What year is this?
It's 2006.
Political tensions and anti-human speeches are at an all time high for the past three years; talks of recession, war, and famine imminent for everyone.
But who doesn't give a shit about all that? The kids who weren't terminally online.
The biggest concern in 2006 was if you had an Piczo website, if you're on Runescape or GaiaOnline, or "why did you block me online?"
Then there's the group of 15 or so tweens and teens that walk the road. A few dogs accompany them, some have bikes, and tons of laughter with a boombox and a CD skipping every now and again as "Without Me" blares for the third time in a row. Must be on loop.
Not a mobile phone in sight.
The neighbour's basketball hoop is being lined up to play King's Court, the hockey nets are set up in the road as other kids make sure to wave at the drivers while yelling "car!" to make way for the people coming home from work.
Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie is playing on DVD, while Kaiba has his dramatic flying a jet over the water scene.
The brother is on the couch nearby, playing Endless Online and chatting about what he's going to craft next and who he's going to party a quest with, before someone's in-game wedding at dinner time.
I'm right there, having the internet time of my life coding HTML/CSS/JS styles for websites and tools I've always wanted to make.
Wait, besides Bebo and Piczo being gone...this all happened yesterday and it's actually July 16, 2026.
What year is this, really?If we are still capable of living like this when the internet in our pockets...maybe we didn't lose that reality as completely as the algorithm keeps telling us we did.
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