This is kind of nostalgic post that I always want to write. The experience of my attempt being online and connected into Internet circa 2006 when I was teenanger and being curious what was Internet had. I had serious and stupid assumption back in the day when PC were introduced and known in the early 00s. I remember the price was high and unaffordable for everyone. There was first internet or just probably pc game center that opened in 2000 in my city and I was standing there watching people play Counter Strike because i was too afraid to touch the pc because I thought i would give the virus if i mishandled the device. So I forgot to get started learning because no one in my family never touched computer and knew about it and also I was in fourth grade back then.
Fast forward to 2006 when i was in junior high school time (i can say that), I was attracted to my friend story that told me about his experience using the Internet when he was outside the school. I was attending strict boarding school back then and having touch with technological device except public phone wasnt allowed for us. Just imagine just like a prison minus tv and entertainment.
Encouraged by his saying that i wont give any virus to pc, i decided to go one of local internet cafe called warnet or warung Internet (we call it warnet) when I had one day vacation that my school give to students each month so they comeback to their hometown. I used the opportunity to look some warnet and couldnt find much except one that located in the city center. It was midnight and i drove with my bicycle rushing into the warnet for the first time. It was not common a teenager like me in the middle of night going to warnet where later the operator had that look confuse and suspicious to me, but still answered was there any space to use Internet when I asked about it.
I am pretty sure that in some years later, no one remember what warnet was and what it supposed for except for some images. So let me describe what was warnet in the dawn of speed information exchange. Its a place where you can rent and then use PC in order to get connected into Internet that mostly used for looking educational sources (sure, Qori... "educational"), chatting with random strangers on MiRc or Internet messenger service, checking e-mails and social media, or just having fun playing paid online games like Ragnarok or free one with shitty graphic but still fun and its called flash games. And dont think about downloading stuffs there. It takes almost one minute to load any sites and yeah you can figure it out for downloading any music or videos, but you can save images though, and importantly... its quite expensive.
So, there I was in one of box where there were others people minding their own business... while I was sitting in front of blank CRT monitor. I was confused and how to turn this thing on. Duh, there is a button on monitor, so i pushed and expecting it will turn on. Yes. Its on, but still had nothing on it. I was confused and little bit scared because i thought i give this computer a virus. So, i went back to operator and told him that my pc was unable to turning on. I didnt want to see his face reaction, but he moved anyway into my box and then just like magic, he pushed a button in a box behind the desk. Its the PC case and hell yeah its finally on. He shrugged off and went away, so i continue staring the pc monitor. This time its billing that show how much hour that I was gonna spend. One hour was enough since I dont bring any much money.
And then... here the time. My first experience using PC and still confused how to connect it into Internet. All I saw were some icons and that iconic green fields. Confused again, i went back to operator asking him how to open the Internet. This time, he look piss off because i knew that i disturbed his typing session. So he went into my box and innocently I asked him to show me the way. He just said, you open this "e" icon by clicking and then type www.yahoo.com, and that... you are finally on the internet, kid!
So, my friend that told my his experience using internet gave me some list of websites that i must input to see on this "e" window. I remember that two sites that he wrote in a piece of paper that i was holding now. One is mystery and spooky website where I can see ghost sightings in photos and the another one is just humour website with funny picture that were hardly considered as dankest internet meme today and also short jokes writing.
Wait Qori, thats it? How about you being honest... you were curious right? No that "educational" website that you friend bragged about? This is experience is bullshit if you dont browse that web.
Well actually, I was curious too... he mentioned some website where he saw human do human things and its called pornography. I wasnt brave enough to write the web adress and also... he said I can get more pc viruses that will broke the computer in freeze. Anyway... my billing time was expensive enought to continue, so I had no idea to turn of the Internet. So, I unplug the PC cable to shut down and ran over anxiously toward the operator.