I was born to teenage lovebirds in the county hospital in Warren, Michigan. Both the oldest of large families, my parents were instrumental in developing my interest in mathematics, science and computing.
It wasn’t until visiting my uncle’s house that I became truly fascinated with computers. He had a then current generation Tandy computer, a TRS-80 Color Computer 3(aka Trash 80 CoCo). While my adult relatives played Euchre, I sat entranced in front of the large, wood framed television that was the monitor, plodding through the example BASIC programs in the owner’s manual included with the TRS-80.
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The magnet school I attended in South Florida, Bethune Elementary, had a bona fide computer lab, stocked full of Apple II computers. I participated in the Computer Fair and won for a program I created in BASIC that told your Chinese Zodiac Horoscope. I still have the trophy, often consider listing this achievement on my resume and like to mention it randomly in unrelated conversation.
My immediate family moved to Ocala, Florida to start a family business with the same uncle that provided me the earlier opportunity to explore a computer. In the years that had passed my exposure to computers had been limited to school computer lab and friends whose families could afford a PC. There was a great deal of Oregon Trail and Carmen Sandiego played, but not much in the way of production or any instances where I could claim as clearly shaping my digital literacy or identity.
Though I had pined for a computer, my family was simply not in a financial position to get one. My father had a certain cynicism regarding computers, though his brother had been “fooling around with them” since the late 1970s. I believe he did not see their worth, thinking they were merely a device to waste time playing games on. Fortunately for me the task of record keeping was obviously easier on a computer; my father relented and bought a laptop, and so began my sordid tryst with my family’s business computer.
Sneaking out after my parents had gone to sleep, I would muffle the tell-tale screeches of the blazing fast 14.4 bps modem as it negotiated a connection to America Online. I am positive I had some deliciously embarrassing name that I used to cruise the teen chat rooms. These late night rendezvous did not last long, as I quickly chewed through the however many free hours and my family got a bill for an amount worthy of being grounded for.
Once allowed back into polite society, my father brought home a computer for me to use. It didn’t have the internet, but its monochromatic monitor and word processing application would suffice for me to type papers for school. After my homework was done I would call up a game called ZZT that was maddeningly difficult.
Knowing how interested I was in computers, my mother brought home an application for the local Radio Shack. I got the job as a sales associate and was quickly promoted to assistant manager. I worked near full time while in still in school devouring every drop of knowledge the company had to offer. This would be the first time I recall encountering sexism and ageism. Asking to speak to the manager, it was often obvious that my expertise was called into question because of my gender and age. In retrospect, I wonder if I had been a male of the same age – would these customers been so quick to dismiss my assistance?
As I crept to high school graduation, my family researched each painful detail of a PC for me. My father is big about value and was expecting this computer to last through my college years. During my senior year of school, my computer got much use – largely on mIRC, the wild west of chat rooms. I was “TheMonkei” and a moderator in the channel “FLTeenFreakz”. As one of the freaks, I felt so completely at home and never needed to alter my core identity since I felt comfortable as myself online. As life moved on, I outgrew that channel.
Shortly after high school, a dash of community college and various spots of employment I was hired as a help desk technician for an Internet Service Provider. It was here that I was fully indoctrinated into the world of IT. I learned a great deal from my position and my peers, venturing into my current career of graphic design, website development and gaining an understanding of networking. It wasn’t long before I was included in the mIRC channels, BBS, and given the AIM and ICQ screen names of my coworkers. We were required to be on AIM during work hours so offline and online was one in the same, information and jokes were shared and relationships blossomed.
Roleplaying was a foreign concept to me when my coworkers introduced me to Everquest. It was so fully immersive that I spent hours as “Zillah”, a human magician. While I initially interacted primarily with those I knew IRL, it was enticingly easy to strike up conversations with other playing characters. The ability to be someone different through an emotive avatar and text based conversation promoted social interaction. Removing the possibility of reality based discrimination; deep friendships were forged between “people”.
Online friendships in the various games I have played have frequently moved offline. As adults, work required travel has given a good excuse to meet in a populated airport for that first in person meeting. The amount of time spent online towards common goals has removed much of the weirdness from shifting your identity “In Character” to “Out of Character”. Though I no longer actively play MMORPGs due to time constraints, I am thankful for the close friendships that remain from my time playing.
Many of my friendships are maintained through social networking. Prior to Facebook or MySpace providing the conduit for geographically diverse relationships, I maintained message boards for our “guilds” to communicate through. As a mother, message boards, blogs and social media provide connections to others with similar experiences. As families and friends find themselves physically distanced from one another, staving off isolation is paramount and encouraging relationships is a treat.
My identity is strengthened and scarred by my experiences with technology and the Internet. I maintain that my online identity is more similar than not to my offline self. This considered, my herstory has promoted my desire to engage young women in shaping and empowering their lives through technology as I am doing now.
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