Literacy Narrative: How the Internet Helped My Writing

Literacy Narrative: How the Internet Helped My Writing

The internet is a breeding ground for information and education. However, it’s also a breeding ground for people who “typ leik di!!!1” I used to be one of those people. However, over time I slowly learned the difference between “Their” and “They’re” and that it was easy to just add an apostrophe to “I dont know” instead of typing “I dunno“ or “idk.“ This sort of metamorphosis transitioned from “text speak” a form of typing where “Are you with Mom?” could be turned into “r u w/ mom” with no sort of punctuation or capitalization, all the way to generally accepted grammar and spelling.

For quite some time, I wandered around the internet interjecting my 12 year old opinions in text speak. Which often resulted in them telling me to basically shut up. I didn’t catch on, so I kept doing it for quite some time. Eventually, my “text speak” evolved into “1337 (Pronounced like the “lite” in “Elite“) speak.” In which some letters are replaced with numbers in a word, and intentional typos were born. “owned” became “pwned.” But for the most part, it can be made into a sort of legible sentence. However, like with text speak, it lacks capitalization unless they left caps lock on. In mild cases, the sentence “That guy just got his butt kicked” would become “That guy just got pwned. N00b.” And in extreme cases, the sentence “Pineapples are good for you” would become “p|/\/34pp135 R GUD 4 U”

However, my 14 year old opinions being filled with intentional typos, strange capitalization, and basically nonsense was actually acceptable at the time. It was a fad of sorts on the internet, and then one fateful day, one of my “internet pals” got annoyed with my “internet speak” and just went off on a huge rant about it, basically implying that I looked like an idiot. Needless to say, that made me feel dumb, and by that time I could touch type and type fairly fast and fairly accurately, so I decided “Hey, if that grammar Nazi doesn’t think I can type legibly, I’ll prove that arrogant jerk wrong!” So, I did pretty much. Granted, I was still extremely awkward verbally. Spouting random, stupid phrases for cheap laughs. Laughs that were probably at my expense. However, this lead to me actually being forced to write in proper spelling and grammar. Thus, I went from making grammatical mistakes like Eureka Pizza’s sign that said “Try our baked ravioli’s. Their delicious.” to actually making sure my sentences had correct spellings and such. Or trying to anyway, I still haven’t gotten that down. Due to the fact that everything on the internet is written, I got quite a bit of practice in it. Eventually, I got into writing through various attempts at other things on the internet.

I read some of the things my friends had written, and they were fairly good. This made me think “I should attempt to write stuff, maybe I’ll be good at it!” I attempted a few short, paragraph sized stories, and my friends had mixed views. Some said “That was good/funny” and some said “This is pure crap.” So, I continued it with some support from my friends and family. Eventually, I ended up writing fairly good stories according to other people. Most of them were purely for the sake of making me/other people laugh. Thus, they were completely haphazard and confusing to anyone who read it. I attempted to write a serious story, and it ended up being extremely long.

After spending about a year or so just writing whenever I got bored/angry I managed to write a story that was about 56 pages long in Microsoft word with no indentations and in size 10 font. I was pretty proud of it. It gave me a much needed confidence boost. At the time I wrote it, I was a depressed, angry overweight kid. So writing gave me a creative outlet that allowed me to vent some of the built up anger. It helped me overcome said depression, and deal with my anger in a positive way. I also got confidence in my ability to write, and learned that I was actually pretty creative. Having this newfound knowledge, I got A’s in my English classes in high school sleeping! Except for AP Lit. That one beat me into the ground. However, as I learned and got better at writing, my self esteem rose! The internet, while referred to by some as “an incredible time waster” and “the place where popularity is completely reversed, jocks are noobs and dorks are 1337.” To me though, the internet is the thing that taught me how to type, spell, and get an actual grasp upon the English language to a degree. It also helped my ability to write, control my temper, and cope with depression. Thus, the best timewaster in the world taught me how to write and waste my time in a more productive manner.