My first forays online came in, I think, late 1988 or early ’89. I was post-college by a year or two, living at home, working retail, and writing on the side—record reviews, mostly, but occasional other gigs, too. “Social media,” to me, meant trading mixtapes with customers at the new-fangled CD store I managed.
One late Saturday, while my mother was away attending a work-related conference, I arrived home to find my dad, no doubt sipping his favored scotch and water, in the dining room with several new additions to the decor: a tower computer, bulky monitor and dot-matrix printer on a computer desk. I forget all the specs but one: the whole shebang, which he bought at Sears, cost in excess of $3000. (It’s why he waited until my mom was away to buy it!) “Look at this,” he said, tapping on the keys until gurgled shrieks streamed from something called a “modem.” He pulled up the online service known as Prodigy and…
I’d like to say the rest is history. In truth, however, I was less than impressed. I remember signing on a few times over the next few weeks and browsing the (what else?) music-related message boards, which Prodigy relegated to the teens section of its service, and being bored by the nonsense. (Grown-ups, apparently, didn’t discuss rock ’n’ roll!)
When next I logged on, in late 1991, both a lot and little had changed. Diane and I were living together by then and, with input from my dad, had purchased a computer of our own; Prodigy proved to be an easy way to stay connected with family and friends alike—provided they also subscribed, that is. As important to me: the music boards were no longer just for teens. Trading concert/bootleg tapes became quite common.
Being online wasn’t a continual thing—an hour here, 30 minutes there. That remained true when, mid-decade, we traded Prodigy for the stand-alone Internet and, not long after, I launched the original Old Grey Cat website on GeoCities (aka the era’s WordPress). To comment on a post meant emailing me at the same Yahoo address I use now (see my About page for that) or leaving a message in the “guest book.”
The ’90 and ‘00s also found email groups and online forums becoming quite common; I belonged to quite a few, at least, including the Rust List, Lee Shore, Nanci Net, and Little Diva communities, plus ones about Steve Earle, Bruce Springsteen and Natalie Merchant. Others, too. I left most behind by the mid-2000s, however. They became hotbeds of pettiness, with intra-group politics the topic du jour most days. Then, in 2008, at the behest of my mother, I joined Facebook, where I connected with workmates, old pals, and even strangers. Much as with the email groups, good times were had by most in the early going. Then annoyance set in. (At one point, and I’m not making this up, a family member unfriended Diane, who’s a staunch progressive, and then took umbrage with me when I did the same to her. I mean, seriously?!)
Flash forward to the present and both a lot and little has changed. I’m on Facebook, though I don’t share much anymore, as well as Threads, Instagram, and BlueSky. I primarily post about music and entertainment, when I post at all, but my liberal bent does come out every so often. I also share links to this, the second iteration of the Old Grey Cat…and, some days, scroll, scroll, scroll. In many respects, I think, social media has become the equivalent of a high-school cafeteria, with cliques and claques everywhere. The drama annoyed me then and still annoys me. As a result, I don’t go out of my way to follow everyone, just those who interest me.
Anyway, over on BlueSky I’m on Day 18 of a 30-day “covers” challenge that I decided to limit to one artist: Maria McKee. Tomorrow’s entry will be this, her dramatic take on Bruce Springsteen’s “Candy’s Room.”
The Old Grey Cat 
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