Day 7: What was the first bit of the Internet that blew your mind?

Dare I talk about the first time I ventured to look at pictures of naked men, on my creaking old family dial-up PC in the corner of my parents’ living room? Circa 1997, it was certainly a game-changer; that’s undeniable. I’d never SEEN porn before. I’d never SEEN a naked dude before. Suddenly I could see what other boys looked like NAKED! And having SEX!

Something blew, but it probably wasn’t my mind.

Thinking back, there was a certain colourful charm to those early, non-paying, gay porn sites that you just don’t get today. You could pick your gallery of preference from a range of available options, usually a sidebar made using frames(!)comprised of buttons made using MS paint(!!), which included such treasures as TWINKS, UNIFORM, JOCKS, BEARS, and so on and so forth.  I want to find a screen shot now.  I wonder if any of them still exist?

But mind blowing?  No – I knew it was there.  It was amazing, please don’t misunderstand me, I was thrilled.  But not mind-blown.

Perhaps, years later, my first (relatively late) foray into online gaming, via the exciting medium of Transformers: War For Cybertron? 2010 was a big year for my Playstation 3. I wasn’t hugely into video games and had never bothered with online interaction.  Why would I want to do that?  But there is something so satisfying about shooting unwitting and very real competitors in the back of the head, then turning into a jet and bombing the fuck out of them, that I was quickly persuaded. I still play it often.  It was always going to be Transformers that sold me on this, I suppose.

And yet, I was fully aware of online gaming. Call Of Duty, Halo and all that other tosh were inescapable, especially working in a school. I knew it was out there, and I found a game the thrilled me, but I probably wouldn’t say mind-blown.

No.

No, I remember perfectly the first mind-blowing thing I saw online.

Something honestly really simple.

I remember it because I couldn’t get over it. I am loathe to say it because it makes me sound so old and so lame, but...

See, I’d seen videos, however small, short and pixelated on my feeble late 90s dial-up.  But one evening, tapping away talking to random weirdos on Yahoo! Chat, a very nice American boy a few years older than me (straight I’m afraid, but thanks for asking) asked if I wanted to see him on webcam.

WHAT? What the fuck?  Is that a thing?!

Why, yes please.  Do go on.

So he switched it on, it took an age to load, and the sound was terrible, but there he was. Smiling, chatting away, talking to me LIVE!  From America!  On my computer!  In my parents’ living room!

I was beside myself. I couldn’t stop laughing, it was so amazing! I didn’t believe it was real at first, so I kept making him do weird proofs: Wave you arms, hold up 4 fingers, put your hands on your head, etc, etc.  He kindly performed like a trained monkey, but I think he was quite excited as it was his new toy.

I was amazed.

I know, I know!  It seems so ordinary and pathetic and stupid now.

I was 17. It was a more innocent time.

It was 1997 for Christ’s sake.

But there you go -  MIND. BLOWN.

I was so enthralled, I quite forgot the fact that I didn’t share the threatening and seedy-sounding fact that I talked to random faraway weirdos with my mother, and quickly shouted: “Mum, quick quick!  Look at this!  He’s in America!!”

She was pretty amazed too.

So there you have it.  Such a simple thing now, but you have to appreciate that this was ground-breaking.

And so much better than all that lovely free porn.