As bleak, frightening and all-around life-ruining as the internet has proven itself to be, there was a time not long ago when the World Wide Web felt like a portal, not a black hole. I still recall the promise of new-millennium digital iconography, when knowledge fused with access, and posters with images of kids surfing on textbooks down the information superhighway adorned school computer rooms. Getting to “go on the computer” was an opportunity for entertainment, yes, but it was also a chance to learn in a fun, controlled environment. The internet was safe. The internet had something to teach us. It was the new frontier of learning and community — until it wasn’t.
A formative introduction to the internet’s tenuous rules for engagement happened when I was 13. (Have no fear: This is not a horror story. ) Let loose on the internet for a few hours every night after completing my homework, I flew to the “Cloverfield” message boards on IMDb, where all of my best, most sagacious friends like Clover_Believer and user152154 were waiting for me. We’d spend our days going about our regular lives and, in our evenings, put our heads together to speculate on the latest theories in the alternate reality game — ARG, for the uninitiated — that preceded the 2008 creature feature. “Cloverfield” made a splash in theaters over the previous summer, when a teaser trailer with only a January release date and no title appeared before the first “Transformers” movie, sending nerds running to their bulky desktop workspaces.
