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Better Than IRL: True Stories About Finding Your People on the Untamed Internet
There once was a time when the internet felt better than IRL.
There once was a time when you could start a blog post with “Dear Magic Hotel” and find a couch to crash on in a town where you didn’t otherwise know anyone.
A time when you could find a place to put the writing that was too personal to print out for your writing group to critique. Which was great, even if you suddenly realised a lot of people were reading about you losing your virginity.
It was the good ol’ days of tweet-ups and meeting fellow nerds and wine lovers. It was a time when the internet meant never having to drink alone.
It was a time when you, a shy and unpopular kid, grew to be relaxed in your own skin and discovered you were famous on the internet, maybe because you got stuck in a hole with your dog and then Twitter had to save you.
It was a time when you could find friends who shared your passion for Digimon, no matter where in the world they were located.
When we felt disconnected or neglected by our partners, during this time we could have friends halfway across the world reach their digital arms around us as we cried.
There once was a time when the internet felt better than IRL. This book is about that time.
Better Than IRL will be a collection of true stories written by people who fostered connection and sharing on the internet. True stories like the ones above, which will all be included in the collection. The book will be personal and hopeful. It won't be nostalgic moaning about how the internet isn't what it once was—it will discuss how it made us into who we are now and how we can take the lessons we learned about inclusion and belonging to be better people going forward. With talented authors from Canada, South Africa, Pakistan, USA, Singapore, UK, and Liberia, the book covers a wide array of experiences with the beginnings of the Web 2.0.
There once was a time when you could start a blog post with “Dear Magic Hotel” and find a couch to crash on in a town where you didn’t otherwise know anyone.
A time when you could find a place to put the writing that was too personal to print out for your writing group to critique. Which was great, even if you suddenly realised a lot of people were reading about you losing your virginity.
It was the good ol’ days of tweet-ups and meeting fellow nerds and wine lovers. It was a time when the internet meant never having to drink alone.
It was a time when you, a shy and unpopular kid, grew to be relaxed in your own skin and discovered you were famous on the internet, maybe because you got stuck in a hole with your dog and then Twitter had to save you.
It was a time when you could find friends who shared your passion for Digimon, no matter where in the world they were located.
When we felt disconnected or neglected by our partners, during this time we could have friends halfway across the world reach their digital arms around us as we cried.
There once was a time when the internet felt better than IRL. This book is about that time.
Better Than IRL will be a collection of true stories written by people who fostered connection and sharing on the internet. True stories like the ones above, which will all be included in the collection. The book will be personal and hopeful. It won't be nostalgic moaning about how the internet isn't what it once was—it will discuss how it made us into who we are now and how we can take the lessons we learned about inclusion and belonging to be better people going forward. With talented authors from Canada, South Africa, Pakistan, USA, Singapore, UK, and Liberia, the book covers a wide array of experiences with the beginnings of the Web 2.0.
278 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2020
11 people are currently reading
182 people want to read
About the author
Katie West
3 books76 followersHello! I was the owner of Fiction & Feeling publishing company; I am now an editor, writer, and sex worker.
http://fictionandfeeling.com
http://therealkatiewest.com
http://fictionandfeeling.com
http://therealkatiewest.com
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 3, 2020
Uhhhh my essay is in this! But it's also a great book full of amazing writing.
April 22, 2020
Compared to most of the contributions to this collection, my own interactions with people on the pre-social media internet were quite basic, but this still kindled a warm glow of nostalgia in me for those late 90s, early 2000s days. The pieces are wide-ranging; geographically, in terms of style and tone, and in terms of how these people used the internet to find solace, soul mates and fulfilment through various communites.
There are some dark and distressing pieces here (hence the trigger warnings at the start of the book), but the overwhelming feelings are gratitude, warmth and acceptance. The kind of book that, in these days of bot bullies and toxic trolls, restores your faith in people.
There are some dark and distressing pieces here (hence the trigger warnings at the start of the book), but the overwhelming feelings are gratitude, warmth and acceptance. The kind of book that, in these days of bot bullies and toxic trolls, restores your faith in people.
February 20, 2020
I've basically been reading this all day instead of doing work and I've laughed and teared-up and it is something very special.
May 10, 2020
I backed this on Kickstarter! I'm infamously bad at reviewing anthologies, so suffice it to say that I had a good time. Favorites include the Pyjarmy by Erica Buist, Sommy by Ryan North (who's participation introduced me to the project in the first place), I was Valkyrie by Jessica Val Ang, and probably #1 is The Restaurant at the End of the Internet by Andy Connor. I love reading about the internet, and it's super cool to read stories from just a few years before my introduction to the World Wide Web from people who had a completely different experience than I did.
4/5 stars
4/5 stars
May 3, 2020
For me it's a 5* - I started going online in 1998/1999 using Netscape & a dial up connection I saved change to pay for. I made an internet friend through a Due South fansite, built my witchcraft knowledge & in 2000/2001 developed an unhealthy love of Neopets (which had for some reason a free text message service in it??). I'm not sure those much younger would enjoy as much. But for those of us of a certain age it's a look back at what was, & what can be occasionally again.
March 20, 2020
you know when you wait forever for a book to come out, totally sure it’s going to be right up your alley, and you end up only really liking 1-2 passages from it? that was me, reading this.
August 11, 2020
Reading this book was incredibly moving. The aptly chosen essays managed to cover a myriad of experiences from different social, geographical and generational contexts, many of which had a direct impact in the identity formation of their writers, which made reading their blurbs at the end of the collection so special! I felt like I had met their younger selves and now saw all these brilliant kids turn into amazing people doing incredible things.
The experiences recounted in these essays resonated deeply within me, and often seemed to mirror my own. I felt many excerpts ring true to my own experience, and it was very emotional feeling part of this community once again, especially in an analysis in retrospect, because it prompted me to reminiscence. I too found my people on the untamed internet in a simpler time and it too changed me and helped me become the version of myself I aspired to. I too was a kid looking for myself and needing a setting where I could experiment with my identities, all messy and loud and enthusiastic and uncivilised. Finding like-minded people (who went on to become my best friends) helped me reconcile these identities with my IRL self and made me the person I am now. Reading Better than IRL brought to the fore memories and nostalgia, but it also helped me reconstruct this process.
I am so grateful to Katie West and Jasmine Elliott, to the contributors, and to everybody who, like me, pitched in, for making this book possible, for making our experiences visible, and with that, leaving for posterity an account of the role the internet had in making us who we are. Thank you.
The experiences recounted in these essays resonated deeply within me, and often seemed to mirror my own. I felt many excerpts ring true to my own experience, and it was very emotional feeling part of this community once again, especially in an analysis in retrospect, because it prompted me to reminiscence. I too found my people on the untamed internet in a simpler time and it too changed me and helped me become the version of myself I aspired to. I too was a kid looking for myself and needing a setting where I could experiment with my identities, all messy and loud and enthusiastic and uncivilised. Finding like-minded people (who went on to become my best friends) helped me reconcile these identities with my IRL self and made me the person I am now. Reading Better than IRL brought to the fore memories and nostalgia, but it also helped me reconstruct this process.
I am so grateful to Katie West and Jasmine Elliott, to the contributors, and to everybody who, like me, pitched in, for making this book possible, for making our experiences visible, and with that, leaving for posterity an account of the role the internet had in making us who we are. Thank you.
March 30, 2022
This book was an intense roller coaster of emotions that I honestly didn't expect when I Kickstarted it. When I first saw this on Kickstarter, I was incredibly excited, thinking it would be a lighthearted, nostalgic look back at the world I had my formative years in (ages 9-17 - a bit younger than most of the people when they had the experiences in the book, but still very resonant with me).
However the book was a lot more emotionally intense than I had thought it would be initially, and even though I received it in early 2020, I only finished the last essay in it in March 2022. It took me two years to read because almost every story was like a gut punch in a way I just had not prepared myself for, and it wasn't until halfway through that I just started to assume every story would involve intense themes such as death, physical illness, child abuse, mental illness, etc etc. (Not all of them did - just many of them!) Therefore, I really had to be in the right headspace to read the book, which, as you can imagine, during 2020-2022, was not the easiest to be in. But I am so glad that I did finish it.
The core of the book involving the internet as a lifeline or space of respite tied it all together, and the essays were all brilliantly written and then chosen/edited in a way that reflected the theme. I appreciated how varied the experiences were - for example, I hadn't known about some of the spaces mentioned in it (I had mostly stuck to my little corners of the internet such as Neopets, ff.net, and GaiaOnline).
It felt like getting to know friends I had lost contact with during those years of the untamed internet, and their commentary on the current internet resonated so much with me. I would strongly recommend this book not just for people who also were on the internet at this time, but also any GenZ readers who might want to see what the experiences were back then on the internet. I just suggest you be in the right headspace- it's not a light read, but a read that's very worth the emotional investment.
(This review was also posted to other review sites.)
However the book was a lot more emotionally intense than I had thought it would be initially, and even though I received it in early 2020, I only finished the last essay in it in March 2022. It took me two years to read because almost every story was like a gut punch in a way I just had not prepared myself for, and it wasn't until halfway through that I just started to assume every story would involve intense themes such as death, physical illness, child abuse, mental illness, etc etc. (Not all of them did - just many of them!) Therefore, I really had to be in the right headspace to read the book, which, as you can imagine, during 2020-2022, was not the easiest to be in. But I am so glad that I did finish it.
The core of the book involving the internet as a lifeline or space of respite tied it all together, and the essays were all brilliantly written and then chosen/edited in a way that reflected the theme. I appreciated how varied the experiences were - for example, I hadn't known about some of the spaces mentioned in it (I had mostly stuck to my little corners of the internet such as Neopets, ff.net, and GaiaOnline).
It felt like getting to know friends I had lost contact with during those years of the untamed internet, and their commentary on the current internet resonated so much with me. I would strongly recommend this book not just for people who also were on the internet at this time, but also any GenZ readers who might want to see what the experiences were back then on the internet. I just suggest you be in the right headspace- it's not a light read, but a read that's very worth the emotional investment.
(This review was also posted to other review sites.)
June 25, 2024
Well reading this took me long enough! I had originally submitted a story to this to be included in the book and also backed it on Kickstarter back when I did not really have the money to do so. I got it during the pandemic but due to reviewing other books and comics I had put it aside and not started reading it again until this year. Not sure why as I had almost finished it at the point where I put it aside.
For people who were not on the internet in the "early days" of it there is a good insight in how these early communities developed. Last year I managed to get the mods on the Civfanatics forums to merge my account I created in 2002 for CIV III with the one I made in 2017 when CIV VI came out. I immediately went and posted on some of my old threads which amused some people but not the mods.
My submission was about an internet-only band called Interrobang Cartel that had dozens of members and often competing lyrics and different versions of the same song. I wish I had kept the email from the person who wrote Keating! the musical saying they were "working on something" that turned out to be that musical, I would have hung it on me wall!
If you can get a copy of this book even in e-book form it is well worth checking out.
For people who were not on the internet in the "early days" of it there is a good insight in how these early communities developed. Last year I managed to get the mods on the Civfanatics forums to merge my account I created in 2002 for CIV III with the one I made in 2017 when CIV VI came out. I immediately went and posted on some of my old threads which amused some people but not the mods.
My submission was about an internet-only band called Interrobang Cartel that had dozens of members and often competing lyrics and different versions of the same song. I wish I had kept the email from the person who wrote Keating! the musical saying they were "working on something" that turned out to be that musical, I would have hung it on me wall!
If you can get a copy of this book even in e-book form it is well worth checking out.
April 1, 2021
I helped kickstart this! A lovely collection of memoir-essays by a diverse bunch of writers, with stories ranging from falling in love over LiveJournal to processing childhood abuse through the lifeline of online friendship. Some of the pieces are more relatable to my own experience than others, but they're all told with a warm and wistful tone. A recurring theme throughout, as highlighted in the introduction: in some ways, we didn't know how good we had it, before Everyone got online. So there's a bittersweet quality to this book, especially reading it after a year of isolation where socialising online has been the only form of connection many of us can access.
February 2, 2024
I'm so glad I backed this on Kickstarter back in 2019, and so glad I finally read it! I loved the variety of experiences that all spoke to the same feeling of community and magic that existed in the early days of the internet. Reading these stories made me feel like I was back in 8th grade, spending hours on my family computer, chatting with my best friends on AIM late into the night and reading Cleolinda on LiveJournal. I really enjoyed this collection!
December 4, 2020
A lovely book. Made me nostalgic for the good old days of Livejournal and the friends and communities I had there in my 20s.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews