I'm officially an "Advanced Blogger."

I read an article in People magazine a few days ago about how the internet, specifically IM’s, are the new form of “bullying.” Kids are transferring schools, getting psychological help, and living miserable lives because of this thing called an instant message. Parents are worried because before IM’s, when a kid gets made fun of at school, they can at least come home to a “safe” place. But now, they come home, log online, and bam, they are bombarded with IM’s that involve threatening and teasing.

But here is the thing. I own a laptop, and I use the internet, but I didn’t even have a screen name, or should I say “sn” (that’s how cool people type it) until a few days ago. However, Mac has thing called ichat. It’s like IM-but better, because it’s made by Apple. So here I am, convinced things like ichat just weren’t my thing. And then I read this article in People, basically stating internet chatting was set up by Satan himself. And we all know, that People is a fairly reliable source. And by that I mean, it at least has to be better than Star and Us Weekly.

Okay. So, I read the article…a few hours later I am sitting in my university’s design building, and I decide to log onto ichat. I log on, and instantly I see a ton of people I know in my rendezvous window (rendezvous is Apple’s way of saying, here is everyone who has a Mac and is on ichat in the building you are currently in). I start getting a few messages from people… and it’s really fun. It turns out I can do this whenever I want too, great-I now have something to do in class. So here I am, making friends (this doesn’t happen often), and not listening to things that I might need to know later. For example, the lecture on the chapters I didn’t read the night before. This thing couldn’t get any better, right?

And then wham! pow! bang! they do. I’m sitting in a coffee shop with a friend, I remember how I desperately-let’s remember I never exaggerate-need to tell her something about the guy behind me. I tell her to log onto ichat, and she-being as cool as I am-initially says, no way jose, I’m way too good for that. Luckily I’m basically a persuasion genius, meaning-my close friends like to call me Persway Shea (refer to crapples.blogspot.com, for further fun on name rhyming, and that’s right, I’m alluding to another blog, this is what I like to call advanced blogging) and get her on rendezvous in a matter of seconds. I fill her in on what couldn’t wait, and then we both realize that we can say whatever we want, and no one will hear us talking.

So when the girl who hates us both, and it’s one of those mutual feeling relationships, walks in the door, instead of looking at each other, and one of us saying, “Hey, you’re favorite person is here.” One of us can type “Hey that girl we hate just walked in, not only is her shirt lame, but it looks like she is walking over to talk to us, let’s try to look busy.” Now this could never happen out loud, someone would hear us, or the worst scenario, she might hear us.

I guess my point is, I think People magazine is looking at online chatting the wrong way. It actually saves people’s feelings, I mean, yeah, there is a small possibility someone could send me a mean message, but that is what the little “x” in the corner is for. It seems like for the most part, it allows people to be happy. Everyone can now indulge in malicious gossip, without the fear of being over heard. Not only that, but when you are the one being gossiped about, you probably won’t ever find out. Take that People magazine.