and I would post stuff in that Facebook group which no one cared about anymore :(

And then there would be people quarrelling in the Whatsapp chat and I wouldn't be able to join in the fun because I wasn't even in it!

Sad times.

But now, it is almost the only way I communicate with people on my phone.

Instagram
I used to scorn at the idea of uploading pictures that you take on the spot, with added filters and whatnot. Photography, though I am somewhat good at it (just let me, okay?), isn't my lifestyle, so I saw no point in it. One day, I created it because I wanted to show off to the world the first breakfast I ever made for myself. And then, I realised the purpose of Instagram in my life.

Then for a while, I would say "wait, let me Instagram this" before eating.

And then I overused it afterwards when I travelled to Melbourne and Taiwan, and then I realised that Production is kind of instagram worthy, and then now, most of my pictures are group photos. If I were to define the purpose of this service in my life, it would be to show people a limited number of things I want them to know about my life, no matter how uninteresting. More so than Facebook or Twitter.

Tinder
I'm not ashamed to say that recently I started using Tinder and I chatted with a few people. It's pretty fun actually. I feel like it's helping me get better at talking. Maybe it would have an impact somewhere down the line?

Twitter
This is my favourite. I used to accept followers like nothing but now, I practice discretion, because over a few years, Twitter has developed into an internal war zone for me. Most of my rants and bitchy thoughts go there, as well as whatever random thoughts I conjure and really feel like telling anyone. Slowly, without me realising, Twitter had enslaved me.

It's pretty obvious that there are many services that I don't use, like Snapchat and Vine and all that. I'm lazy to try new things too often. There are too many nowadays anyway. But those I used, I liked them. Even though all these conveniences are said to spoil humanity, fun is fun, and they really do change lifestyles.

Labels: objects and stuff, reliving those days