When chatting became the craze sometime in the early Doc Martens revival years, I wanted to be a step up from the rest and tried porn chat. A child of Hefner and Flynt (got the truth about the birds and the bees through skin rags left lying around in study) I lapped up the scandale true confessions portion with the curious appetite of a scholar. Putting my education to good use, I clicked to some rinky-dink free site, a red light district version of a fourth-world country (so bad it doesn’t exist). Anyway, I logged in as Cynthia (no reason, just sounded mature at that time) and met my boyfriends (and girlfriends) for the hour. We all decided to get a little cliquish and create a "room" where all sorts of naked techie Delilah ensued.
I was asked to do many things Xerex would have blushed at. As high as my tolerance for nastiness is, I logged out being the first one to leave the party (which in real life never happens).
After my brush with the dark underbelly of the World Wide Web, I decided that I would stick to things that I wouldn’t be ashamed to appear in my history file (sites previously visited). So I reverted to the virtuous sites of Pagesix.com, Daily dish, Daily Candy, The Smoking Gun, Rotten and just recently, Gawker. An especially great hobby fit for the artful dodger who pretends to work but in reality is lapping up one thousand useless bits of info. If only I had the same dedication for useful things – oh, the possibilities!
Google and its arguably lesser counterparts is also a great tool for traveling around the web. Especially useful in looking up nemeses and potential hook-ups. You can search the file on your next victim, after all a little bit of info for a proactive lot is plenty. Tried and tested with a couple of blind dates. A dirty habit, of course, but an equally pleasurable one is indulging in the narcissistic exercise of searching yourself (oh, you will burn in google purgatory if you don’t admit to this!). For those who have not, try on your down time, see how many people have the same name as you or perhaps discover your place at the WWW. When I google mine, I find myself straddling between plastic surgery wonders Jennifer Lopez and Celine Dion. Perhaps this is as close as I can get to bling-bling land.
However, googling specifically enough can send you to the netherworld of delilahland. My friend Myrza Sison told me at the backstage of a fashion show while I was googling some beefy male models on my own, that there was a scandale blog with a faux me (how bad is that˜beyond Shenzhen) whipping out acerbic observations. Along with it were equally mordant revelations of myself like rhinoplasty (if I paid for my nose it would definitely not look like this), drinking alone (not quite Hemingway yet), bitchy comments about things found in a freebie bin (Do I look like I live in Conde Nast?), snuggling with Vic with a tub of Haagen Dazs on a quiet night (really now) and using the word shenanigan (I love my grandfather but I’m not him!). Some caring tips posted by fellow readers such as being a pseudo-celeb (fun people really), needing my boobs done (I agree), to sarcastic comments on my "writing" (sarcasm is my favorite trait) and stating that I had enough friends (friends are like shoes, you can never have too many for any occasion). All in all it was good fun (flattering even that I could spawn enough irritating agents to make someone do something like that!) except that the people who posted seemed to believe that it was really me. Even one friend who the Delilah faker insulted with the most dismal and banal of reasons for a moment thought I dissed her. That gave me a queasy feeling in my tummy that beat any Kankunis attack. I am a blogger too with my friend Luis Espiritu. I realize how easy it is to post something tres fakey as it doesn’t even ask verification of identity. Same with e-mails, someone can literally open an account under your name and send Delilah e-mails around the world using your identity.
Now, is that not truly scary? The Internet has introduced a whole new world for us. A world where virtual sometimes becomes real. Who knows where this will take us. Will it be something like the Jetsons and all of the human race will perpetually be in Paco Rabanne outfits or more like the Matrix in lots of Lang and Margiela to keep us warm with yummy but emotionally unavailable Neo to scam on. Stay connected!