A couple of weeks ago I went over to my mom's house for a family get together. My Uncle Gary had brought over a dvd converted from some old film footage of when he and my mom were kids. His family had seen this video a zillion times before, so the living room started to empty when he pressed start on the remote. My brother, sister and I had never seen the dvd before so we stayed and watched. My mom stayed on for a glimpse of pastime nostalgia.
Lights, Camera, Roll film.
There I was watching this silent film of black, pink and white scenes of my mom and uncle water skiing, playing with the dog, and fishing. There were even some priceless shots of my mom twirling and tossing a baton, this woman she had skills. Even more striking to me was the way that my mom and her family seemed to congregate together. It wasn't just my grandmother, grandfather and their kids (my mom, uncle and aunt), but cousins, uncles, aunts, next door neighbors, friends and co-workers.
Most of them would gather outside the house, around the front porch and spilling into the lawn like an ant hill colony.
I blurted out, "It's funny how everyone just always seemed to get together back then. I know my neighbors and all but we don't hang like that". My uncle Gary replied, "People used to hang out on their front porches to get cool, air conditioning killed that. It was because everyone hung outside that people got to know each other. I couldn't do any wrong in my neighborhood because everyone was watching and someone would tell my parents. Believe me, I tried".
"MySpace is the new front porch of America", I exclaimed, to the "Oooh wow" simultaneous reaction of my brother Jake and sister Amanda, both in their 20's. All three of us have a profile on MySpace, all for different reasons. Amanda, because her friends were bugging her to make a profile, Jake, because he's a young college student whose getting his band gigs sold out from his presence on MySpace, and me because I am a blogger and I can socially network with other real estate industry professionals.
MySpace extends my reach much further than my front porch ever could. Same with FaceBook, Twitter, Seesmic,
YouTube, and countless other social networks. It's not just for business either. A few months ago HBO released the Documentary, Ganja Queen, about a young woman accused of marijuana session named Schapelle Corby. I was so moved by this story that I had to blog and share so I went on ActiveRain and did.
The community responded and it was a featured post in Duane's ThemThem Group. I've had a good flow of traffic to that post and hope it's making others aware of Corby's story.
I've exchanged ideas, had conversations, blogged, watched videos, participated in polls, and had discussions online. I've felt others triumphs and struggles, felt happiness, anger and everything in between, all from dialogues online.
I am a Gen X'er but I have exchanged words with 20 year olds, 30 year olds, 40 year olds, 50 year olds and wiser. I value my time offline too and and have encouraged people to get off their gadgets and remember to engage in offline conversations too.
But at 1 a.m. in the mornin' or on a rainy or snowy weekend day you'll find me on my laptop pounding away at my keyboard and engaging with my internet neighbors.
The new front porches of America are online.
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I definitely agree with you Rebecca. Great blog.