OneWebDay

Recently, the writer & photographer Kristen Duncan Williams sent us the following piece about what the Internet means to her. It’s a great look at how the Internet has changed one person’s life, and perhaps we can all use this as a jumping-off point to think about how the Net has changed our lives.

"THE INTERNET: SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL"

By Kristen Duncan Williams

I am far cooler online than I am in person—thanks to the Internet. In person, I am fairly shy and boring. On the Internet, I am a big loudmouth show-off that spews out my creativity via any venue that gives me a username and password. Some examples of this can be found on my blog (named "More than Donuts"), my Flickr account, my Fotolog and my Vimeo.

The Internet has done wonders for my life while at the same time led me to interesting, strange, complicated, celebratory and unpredicted situations. I’ve broken these down into five categories to show you exactly what I mean: Friends / Strangers; Special Events; Venting / Apologies; and Contests.

FRIENDS / STRANGERS

Prior to my life with Internet I didn’t have a ton of friends. Before you think that I’m a total loser, I should clarify: I did not have many friends that shared my interest in writing and photography. Thanks to the Internet and the various places to put myself out there creatively, my world has expanded. Now I can read comments on my writing or photography from people in Mexico to Melbourne. Regardless the feedback has just been incredibly helpful and encouraged me to write and take photos more just knowing that someone out there is actually ‘watching’.

I’ve been inspired by a ton of great people via the Internet but here are a few:

• Eliot – http://www.slower.net
• Momo – http://www.momofreaksout.com/
• Lockhart – http://www.curbed.com/
• Heather – http://www.hchamp.com/
• Jen – http://www.jenbekman.com/
• David – http://lightningfield.com/
• Raul – http://www.mexicanpictures.com/headingeast/
• Rion – http://www.mikeandrion.com/

SPECIAL EVENTS

One year ago my husband asked me to marry him on a rainy day in a cabin in Maine. Exploding with excitement and limited means of communication in the cabin, we took to spreading the news via the Internet much to the excitement and shock of our friends and family. My now-husband posted a photo of the ring on my hand. The news spread like wildfire.

This was our engagement picture.

Fast forward to our wedding. We met a digital photographer named Keith on-line, and he became our wedding photographer. He did an amazing job and it was fun to post the wedding photos to an online blog world for all to see. How often can you share your wedding album with thousands of people?

This is us after our wedding.

VENTING / APOLOGIES

Venting frustration or making an apology in person can be difficult. Thanks to the Internet it’s provided a venue for so many people to do so without having to be there to see the results. Good or bad.

Around four years ago I was let go from a job without warning just days before attending a friend’s wedding in Spain. While the situation severely shook me up and was a total shock, I had the great fortune of posting some therapeutic means of processing the situation via my blog by writing fake postcards to my old boss while in Spain. Here is an example of one:

"Dear Old Boss, Hola from Spain! Thank you for firing me two days before my vacation and sending me abroad without health care. I can hardly decide how to spend the half of one week’s severance that you gave me. It’s really too bad you and your surface oriented wife aren’t here to enjoy the views. I really miss her endless stories of ’spin class’ and ’sample sales’ and your stories of ’snowboarding’. However, I don’t think you’d like where we are staying much. It’s an old castle converted into a hotel overlooking the mountains – but it doesn’t get MTV. We have to read a lot instead. I know you’d hate it seeing as I’ve heard you say several times as President of the company in our morning staff meetings how ‘books are lame’ and that the reason you don’t read the newspaper is because it ‘makes your hands dirty’.

Adios for now!

K"

It’s sometimes good to vent. It’s even better when the whole world is watching.

*****

Sometimes when I take a photo of a person on the street and post it online, it never crosses my mind that this photo-much less this person-will come back to me. Until last year. When it/they did.

Last year I took a photo of the back of a woman’s tattooed legs. I posted the photo on the Internet and no sooner did I get an email from that women’s best friend. I mean really…what are the chances! : "Hi – I saw a photo of one of my best friends on your Fotolog and recently showed it to her and posted a story about it on my site today. I think you might find it interesting. You can read it HERE. -C"

*****

I’ve never quite had the words to say I’m sorry to my favorite male flute teacher as a child so used my blog to really let it out: "Dear Mr. S, My Male Flute Teacher From When I Was A Kid: I’m sorry I was always ALWAYS late for flute lessons. I’m sorry for all the times I would show up for flute lessons…without my flute and would have to use your spare often right after eating a sticky Jolly Rancher or something equally as horrible. I’m sorry I was a child spaz. I’m sorry that sometimes I would ride my bike to your house with my flute and a loose check (sorry Mom) in the basket of my bike, the weight of my flute holding down the check but then the check would blow away out of the basket without… "

You can read the rest here.

CONTESTS

Remember being a kid and writing in for a contest, hoping to win a prize? I wanted to recreate this scenario on the Internet.

Despite my limited artistic skills, I held a postcard drawing contest on my blog. I asked people to email me their address if they wanted me to send them a hand drawn postcard. What started off as a small idea turned into something huge. Thanks to the vastness of the Internet and my blog exposure I got postcard requests from: Arizona, Alabama, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, the Virgin Islands, Washington, Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, and Taiwan. 41 postcards in total, sent to the four corners of the world.

What’s even cooler is that people posted their postcards for me to see once they arrived.

http://whatisee.org/mt/archives/entries/000554.html

http://fatoualaire.blogspot.com/2005/01/time-to-make-donuts.html

http://www.fotolog.com/vplus/?photo_id=8225734

CONCLUSION

Let’s face it. The Internet is a big place but regardless I am still always surprised at how small my world is. Just the other day a guy tapped me on the shoulder while I was reading my morning paper.

Me: Yes?

Him: Um…excuse me…are you…More Than Donuts?

Me: Why yes. Yes I am.

Kristen Duncan Williams is a TV Writer/Producer and freelance writer. If she wasn’t so distracted by the Internet via her blog, Flickr, Fotolog and Vimeo she might actually do something creatively productive with her life. Kristen lives in Brooklyn with her husband/photographer Eliot Shepard and their cat Jane.