The answer to the question, however, is quite simple-- Americans are stupid. Scientists continuously use fancy charts and statistics to prove how stupid we are, how much stupider we're becoming, and how we really need to give larger grants to science. For a while, people thought the Internet might be immune from stupidity, because Internet users were mostly *college students*, many of whom could actually read without moving their lips and add numbers without counting on their fingers (though the ability to spell still eludes them). However, in the late 1980s, a new kind of company was born-- the "Internet Servant Provider". For a small monthly fee, these companies would provide you with a college student, indentured to you, who would do your bidding on the Internet. Unfortunately, (and those of you who have hired college students know this), the companies folded when the students started making unreasonable demands for things like food and clean drinking water. After this came a time of experimentation, with the growth and decline of "Internet Service Dividers", "Internet Beverage Providers", "Interstate Sewage Divers", and even "Interfaith Truck Drivers", until someone, perhaps tired of all the silliness, came up with "Internet Service Provider".
The idea behind ISPs was simple, but dangerous. For the first time, people who were not in college were allowed access to the Internet. People who had never attended a college-level course, people who scored below 1200 on the SATs, even people *who had never even been to a toga party*, were suddenly allowed to interact with college students. Across the country, students protested having to mingle with their intellectual inferiors. At all-woman Vassar college, administrators lamented, "Our students will be exposed to dropouts, to criminals, to... common housewives". In a memorable act of defiance, fraternity Delta Zeta Alpha chugged 1,000 cans of beer to "protest this terrible lowering of intellectual standards."
Fate, however, was on the students' side. As more and more "normal people" started to access the Internet in the early 1990s, they realized something-- the Internet was HARD TO USE! Even worse, it didn't come with instructions! People who couldn't even program their VCRs were suddenly faced with TRN, MV, CP, EMACS-- even worse, they had to TYPE these things in manually, instead of "clicking" on a "menu" with a "mouse". The Internet had no cute background wallpaper... the Internet did not play your favorite WAV file at startup... the Internet did not crash every 5 minutes... Many people called up their ISPs and complained that the Internet was "broken", and that they wanted to return it. College students remained happy; not only was the Internet still theirs, but they had endless fun teasing "newbies" who complained "I keep clicking my mouse and nothing happens," to which they would helpfully suggest "try formatting your hard disk", or "try opening up your computer and pulling out some of the boards."
Then, one fateful morning, a student in a computer science class piped up, "Why don't we program an interface to the Internet that makes it easier to use?". He was expelled, of course, but managed to survive in the real world (an environment especially hostile to college students), by convincing ISPs that his idea would make them money. For the next few months, the student worked feverishly, optimizing his program for user-friendliness (another concept alien to most computer science students) and ease-of-use. There are some who question the "one student" theory. How could one student write a production-quality program in just a few months? Why would a *computer science* student care about usability? Why did his college allow him to escape with his life? While no one has yet come up with any final answers, some believe the student was actually an English major taking the computer science course under the guise of an "elective". Others believe the "student" was actually a disgruntled Internet user trying to infiltrate the inner circle. And still other sources link the "student" to the ISPs themselves.
Whatever the cause, the result was devastating. A simple, easy-to-use, click-oriented, Internet browser. Perhaps even the author knew the horror he had committed-- in a final act of attrition, he released the software for free, foiling those unknown forces who had planned to profit from it. He was never seen again; some think he was killed by those he foiled-- or worse, re-enrolled. The more optimistic and spiritual believe that his soul is the fiber of his creation-- there IS no click-and-point interface to the Internet-- merely the tireless effort of one trapped soul who constantly types in commands so that others will no longer have to. There is a name for the people who believe this; they are called "nutbars".
With the new influx of casual users to the Internet, college students started collecting information about themselves. For the most part, this was an exercise in futility. By definition, college students have no talent or useful abilities. Nonetheless, they feverishly gathered up pictures, stories, drawings their mothers put up on the fridge many years ago, and placed them in one central location. Thus was born "the home page", which sounded better than "stuff my Mom would've made you look at if you came over to our house when I was three". No one has, however, ever gone broke underestimating America's taste (which, I understand, is the new motto of the FOX network). Droves of people visited the first home pages, viewing pictures, reading diaries, secretly relieved that they didn't live anywhere NEAR these weirdos.
It would've stopped there, except some of the non-college students viewing these pages started asking themselves, "If college students can do it, why can't I?", instead of the more sensible "If college students do it, why would I want to?". The answer, of course, is that college students have more time, greater knowledge of computers, and are much better at publically making fools of themselves. This didn't stop the more determined (in the sense of "lacking key brain lobes") net browsers from creating their own home pages. Many of these home pages mention in BRIGHT BOLD LETTERS how very many non-computer interests the person has, placed there in a subtle attempt to convince us that, even though they've spent hundreds of hours surfing the net, and even though they've put up a homepage, they are *NOT* nerds with no lives.
So, the homepage revolution is upon us. From the lowly college student, to the high-paid executive, everyone now has or soon will have a homepage. Perhaps, in a future that comes upon us all too soon, people will invite you to their homepage instead of their homes-- give you email instead of a telephone call, and send you ASCII gifts (with looking-glass porters and marmalade trees... Lucy on the Web with a Homepage...). Homepages are 24-hour answering machines-- you no longer have to talk to me to find out all about me; just visit my homepage... it's quick, it's easy... and it's a hell of a lot more interesting than I am.
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