Reacting to a Very Vintage Blog: Episode 0: The Preview
Weird as it might seem, I've followed this blog in questions for years, as one of my main sources of schadenfreude, and let's be honest: some of it really is a car crash in slow motion you can't look away from. I'm not going to be putting direct links to it because the author can be, *ahem a tad volatile towards even the most benign constructive criticism. She also once spent ungodly amounts of time tracing which search terms led back to her "journal of randomness," Because it was once such serious business. So I'll be adding screenshots where appropriate and spelling things out so they don't link. The crashouts from this Gen-X-er border on legendary, and you'll see why shortly.
Start here and buckle up: w w w d o t g i v e n e y e s t o s e e d o t c o m / j o u r n a l / a r c h i v e 2 d o t h t m l
(Obvi replace dot with . )
Her blog intro from 2004 on:
Edit/slight backtrack: Ohhh Encyclopedia Dramatica, I love you for this!!! We might not agree on everything, but we do on this one! It took a bit of digging, but here's a great run-down on this lolcow who thinks going only by her first initial makes her totally anonymous online: https://edramatica.com/MemoryandDream
Seems like quite the pleasant charmer, doesn't she? Also: saying you don't want grow up and then snapping at others they need to do so is talking out both sides of your ass, IMHO. And who uses the word "tinkers" after about 1960? LOL
A few hot takes I'll be expanding on:
If any grown adult past the age of 21ish has "Growing up is overrated" in their bio, run. Now.
I'm dying to know how the sleuths at EDramatica found out her real first name. M's current social media handles are "May Turner" or some variant, but I trust the Dramatica netizens on this one.
Reading about Marisa's various (often self-inflicted) struggles presents a fascinating time capsule of life with the Internet/general computer tech in the early 2000s, when read through 2026 eyes.
I believe firmly in watershed moments, and we all have one that pivots our lives in a new direction. These can be very good or very bad. Marisa had one in June-July of 2001, and I'll be getting into this in much more detail.
The name of her blog comes from a Charles de Lint novel. I forget which one; I've read a few myself. They're pretty good but nothing earth-shattering. Some of these perpetually-online Gen X "Pagan" women had a very bizarre fixation on eyeballs around this time period. We all have them. We can all see out of them unless illness, injury, or unfortunate genetics prevent us from doing so. If its meant to be a metaphor, it's a laughably juvenile one.
Girlfriend has been with the same guy for over a quarter century now: the oft-mentioned "Love." Because a normal nickname just won't do. It reeks of co-dependency and constant self-delusion this is "a love that was more than love and a love for all ages that will last for all time blah blah more cringey poetic cringe" Dude looks dead inside in the "Redneck Wedding" photo on Dramatica LOL Living with her craziness 24/7 can't be easy. My man: no type or amount of sex is worth that much headache or hardship. Marisa must be holding something nuclear-level over his head to get him to stick around this long.
Finally, and this is the one that grinds my gears the most. Despite having only a high school education (a 1990s high school education at that), Marisa always fancied herself a computer technology genius. Yet through all the years of blogging, she never gets into specifics exactly what her skill set is. "Jack of all Trades" says a whole lot of nothing. Even so, she managed to get hired by several tech companies in those early years. Every one of those jobs spectacularly bombed. Do you know how lucky her ass was?! Probably 80% of those types of jobs are gone forever now. Outsourced to third-world countries or to AI. This will definitely get its own episode.
