What a world it is

when you can find David the Gnome on YouTube.

This discovery came about from a chatroom last night. I was never the "promiscuous" sort to participate in random chatrooms with potentially sketchy old men. I knew better than that. Why preteens think that sort of situation is okay is beyond me.

But three close cohorts and I were talking to each other simultaneously on AIM. We continually copied and pasted sections of conversations to each other. Finally, someone suggested that we all just chat together. We created our own chatroom, which echoed back to the days of, "Let's all discuss our crushes together!" in high school.

I'd forgotten, however, how quickly the conversation moves when it's more than an exchange between two people. It was as if we were together, sitting in a car trying to find something to do and making fun of each other all the while. I wondered why we'd never thought to do it before.

Then David the Gnome was found on YouTube. Clearly, someone out there was feeling nostalgic. We tend to think of "future things" as having flashing lights and frightening background music. But seemingly everything put on film, ever, is now being transferred to DVD and perhaps to the Internet, as well. In many ways, technology is not manifesting itself as something new and alien. It presents what we already know in a different format, such as connecting physically distant friends and, well, capturing children's shows from the late 80's.