In 1994 as a toddler I saw my first computer. A guy that was friends with my dad had one. What a strange device. You could play chess on it. I so vividly remember it.
Then, I was homeschooled and in 1998 got my first at home computer with internet. I would spend hours each day on the computer. My childhood memories are of browsing the internet, practicing typing on a canoe game, begging someone to host my site on their domain, learning HTML, having an internet boyfriend, playing on Neopets, creating websites, writing in my blog on blogger, playing JavaScript games, discussing web design strategies with online female friends, and creating vector art in paint shop pro.
Once I entered public high school in 2003 I dropped all sense of designing, computer learning, and so on. I had this idea that girls were not allowed to be software engineers or know anything about computers. Instead, I would hang out with the tech lab geeks at school, and not tell them what I understood. They would boast to me about what they knew. I was the only girl in the group.
I used LimeWire, nexopia, and MSN on the daily. I played SIMs on my computer. I had my first cat fish interact with me, an embarrassing impact of grief and pain over a person that did not exist that I felt I could tell nobody about. I had pen pals from online. I admired the guys allowed to learn about technology. I focused on my beauty.
After high school, in my 20s, I would go on to date software engineers and hackers, not telling them what I understood when they would talk about their skills or solve computer problems for me. I resented how little they understood about what it cost to be a girl. A woman. As social media crept deeper and deeper into my life, filtering this and that, I grew further disconnected from the whimsical joy I once felt for online. If it wasn’t Facebook official, was it even real?
In 2017 I was introduced to cryptocurrency and blockchains by a female friend and the concept of decentralization. It was my first entry into learning about a world not controlled by one authority.
In 2020 I began working online. Navigating what I could, learning about reddit, camming, clip sites, twitter, and numerous other internet worlds I had never explored. I had only had a Facebook and Instagram account. What were all these other platforms? But I had a newborn baby in need of food, and delulu confidence in my ability to learn fast. In 2021, I met Bee through a coaching group. I respected her ability to spot patterns early and her curiousity around emerging platforms. I enjoyed that she was one of the only women I knew that was into coding and web development. So when she mentioned Bluesky in 2023, still invite-only at the time, I paid attention. I took one of her invite codes and explored it for myself. I figured if she was spending her time on it, it was worth me taking a moment to look at it as well.
It clicked immediately.
Bluesky feels like a bridge between the early internet I grew up in and something new. The AT Protocol brings back a sense of openness, ownership, and freedom that’s been missing for a long time. Especially for those of us who’ve experienced heavy censorship on centralized platforms. A place, for the women, for all of us. Not just the boys club.
I’ve spent years missing what the internet used to feel like. AT protocol feels like a step back toward that, and forward into something better.
Bluesky to me is a place where I do not feel punished to be myself. My whole self.
xoxo Chloe 🌸
