Dhriti Maharatna 15 - Me and That Damn Phone
I’ve always had unlimited access to the internet; there was no point in my life when I had to sneak online or ration screen time. I had the entire world at fingertips and for some reason I never used it for anything bad. I never clicked on any suspicious links or secret (illegal) downloads. Just CookieSwirlC, DanTDM, and a bunch of other nostalgic names I’m sure you all recognize. They were the first people from the internet I connected with and their videos sparked a lifelong obsession with video games,
Harmless YouTube videos snowballed into an actual addiction. The kind of addiction where I’ve had to stop myself from opening any of my previous haunts for the sake of getting any work done at all, especially after covid hit. In January of 2021, I used up almost all of my family’s sixty gigabytes of internet usage per month and for the last few days of the month we were all forbidden from using the internet for anything other than necessity. Me and my sister weren’t even allowed to attend “school” for a day. I had somehow consumed all of the internet.
Even though that period was frustrating and extremely embarrassing, I remember it fondly. Those memories maybe aren’t the best introduction to me as a person, but it’s true that they shaped me. Even now I flinch when people bring up Genshin Impact.
A lot of my memories were built in Roblox, which I have played the longest, mainly because it was free and the least captivating. I remember when Fashion Frenzy was the trendy dress-up games and when Royale High only had one campus. That era feels like a different world now—nostalgic and pixelated with slightly worse graphics. Yet, somehow, my best Roblox memories didn’t come from those early days. They have been from the past year.
There has been this weird little Roblox resurgence, which I think is thanks to Dress to Impress, which took over my screen, and many others’, last summer. Suddenly Roblox wasn’t just a quirky game from our childhood, it was a social hub. I spent my summer course at Cal Poly bonding with people over horror games, dress-up battles, and chaotic parkour maps. I came from long weeks of school to hop on call with friends and stay up until four in the morning playing random games we found on the front page. We even played during class sometimes (don’t tell anyone).
Video games, and Roblox in particular, may just be lines of code, but they are also memories. Not just mine, but shared ones, between me and the friends I stay up late laughing with, or the strangers I meet in game who leave weird but memorable impressions. And those memories are a part of me. Important memories don’t need to be grand or profound, sometimes they’re a goofy avatar design or repeated falls from the same jump in the obby you’ve been playing for the past hour (SOMEONE PLEASE HELP).
Hi Dhriti! I can totally relate to what you said about getting hooked onto the internet, as I went through that same phase when I got an iPad. I didn't quite have unlimited access like you did, but I still did spend my fair share of time on the internet. When I was little, I never really got into watching Youtubers like DanTDM but I still did enjoy Minecraft videos from other creators like Popularmmos. It's kind of crazy that you used almost all of the sixty gigabytes of internet in a month, as that is a lot of screen time to be had. You must've had some crazy hours on your devices or watched a lot of HD streaming, as I've never even come close to that amount of usage, even if I'm only using data. That idea of video games being more than just lines of code really struck close to home for me, as I've spent a lot of time playing games with my friends online. It really such a great way to connect even without having to be in person, as it makes interacting with one another so much more accessible and convenient. It's not to say it can replace spending time in person together, but to me, it's not a bad alternative at all.
ReplyDeleteHi Dhiti! I love Roblox, and I love you. Your blog was such a delight to read and so relatable. It was especially funny, as my blog was on a similar topic where I also mentioned Roblox. Like you, Youtube gamers and Roblox have been such an integral part of my life since I was younger. I’d spend hours and hours either watching someone play Roblox, or playing it myself… then getting yelled at for still playing instead of going to eat dinner. Your mention of your use of the internet during quarantine was hilarious; I can totally relate to being stuck online during that period of time (and cringing at Genshin Impact). Roblox is such a special game with so many memories. Classic games such as Fashion Frenzy or Royale High as you’ve mentioned are a thing of the past to the newer games coming out recently. Dress to Impress, the Mimic, and as of late a game called Dead Rails that I had the opportunity to play a few days ago. Roblox will always hold a unique place in my heart, and so will all the memories I have playing Barbie Dreamhouse with you after finishing our psych work.
ReplyDeleteHi Dhriti! Your blog is extremely relatable, as I also remember myself logging onto games like Animal Jam, watching YouTube channels like Sis vs. Bro, and watching Korean and Chinese dramas early in the mornings on the weekends before any of my family was awake and late at night after everyone was asleep. Although I was not as impressive as using up the sixty gigabytes of internet, my parents were quite upset at me whenever I spent too much time online for entertainment purposes, especially when I got distracted during online school in 2021. I also recall my obsession with Royale High on Roblox when my father first bought an iPad, and it got pretty bad before he hid the iPad and never told me where it was until three years after, making me lose my Roblox account forever. In a generation where we grew up with the internet, its quite natural for us to have some fond memories of using it. Of course, some of the times, we may be active too chronically, but now they are part of our nostalgic memories.
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