WEBVTT 1 00:00:25.175 --> 00:00:27.575 Did you have a computer room in your house? 2 00:00:28.350 --> 00:00:34.030 Yes. The one I remember most fondly was I think 3 00:00:34.030 --> 00:00:37.950 it was intended to be a sunroom. And there is a floor to ceiling 4 00:00:37.950 --> 00:00:45.165 mirrors. And then in the center was a desktop computer, tile 5 00:00:45.165 --> 00:00:49.405 floor. The walls were like a terracotta color. 6 00:00:49.645 --> 00:00:51.965 You know, there's really, like, nothing in this room but the 7 00:00:51.965 --> 00:00:54.445 computer and then, like, piles of paper and, 8 00:00:54.330 --> 00:00:58.410 and, like, books and stuff. That's 9 00:00:58.410 --> 00:01:01.770 Catherine D. She's an Internet culture writer who's written for 10 00:01:01.770 --> 00:01:05.690 GQ, The New York Times, and The Spectator to name a few. She's 11 00:01:05.690 --> 00:01:09.545 also written a lot about the placeness of the Internet, and 12 00:01:09.545 --> 00:01:13.625 I've been really interested in that. How the Internet exists as 13 00:01:13.625 --> 00:01:15.465 a place we go to. 14 00:01:16.105 --> 00:01:20.105 And I figured there's no better place to start than here in the 15 00:01:20.105 --> 00:01:24.360 computer room. The computer room is almost a misleading name 16 00:01:24.600 --> 00:01:28.120 because the space itself was kind of this hodgepodge of a few 17 00:01:28.120 --> 00:01:32.600 rooms baked into one, part office, part storage, part 18 00:01:32.600 --> 00:01:33.320 closet. 19 00:01:33.320 --> 00:01:37.935 And it was like repurposed office usually. 20 00:01:38.015 --> 00:01:41.295 People would keep, like, weird ephemera there, stuff they were 21 00:01:41.295 --> 00:01:45.855 embarrassed of. So I'm thinking here more like action figures or 22 00:01:45.855 --> 00:01:50.070 like anime VHS, you know, like books that you don't want people 23 00:01:50.070 --> 00:01:53.110 to know you're like, any sort of manner of, like, toilet book. 24 00:01:53.110 --> 00:01:55.510 Right? Like, a book that you would ordinarily place on your 25 00:01:55.510 --> 00:01:59.510 toilet, things we used to do before the smartphone, might be 26 00:01:59.510 --> 00:02:00.390 in the computer room. 27 00:02:02.115 --> 00:02:04.915 The computer room in my house was a converted 28 00:02:04.915 --> 00:02:09.635 laundry room. It had a desk with a swivel chair, a long counter 29 00:02:09.635 --> 00:02:13.715 against the wall, and this huge slop sink that we never used for 30 00:02:13.715 --> 00:02:17.270 anything. It's also where my family would store stuff like 31 00:02:17.270 --> 00:02:21.830 winter coats and sleeping bags. Every flat surface was covered 32 00:02:21.830 --> 00:02:25.670 in papers and boxes of safety pins and multiple rolls of 33 00:02:25.670 --> 00:02:28.950 Scotch tape. Every drawer was a junk drawer. 34 00:02:29.605 --> 00:02:34.645 And it's also where the computer lived. This huge hulking mass of 35 00:02:34.645 --> 00:02:39.685 gray plastic that had to exist in this one specific place 36 00:02:39.765 --> 00:02:45.605 indefinitely. In order for the computer to be used at all, it 37 00:02:44.940 --> 00:02:49.100 had to be plugged into an outlet, specifically into a 38 00:02:49.100 --> 00:02:54.220 phone jack. There were wires to contend with, to shove down the 39 00:02:54.220 --> 00:02:58.380 space between the desk and the wall or bundle up behind the 40 00:02:58.380 --> 00:03:02.465 monitor itself. And you didn't always get to choose where the 41 00:03:02.465 --> 00:03:03.665 computer was. 42 00:03:04.305 --> 00:03:08.465 If the one available phone jack was in the dining room, well, 43 00:03:08.705 --> 00:03:12.465 that's where the computer had to be. But the ideal, at least in 44 00:03:12.465 --> 00:03:17.730 my home, was to put the computer and its many unseemly wires into 45 00:03:17.730 --> 00:03:23.250 its own room. A room that was out of the way, out of sight, 46 00:03:23.330 --> 00:03:27.090 and already full of other things that didn't have anywhere else 47 00:03:27.090 --> 00:03:32.415 to go. This all meant that if I wanted to go online, I had to 48 00:03:32.415 --> 00:03:36.335 visit the one designated place in the house where I could do 49 00:03:36.335 --> 00:03:40.255 that. Fast forward twenty five years. 50 00:03:40.975 --> 00:03:48.490 I'm online all the time, everywhere. At some point, I 51 00:03:48.490 --> 00:03:52.570 logged on and never really logged off 52 00:03:52.890 --> 00:03:57.605 ever again. There's a sense of you're always 53 00:03:57.605 --> 00:04:01.205 sort of tapped in. You're always sort of ambiently online now. 54 00:04:01.525 --> 00:04:05.605 I can tap into the Internet anytime on any 55 00:04:05.605 --> 00:04:09.380 number of devices, but especially on my phone. And I 56 00:04:09.380 --> 00:04:13.060 cross over onto the Internet in a way that almost feels 57 00:04:13.780 --> 00:04:16.980 narcoleptic, a change of consciousness that I don't 58 00:04:16.980 --> 00:04:21.780 always do on purpose. When I used the computer room at my 59 00:04:21.780 --> 00:04:27.485 house, I'd lose time, like big chunks of it. But I always did 60 00:04:27.485 --> 00:04:32.605 it in the same place. Now the ambient nature of my time online 61 00:04:32.605 --> 00:04:36.525 blurs the difference between when I'm online and when I'm 62 00:04:36.525 --> 00:04:36.685 not. 63 00:04:37.370 --> 00:04:44.090 But I do still feel like I'm going somewhere. So where am I 64 00:04:44.090 --> 00:04:51.930 going? What kind of place is that? When I first started 65 00:04:51.930 --> 00:04:55.365 researching this topic, a deceptively simple answer jumped 66 00:04:55.365 --> 00:04:59.205 out at me. Maybe the Internet is a third place. 67 00:04:59.925 --> 00:05:02.965 I'm sure you've heard some variation of this concept coined 68 00:05:02.965 --> 00:05:07.125 by the sociologist Ray Oldenburg in his 1989 book, The Great Good 69 00:05:07.125 --> 00:05:11.290 Place. But as a refresher, a third place is somewhere that 70 00:05:11.290 --> 00:05:15.770 isn't your home and isn't work, but is quite literally a secret 71 00:05:15.770 --> 00:05:20.170 third thing. And its function is predominantly one of community 72 00:05:20.170 --> 00:05:24.425 building. Third places are spots like your local bar or your 73 00:05:24.425 --> 00:05:28.025 local coffee shop. They can be other institutions like churches 74 00:05:28.025 --> 00:05:29.465 or meeting spaces. 75 00:05:29.865 --> 00:05:33.625 They might involve some kind of commerce. But crucially, that's 76 00:05:33.625 --> 00:05:36.620 not the only thing you can do there. And it's not necessarily 77 00:05:36.620 --> 00:05:40.460 why you'd go there in the first place. The true benefit of a 78 00:05:40.460 --> 00:05:44.380 third place is in the socialization it provides. It's 79 00:05:44.380 --> 00:05:47.420 the kind of spot where you'd meet strangers, neighbors, 80 00:05:47.925 --> 00:05:50.885 people in your vicinity who might be completely different 81 00:05:50.885 --> 00:05:54.325 from you and who you could interact with for the sake of 82 00:05:54.325 --> 00:05:56.565 creating person to person bonds. 83 00:05:57.285 --> 00:06:00.725 And Oldenburg had specific criteria for what qualities a 84 00:06:00.725 --> 00:06:05.700 third place had to have in order to be the real deal. It had to 85 00:06:05.700 --> 00:06:09.540 be accessible, inspire conversation, have a community 86 00:06:09.540 --> 00:06:14.100 of dedicated regulars, and serve as a kind of the home away from 87 00:06:14.100 --> 00:06:14.420 home. 88 00:06:17.085 --> 00:06:19.885 And so it's often referred to as the cheers 89 00:06:19.885 --> 00:06:22.765 phenomenon. Right? A place where everybody knows your name 90 00:06:22.765 --> 00:06:25.645 because you walk in and you immediately feel that sense of 91 00:06:25.645 --> 00:06:26.525 familiarity. 92 00:06:26.605 --> 00:06:29.245 That's Charles Sokup. He's a professor of 93 00:06:29.245 --> 00:06:31.805 communication and journalism at the University of Northern 94 00:06:31.805 --> 00:06:36.020 Colorado. Charles has written a lot about third places, and he 95 00:06:36.020 --> 00:06:39.220 explained to me that Ray Oldenburg created this concept 96 00:06:39.220 --> 00:06:42.900 of the third place out of a concern that these spaces were 97 00:06:42.900 --> 00:06:43.700 disappearing. 98 00:06:43.700 --> 00:06:46.100 What happened, especially as suburbanization 99 00:06:46.100 --> 00:06:51.975 occurred, is that we developed these long interstate highways, 100 00:06:51.975 --> 00:06:56.615 freeways, etcetera. People drove from home to work, and they 101 00:06:56.615 --> 00:06:58.935 didn't spend a lot of time outside of home and work most 102 00:06:58.935 --> 00:07:02.230 importantly. But then when they did, it was going to a fast food 103 00:07:02.230 --> 00:07:05.590 restaurant. It was going to places like Applebee's or TGI 104 00:07:05.590 --> 00:07:06.390 Fridays. 105 00:07:06.550 --> 00:07:09.030 But none of these things really fit the bill 106 00:07:09.030 --> 00:07:10.070 of a third place. 107 00:07:10.070 --> 00:07:12.310 These are places that are designed first and 108 00:07:12.310 --> 00:07:14.790 foremost to get people in and out very quickly because they're 109 00:07:14.790 --> 00:07:17.575 about productivity and they're about making as much money as 110 00:07:17.575 --> 00:07:21.015 possible, and they're not designed architecturally for 111 00:07:21.015 --> 00:07:23.175 people to interact with each other. Right? You're there to 112 00:07:23.175 --> 00:07:26.055 sit in your own little booth, and you're not there to talk to 113 00:07:26.055 --> 00:07:28.455 anybody else. And that's what people do in those spaces. 114 00:07:28.890 --> 00:07:31.130 With little in the way of physical third places 115 00:07:31.130 --> 00:07:34.490 available to people searching for community, there was a big 116 00:07:34.490 --> 00:07:38.170 space left open. And I could see how the development of the 117 00:07:38.170 --> 00:07:44.075 Internet might provide a virtual third place. In 2006, Charles 118 00:07:44.075 --> 00:07:47.035 wrote one of the earliest studies about how the concept of 119 00:07:47.035 --> 00:07:51.435 third places could apply to the social Internet. In the study, 120 00:07:51.595 --> 00:07:55.540 Charles commented on how certain places online, like forums and 121 00:07:55.540 --> 00:08:00.420 chat rooms, could offer a space for community that carries some 122 00:08:00.420 --> 00:08:05.220 qualities of a third place, but also a lot of differences. 123 00:08:05.860 --> 00:08:08.980 There's the fact that the Internet, at least in 2006, 124 00:08:09.140 --> 00:08:10.340 wasn't all that accessible. 125 00:08:10.955 --> 00:08:15.035 You had to own a computer or have access to an Internet cafe 126 00:08:15.035 --> 00:08:18.875 and be able to pay to use it. Chat rooms weren't usually 127 00:08:18.955 --> 00:08:22.235 local. They couldn't really replace the coffee shop down the 128 00:08:22.235 --> 00:08:25.530 street. They were more like clubs for people who all like 129 00:08:25.530 --> 00:08:29.290 the same stuff. And if that club was welcoming, then great. 130 00:08:29.610 --> 00:08:34.410 But that wasn't always the case. Like, if you just started 131 00:08:34.410 --> 00:08:37.785 getting into Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it might be hard to fit 132 00:08:37.785 --> 00:08:40.505 in when you join a forum full of a bunch of people who have 133 00:08:40.505 --> 00:08:43.705 already watched the show multiple times. And in those 134 00:08:43.705 --> 00:08:48.025 cases, there is no cheers effect. No one knows your name, 135 00:08:48.185 --> 00:08:53.750 and often they were Internet doesn't fit neatly into 136 00:08:53.750 --> 00:08:58.150 Oldenburg's Great Good Place. But Charles wrote that virtual 137 00:08:58.150 --> 00:09:02.470 third places do exist and have their own qualities. 138 00:09:02.790 --> 00:09:06.895 Quote, virtual third places should be designed to fit into 139 00:09:06.895 --> 00:09:11.135 the participants' mundane and ordinary lived experiences. The 140 00:09:11.135 --> 00:09:14.015 virtual third place should feel like a place for the here and 141 00:09:14.015 --> 00:09:17.935 now, a place that is integrated seamlessly into the existing 142 00:09:17.935 --> 00:09:21.535 textures and details of our lived communal experiences. 143 00:09:22.390 --> 00:09:25.910 Twenty years has passed since that study was first published, 144 00:09:26.310 --> 00:09:30.150 and a lot of what Charles wrote about has come to fruition. We 145 00:09:30.150 --> 00:09:33.270 do integrate our use of the Internet into our daily lives. 146 00:09:33.510 --> 00:09:37.145 The Internet does feel like a place full of, as he wrote, 147 00:09:37.145 --> 00:09:39.465 localized informal interactions. 148 00:09:39.545 --> 00:09:46.425 But do all of these factors a third place make? Well, I just 149 00:09:46.425 --> 00:09:56.290 flat out asked him the question. Is the Internet a third place? 150 00:09:57.970 --> 00:10:04.775 Maybe. Sometimes. Not usually. That 151 00:10:05.655 --> 00:10:09.175 has everything to do with the emergence and 152 00:10:09.175 --> 00:10:12.855 dominance of large scale social media platforms in the last 153 00:10:12.855 --> 00:10:23.440 twenty years. Third places are small. Platforms, not so much. 154 00:10:23.440 --> 00:10:26.000 You're in a cafe. There's, like, 25, thirty, 155 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:28.960 forty people there, that kind of thing. That's sort of an ideal 156 00:10:28.960 --> 00:10:31.945 number, think, for that sort of interaction. Obviously, when 157 00:10:31.945 --> 00:10:35.145 you're into thousands or millions of people, you can't 158 00:10:35.145 --> 00:10:37.945 have those sorts of interactions. It's it's not the 159 00:10:37.945 --> 00:10:38.825 sort of experience. 160 00:10:38.825 --> 00:10:41.545 It's a totally different phenomenon. It's a it's about 161 00:10:41.545 --> 00:10:44.025 attention, and it's about all kinds of other things rather 162 00:10:44.025 --> 00:10:46.650 than about actually understanding one another, 163 00:10:46.650 --> 00:10:50.170 experiencing just informal connection with others. 164 00:10:51.530 --> 00:10:55.130 But scale is only part of the issue here. The 165 00:10:55.130 --> 00:10:59.050 most stark limitation to any social platform's ability to be 166 00:10:59.050 --> 00:11:03.495 a true third place lies in the way we are encouraged to use 167 00:11:03.495 --> 00:11:08.135 them. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter may present themselves 168 00:11:08.135 --> 00:11:11.815 as catalysts for social interaction in theory, but 169 00:11:11.815 --> 00:11:15.310 things shake out very differently in practice. 170 00:11:15.550 --> 00:11:17.470 There's not a lot of profit and people just 171 00:11:17.470 --> 00:11:20.910 hanging around building community. Right? You can't sell 172 00:11:20.910 --> 00:11:23.870 stuff in that context particularly well. You can sell 173 00:11:23.870 --> 00:11:26.435 the idea of that, but you don't like the practice of it because 174 00:11:26.435 --> 00:11:29.795 it it part of it, it just gives too much autonomy to those 175 00:11:29.795 --> 00:11:30.755 individuals. Right? 176 00:11:30.755 --> 00:11:34.115 They can create their own space for their own purposes, which 177 00:11:34.115 --> 00:11:36.355 might have nothing to do with what your goals are as a 178 00:11:36.355 --> 00:11:42.050 company. So why would you give them that independence? There's 179 00:11:42.050 --> 00:11:46.130 something so unpredictable about community building. It can 180 00:11:46.130 --> 00:11:49.570 become almost anything, and they want predictability. They wanna 181 00:11:49.570 --> 00:11:53.735 keep people in a very pattern set of behaviors and habits, and 182 00:11:53.735 --> 00:11:57.255 they don't want people to have that independent, unpredictable 183 00:11:57.255 --> 00:11:59.815 kind of, you know, encounter with others. 184 00:12:08.670 --> 00:12:11.230 Community building is only useful to a 185 00:12:11.230 --> 00:12:14.430 corporation like Meta insofar as you do it while staying on the 186 00:12:14.430 --> 00:12:18.750 app. And what tool keeps us scrolling and engaging with any 187 00:12:18.750 --> 00:12:23.055 given platform for hours and hours? Say it with me, If the 188 00:12:24.655 --> 00:12:29.295 the Internet is a place, then the algorithm is a room. Your 189 00:12:29.295 --> 00:12:34.335 room, decorated with all the stuff you like, or at least what 190 00:12:34.335 --> 00:12:38.770 it thinks you like. Maybe you can hear voices through the 191 00:12:38.770 --> 00:12:43.010 walls, but you can't leave the room that was made for you. 192 00:12:43.410 --> 00:12:47.410 There isn't even a door. And under these conditions, it's 193 00:12:47.410 --> 00:12:51.155 extremely hard to cultivate the dynamic persistent kind of 194 00:12:51.155 --> 00:12:56.995 community that is essential to third places. So instead of 195 00:12:56.995 --> 00:13:01.475 serving as a third place, the Internet becomes the not work, 196 00:13:01.555 --> 00:13:04.890 not home space where increasingly, it feels like all 197 00:13:04.890 --> 00:13:07.290 you're supposed to do is spend money. We're back at the mall 198 00:13:07.290 --> 00:13:11.130 again, moving from store to store, or as the case may be, 199 00:13:11.370 --> 00:13:16.805 from IG ad to IG ad. In a place like this, you might interact 200 00:13:16.805 --> 00:13:19.765 with a salesperson or someone else who's in line to buy 201 00:13:19.765 --> 00:13:24.645 something, but the goal is always consumption in the most 202 00:13:24.645 --> 00:13:26.005 efficient way possible. 203 00:13:27.205 --> 00:13:31.860 So what kind of place is that? The non place. 204 00:13:35.780 --> 00:13:38.180 These are spaces that don't have any sort of 205 00:13:38.180 --> 00:13:43.780 context or history to them. They have no sense of uniqueness, so 206 00:13:43.780 --> 00:13:47.765 they're very standardized and formulaic. So things that are 207 00:13:47.765 --> 00:13:50.565 franchises are the clearest example of that. But anything 208 00:13:50.565 --> 00:13:54.325 that lacks it in, in particular, the one that always comes up in 209 00:13:54.325 --> 00:13:57.765 their research is the airport as the, like, the archetypal 210 00:13:57.765 --> 00:13:58.485 nonplace. 211 00:13:59.440 --> 00:14:02.400 A Starbucks in Denver looks virtually identical 212 00:14:02.400 --> 00:14:06.800 to a Starbucks in Dubai. The menu is basically the same. The 213 00:14:06.800 --> 00:14:10.800 physical space of a Starbucks, wherever it is, is only useful 214 00:14:10.800 --> 00:14:14.085 in its ability to make it possible for me to get a caramel 215 00:14:14.085 --> 00:14:17.685 frappuccino with three pumps of vanilla. And I know that it will 216 00:14:17.685 --> 00:14:21.685 always taste exactly the same. The aprons will still be the 217 00:14:21.685 --> 00:14:23.445 same shade of Kelly green. 218 00:14:23.685 --> 00:14:27.110 The familiar benevolent smile of the brand's dual tailed mermaid 219 00:14:27.110 --> 00:14:31.670 will gaze down upon me in every time zone. Whatever country I'm 220 00:14:31.670 --> 00:14:34.950 in ceases to matter the second I step through the tinted glass 221 00:14:34.950 --> 00:14:38.550 door because now I'm in the sovereign territory of 222 00:14:38.550 --> 00:14:41.485 Starbucks, a nation all its own. 223 00:14:41.725 --> 00:14:45.325 And that is very disorienting. It can be and you 224 00:14:45.325 --> 00:14:49.165 can kinda lose sense of what the expectations and norms are for 225 00:14:49.165 --> 00:14:51.245 spaces like that. So I think that's why people act kinda 226 00:14:51.245 --> 00:14:53.805 weird in airports because they don't really know what you're 227 00:14:53.805 --> 00:14:57.080 supposed to be doing. It doesn't have any connection. 228 00:15:00.920 --> 00:15:03.480 Tucked away in a hotel room of a large scale 229 00:15:03.480 --> 00:15:09.480 chain, I become the hedonistic god of my own lawless land. I 230 00:15:09.480 --> 00:15:13.415 watch TV shows I would never consider watching in my normal 231 00:15:13.415 --> 00:15:19.255 life. I bury myself under a pile of white terry cloth robes. I 232 00:15:19.255 --> 00:15:22.375 leave my open suitcase spatchcocked on the floor, 233 00:15:22.860 --> 00:15:26.860 barely containing the mountain of clothing I rifle through and 234 00:15:26.860 --> 00:15:30.940 never fold. It's only when I have to check out that the spell 235 00:15:30.940 --> 00:15:33.580 is broken and I become myself again. 236 00:15:36.505 --> 00:15:38.665 I would say most of the social media platforms, 237 00:15:38.665 --> 00:15:41.785 you could probably make a pretty good case for being a non place, 238 00:15:41.785 --> 00:15:45.305 particularly because of the way that they lack history and 239 00:15:45.305 --> 00:15:51.710 location and context. If you were to, like, put a target on 240 00:15:51.710 --> 00:15:54.510 the Internet, it would look like Facebook. Does that make sense 241 00:15:54.510 --> 00:15:57.230 for it? You know what I mean? It's like, it just feels 242 00:15:58.030 --> 00:16:03.310 monochromatic and uniform, and there's something kind of boring 243 00:16:03.310 --> 00:16:05.790 about how everything is in its unique place. 244 00:16:05.790 --> 00:16:08.110 But I don't think it's just that it's 245 00:16:07.365 --> 00:16:14.005 boring. It's also uncanny in its frictionlessness. I used to know 246 00:16:14.005 --> 00:16:20.165 exactly where the Internet was. It was in the computer room. The 247 00:16:20.165 --> 00:16:26.200 name itself was so place y, the room where the computer lived. 248 00:16:26.600 --> 00:16:31.640 And now the computer is in every place. It's everywhere. All 249 00:16:31.640 --> 00:16:36.120 Internet enabled devices joined together and made a new kind of 250 00:16:35.865 --> 00:16:41.225 place that exists like a veil on top of the whole world. And at 251 00:16:41.225 --> 00:16:46.105 first, maybe it seemed possible for that kind of tandem space to 252 00:16:46.105 --> 00:16:50.040 feel just as place like as the computer room did. But with the 253 00:16:50.040 --> 00:16:54.040 emergence of platforms, with the ubiquity of Internet access, 254 00:16:54.360 --> 00:16:57.400 with a million shifts and changes over the years, that 255 00:16:57.400 --> 00:16:59.240 feeling started to slip away. 256 00:16:59.800 --> 00:17:03.400 The boundaries of the place that held the Internet started to 257 00:17:03.400 --> 00:17:09.405 blur. Now I don't go to the Internet in the way I go to a 258 00:17:09.405 --> 00:17:12.685 chain restaurant like Olive Garden. It's more like I can 259 00:17:12.685 --> 00:17:16.205 blink and suddenly already be inside an Olive Garden whenever 260 00:17:16.205 --> 00:17:21.050 I want. Like, the Olive Garden is grafted over my life where I 261 00:17:21.050 --> 00:17:24.490 can tap into the Olive Garden state of consciousness with a 262 00:17:24.490 --> 00:17:29.610 single swipe of my finger. We're obsessed that you're so 263 00:17:29.610 --> 00:17:30.010 obsessed. 264 00:17:30.815 --> 00:17:35.935 So Olive Garden's fan favorites are back. When we come back, I'm 265 00:17:35.935 --> 00:17:41.295 gonna bring back Catherine D to discuss a more metaphysical look 266 00:17:41.295 --> 00:18:01.355 at the placeness of the Internet. Catherine D. And I 267 00:18:01.355 --> 00:18:05.035 talked a lot about the hypnotic nature of logging on. The 268 00:18:05.035 --> 00:18:08.875 computer room and the computer that dwelled inside it served as 269 00:18:08.875 --> 00:18:10.475 a portal to the Internet. 270 00:18:11.110 --> 00:18:15.910 All I had to do was turn it on, log in, and let myself be taken 271 00:18:15.910 --> 00:18:20.630 away. And being taken away is really how it felt. Sure. My 272 00:18:20.630 --> 00:18:23.815 physical self was glued to the swivel chair sitting with my 273 00:18:23.815 --> 00:18:28.135 legs all pretzel together. But my emotional self had crossed a 274 00:18:28.135 --> 00:18:32.695 threshold into this other intangible place where Myspace 275 00:18:32.695 --> 00:18:37.180 existed, an AOL Instant Messenger, where the giant 276 00:18:37.180 --> 00:18:39.260 omelet in Neopets existed. 277 00:18:39.980 --> 00:18:43.020 We've all done it. Right? Just totally slipping 278 00:18:43.020 --> 00:18:46.540 into this other place, this like trance like state. And the 279 00:18:46.540 --> 00:18:51.980 computer room was like the dedicated space where you would 280 00:18:52.755 --> 00:18:56.755 slip into this other world. All I I mean, I really did feel like 281 00:18:56.755 --> 00:18:59.555 I was going somewhere else. 282 00:19:00.115 --> 00:19:03.715 And I was like blocking out the world around me. 283 00:19:03.875 --> 00:19:06.650 But it helped that my physical body never 284 00:19:06.650 --> 00:19:10.650 moved from that swivel chair. It made the hypnotic nature of me 285 00:19:10.650 --> 00:19:16.170 logging on feel more akin to meditation or falling asleep. An 286 00:19:16.170 --> 00:19:19.515 experience that felt comfortable in part because I knew exactly 287 00:19:19.515 --> 00:19:23.195 where I'd be when I decided to return to consciousness. When I 288 00:19:23.195 --> 00:19:27.995 logged off, I knew exactly where I was because I never left. 289 00:19:29.355 --> 00:19:32.075 Something that was good about a a computer room 290 00:19:32.075 --> 00:19:34.650 is even though you maybe you would get swept away 291 00:19:34.650 --> 00:19:37.930 temporarily, something about like logging on and logging off, 292 00:19:37.930 --> 00:19:40.170 having to, you know, you have to go to the bathroom. So you type 293 00:19:40.170 --> 00:19:46.075 AFK. Things like that are I mean, keep us keep us connected 294 00:19:46.075 --> 00:19:49.675 to the physical world. There's a physical reminder. Now, you 295 00:19:49.675 --> 00:19:52.635 know, like, theoretically, like, you you know, you take your 296 00:19:52.635 --> 00:19:55.035 phone into the bathroom or eating dinner. 297 00:19:55.035 --> 00:19:57.115 Right? Like, there's no there's no break. 298 00:19:57.915 --> 00:20:00.420 With the ability to pass through portal 299 00:20:00.420 --> 00:20:04.100 of the internet whenever we want, we fade in and out of that 300 00:20:04.100 --> 00:20:10.260 trance like state as we please. Or even without realizing it. I 301 00:20:10.260 --> 00:20:13.940 have certainly been guilty of absentmindedly opening Instagram 302 00:20:13.940 --> 00:20:17.195 when I didn't even notice I was doing it. And by the time I 303 00:20:17.195 --> 00:20:21.435 recognize what I did, I've already started scrolling. In a 304 00:20:21.435 --> 00:20:25.275 New York Times opinion piece from October, Katherine wrote 305 00:20:25.275 --> 00:20:28.875 about how the internet as it exists now, ubiquitous, 306 00:20:28.955 --> 00:20:34.170 hypnotic, and enticing, is something called an other world. 307 00:20:36.330 --> 00:20:40.410 An other world, the way I use it at least, is a 308 00:20:40.410 --> 00:20:45.210 world that exists simultaneous to our own and that you you go 309 00:20:45.210 --> 00:20:50.005 you go into it. It's like layered over the physical world, 310 00:20:50.645 --> 00:20:52.725 but it's a it's a separate space. 311 00:20:54.005 --> 00:20:57.045 Historically, entering an other world could 312 00:20:57.045 --> 00:21:00.965 involve finding some kind of portal or path that would take 313 00:21:00.965 --> 00:21:04.440 you there. Like the River Styx, which led your soul to the 314 00:21:04.440 --> 00:21:07.960 underworld of Greek mythology. And that passage across the 315 00:21:07.960 --> 00:21:12.440 water served as a kind of existential transition into the 316 00:21:12.440 --> 00:21:16.265 world you were about to enter. Crossing the River Styx would 317 00:21:16.265 --> 00:21:20.025 erase your memories that you accumulated in the world of the 318 00:21:20.025 --> 00:21:24.265 living. Passage into an other world could be a physical 319 00:21:24.265 --> 00:21:26.825 endeavor, but it didn't have to be. 320 00:21:27.305 --> 00:21:30.580 Traveling to the fairy land of Celtic lore was something you 321 00:21:30.580 --> 00:21:34.260 could do spiritually while leaving your body behind. The 322 00:21:34.260 --> 00:21:38.020 idiom of being quote unquote away with the fairies comes from 323 00:21:38.020 --> 00:21:43.515 this idea that your mind is in this other place. So like with 324 00:21:43.515 --> 00:21:44.715 with the internet, I mean, 325 00:21:44.715 --> 00:21:49.115 I think it's it's such a close analogy because 326 00:21:49.275 --> 00:21:53.355 you're staring into the screen, you know, you're staring into 327 00:21:53.355 --> 00:21:58.000 the the black mirror, you're scrying, right? And your 328 00:21:58.000 --> 00:22:02.800 internal self is gone, is not here. And but your physical self 329 00:22:02.800 --> 00:22:06.960 remains. And so it's like you're away with the fairies or astral 330 00:22:06.960 --> 00:22:09.680 projecting or you're having an out of body experience. 331 00:22:10.845 --> 00:22:13.405 It's entering a plane of existence that has a 332 00:22:13.405 --> 00:22:16.925 very different structure and an entirely different mode of 333 00:22:16.925 --> 00:22:22.205 operating. And just like a non place, the rules aren't always 334 00:22:22.285 --> 00:22:22.605 clear. 335 00:22:23.250 --> 00:22:26.530 You know, I think people wonder a lot, like, why 336 00:22:26.530 --> 00:22:29.730 do we behave differently online? Why are the social rules 337 00:22:29.730 --> 00:22:33.250 different on the Internet than they are in the physical world? 338 00:22:33.410 --> 00:22:36.845 And the answer, I think, is really simple. We don't have our 339 00:22:36.845 --> 00:22:41.885 physical bodies. So, of course, the rules are going to be 340 00:22:41.885 --> 00:22:46.445 different because not having the body changes things, not having 341 00:22:46.445 --> 00:22:47.565 the physical body. 342 00:22:49.165 --> 00:22:51.470 Dis Disembodiment is a defining 343 00:22:51.550 --> 00:22:55.710 quality of the Internet as a place. Our disconnection to our 344 00:22:55.710 --> 00:22:59.870 bodies is a huge reason why the space of the Internet feels odd 345 00:22:59.870 --> 00:23:04.750 and ill defined. In the context of a non place, this physical 346 00:23:04.665 --> 00:23:08.745 abstraction is a tool that keeps us consuming. In other worlds, 347 00:23:09.065 --> 00:23:12.505 it's just another quality that needs to be handled with care so 348 00:23:12.505 --> 00:23:13.865 that we don't get lost. 349 00:23:25.990 --> 00:23:28.550 With fairy mythology, there's a lot about, 350 00:23:28.550 --> 00:23:33.030 you know, accidentally binding yourself to fairyland and not 351 00:23:33.030 --> 00:23:36.555 realizing it. And I think that happens a lot online because you 352 00:23:36.555 --> 00:23:39.995 get lost in the in the moment, or you don't feel the 353 00:23:39.995 --> 00:23:43.675 consequences, or the consequences sort of like arrive 354 00:23:43.675 --> 00:23:46.555 differently on the internet as they will in the physical world. 355 00:23:46.555 --> 00:23:51.080 Some people say, you know, say to imagine a a red string tied 356 00:23:51.080 --> 00:23:54.120 to your wrist. The theosophists in particular spoke about a 357 00:23:54.120 --> 00:23:58.120 silver cord that connects your physical body to your etheric 358 00:23:58.120 --> 00:24:02.425 body, to the body that is out in the astral plane. So you don't 359 00:24:02.425 --> 00:24:02.985 get lost. 360 00:24:02.985 --> 00:24:05.865 So it doesn't get disconnected. I think a lot of people get lost 361 00:24:06.345 --> 00:24:08.665 because they don't they don't reground. 362 00:24:08.985 --> 00:24:11.305 The computer room represented an 363 00:24:11.305 --> 00:24:15.750 architectural, emotional, and technological anchor and 364 00:24:15.750 --> 00:24:19.910 permitted transition to the internet. It was the circle of 365 00:24:19.910 --> 00:24:23.910 mushrooms in the grass, the fairy ring. And traveling into 366 00:24:23.910 --> 00:24:27.590 another world is the work of intention, of seeking out the 367 00:24:27.590 --> 00:24:31.725 doorway and deciding to open it. But so much of how we use the 368 00:24:31.725 --> 00:24:36.285 Internet now is without intention entirely. We cross 369 00:24:36.285 --> 00:24:39.885 that threshold countless times every day, sometimes without 370 00:24:39.885 --> 00:24:43.245 consciously realizing what we're doing as we're doing it. 371 00:24:43.645 --> 00:24:48.980 The threshold blurs into nothing. We never leave. We 372 00:24:48.980 --> 00:24:54.340 never arrive. Non places are abstracted. They're 373 00:24:54.340 --> 00:25:00.125 architectural gestures that are defined by transition and only 374 00:25:00.125 --> 00:25:01.005 transition. 375 00:25:01.325 --> 00:25:05.725 They have no specificity, no grounding, no conclusion to 376 00:25:05.725 --> 00:25:10.845 offer us. We can scroll forever without fear that we will reach 377 00:25:10.845 --> 00:25:19.030 the end. It's the infinite moving sidewalk. And I wonder 378 00:25:19.110 --> 00:25:23.670 what that state of constant transition means about where the 379 00:25:23.670 --> 00:25:28.605 Internet is. If the Internet is anywhere I am, does that make 380 00:25:28.605 --> 00:25:32.925 the Internet a place or infinite places? 381 00:25:33.805 --> 00:25:38.605 I think it's one big other world that we can't we 382 00:25:38.605 --> 00:25:43.670 can't see it. There's no map to it. And it I mean, it it it 383 00:25:43.670 --> 00:25:49.510 holds it holds the full the full range of expression. It's not an 384 00:25:49.510 --> 00:25:52.310 evil place. Evil exists there. 385 00:25:52.550 --> 00:25:54.870 It's not a place that you should never travel to, but you should 386 00:25:54.870 --> 00:25:57.110 travel to you should travel to it with awareness. 387 00:25:57.655 --> 00:26:01.415 This idea feels really, really comforting to me 388 00:26:01.575 --> 00:26:05.655 because I want the Internet to still feel like a single 389 00:26:05.975 --> 00:26:12.160 recognizable place I go to, spend time in, and leave. I kind 390 00:26:12.160 --> 00:26:15.680 of still need the computer room to exist, even if it's just in 391 00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:20.880 my mind. But why? Why do I need that? 392 00:26:20.960 --> 00:26:24.160 I think it's just the way we we process as humans, 393 00:26:24.160 --> 00:26:28.235 we process reality. Like, how could you not be in a place? You 394 00:26:28.235 --> 00:26:30.795 know, if you're spending so much time there, there's so much, 395 00:26:30.795 --> 00:26:35.435 like, spiritual and, you know, paranormal, like, stories that 396 00:26:35.435 --> 00:26:38.955 come out of these things. Right? Like, spiritualism was, you 397 00:26:38.955 --> 00:26:40.875 know, partially created because of the telegraph. 398 00:26:41.190 --> 00:26:45.990 There's this idea of this is something beyond the veil. How 399 00:26:45.990 --> 00:26:50.710 could information be moving across the ocean? How are we 400 00:26:50.710 --> 00:26:53.990 talking to people that are far away? And so we imagine that 401 00:26:53.990 --> 00:26:57.175 there's something there, like we're we're going somewhere. 402 00:26:58.535 --> 00:27:01.495 Just thinking of it, literally, I think kind of breaks our 403 00:27:01.495 --> 00:27:03.015 brains a little bit. 404 00:27:03.015 --> 00:27:06.455 So we create this we create the story around it. Like, it must 405 00:27:06.455 --> 00:27:09.930 be the spirit world. Right? There must be it's a nonmaterial 406 00:27:09.930 --> 00:27:12.730 world. It's not just technology to it. 407 00:27:12.730 --> 00:27:16.570 It's a the technology is allowing us to act to to pierce 408 00:27:16.570 --> 00:27:17.770 the thing we cannot see. 409 00:27:35.550 --> 00:27:38.510 Thank you so much to Charles Sokop and 410 00:27:38.510 --> 00:27:42.590 Katherine Dee for taking me in and through and out of the place 411 00:27:42.590 --> 00:27:46.190 of the Internet. Charles told me that for the most part, you can 412 00:27:46.190 --> 00:27:49.950 find him in obscure journals, so it's best to Google him. And 413 00:27:49.950 --> 00:27:56.225 that's Charles, s o u k o p. Katherine Dee can be found at 414 00:27:56.225 --> 00:28:00.225 default.blog, where you can read about other worlds and the 415 00:28:00.225 --> 00:28:05.630 Internet and so much more. To find me or any of us on 416 00:28:05.630 --> 00:28:08.190 Neverpost, you already know where to go. 417 00:28:08.670 --> 00:28:12.430 Every possible way of reaching us is down in the show notes. 418 00:28:32.970 --> 00:28:35.450 Post producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia 419 00:28:35.450 --> 00:28:38.250 Hampton, and the mysterious doctor first name, last name. 420 00:28:38.250 --> 00:28:41.610 Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer 421 00:28:41.610 --> 00:28:45.130 is Jason Oberholtzer. The show's host, that's me, is Mike 422 00:28:45.130 --> 00:28:54.225 Rugnetta. Never Post is a production of Charts and 423 00:28:54.225 --> 00:28:57.425 Leisure, and it's distributed by Radiotopia.