The Web is a "lonely, cold, ice-gray place" says AOL's Ted Leonsis about America Online in the new book Digerati.
"First we have to build a sense of community, so that when you're in a site you know who else is in that site with you," Leonsis says. "Not only will you go into that site and come back for the camaraderie, but you will stay longer in that site than in other sites."
In the past week, I've seen firsthand the evolution of a Web community, and know for certain that the camaraderie Leonsis was talking about is occurring - although not by the method he's advocating.
Challenges, assaults, even oppressive legislation like the CDA (or the Stamp Act over 200 years ago) are often gifts to the people who suffer them, in that they tend to create instant, visible, sometimes even lasting manifestations of community. They tend to force people to define themselves by who they are - and aren't - by what they believe in, and how much they're willing to fight for it.
To be mail-bombed by an orchestrated, sometimes vicious campaign, as I was last week, is not, in the scheme of things, either heroic or historic. It is not remotely on the scale either of the Stamp Act or the CDA. Two computers of mine were damaged, and I was flooded for days by computer-generated letters, mail-replicating programs, email that spawned countless letters when opened and, apparently, some delayed-action viruses.
This isn't equatable with being hanged, shot, beaten, dragged out of one's house in handcuffs, hauled off to jail, or any of the many horrors and persecutions religious and political heretics and dissenters have been subjected to over the years.
Still, to be silenced as the result of one's opinions is transforming. In my case, it was unprecedented.
It was at first frightening, then reaffirming. I never felt better about which side of an issue I was on, and I learned very quickly that many of the people online have strong ties that bind them together.
New technology gave me the means to keep talking when I would have been out of business before. When one computer crashed, I got on another. When that crashed, I got on a third. I sent messages to friends to post on public sites like HotWired.
I answered every rational piece of email I got. I even answered a lot of the irrational ones. In the end, I didn't miss a column, change my email, or fail to speak up when I needed to. I have the Web's fluid, porous, and accessible machinery to thank for that. I was determined that they wouldn't actually shut me up, and they didn't.
What was most striking for me during the Wal-Mart dust-up was the clear realization that I was part of a distinct community, made up of remarkably diverse elements and opinionated elements - many of whom often and mercilessly differ with me - who nonetheless comprise a community in its most basic and literal sense.
When Wal-Mart cultists and fellow moral crusaders began mail-bombing me and shut me down, they had the completely unintended effect of galvanizing a group of people who often had little in common - but who cherish the new freedom they have to speak up and communicate freely.
The notion of a computer being attacked and silenced resonated across many different Web sites, mailing lists, and computer conferencing systems. It was an elemental assault, simple enough for everybody to relate to. From being a person under siege, I became overnight enveloped in a vast, supportive community rushing to support and protect me.
Cypherpunks urged me to keep going. Hackers offered to torment my tormenters. College students offered me their computers. Small business people driven out of their stores by Wal-Mart offered to share gruesome stories about the company's predatory practices if I needed them. Former Wal-Mart employees told me horror story after horror story of tapes, movies, album jackets being rejected by employees and managers, many of whom saw themselves as America's retail moral guardians.
Software designers asked if they could mole their way into my critics' mailing lists and find out exactly who they were. Gun owners bristled at my having been shut down, some willing to go kick some butt. Elderly quilters said they would stop buying their needles at Wal-Mart, not because they agreed with my column, but because the company needed to be taught a lesson if its supporters thought this was communicating, by gum.
Legions of teenagers long at war with Wal-Mart celebrated the idea that they weren't alone: "There's the story about the Goo Goo Dolls," emailed Randy. "They had an album called Boy Named Goo. ... It didn't make the Wal-Mart cut because of the cover art of a boy covered in gunky stuff, which Wal-Mart interpreted as child abuse."
Randy understood that the Goo Goo Dolls are a pretty tame lot, especially by contemporary music standards. But Wal-Mart doesn't. What could anybody write that could speak more powerfully to this issue than the story of the Goo Goo Dolls' cover never seen in Wal-Mart stores.
John wrote from the heart of Appalachia that he gave up shopping at K-Mart, which apparently follows guidelines similar to Wal-Mart's, "when I bought the Smashing Pumpkins 'Siamese Dream' CD at K-Mart, only to discover that they had required the removal of the song listing on the back. One of the songs is called 'silverfuck,' which is why it was gone...."
You're not alone, wrote countless emailers. Yell if you need help. In striking contrast to the mail-bombers, these responses were not orchestrated. No two letters used the same language. They were, in the best tradition of the Web, individualistic and idiosyncratic, which meant they were worth listening to. In the skeptical spirit of the Web, many supporters continued arguing with me about the Wal-Mart columns even as they rushed to let me know they were there if I needed them and decried the assault on my computer.
By the time you read this column, my own Web life, The Netizen, and its public spaces will have returned to their fractious, skeptical, and quarrelsome natures. So they should. None of us can take all this warmth for too long.
But for a few days, I was snug in the middle of the digital womb, at the head of a vast army, as distinct a community as ever existed. We could have taken out any Wal-Mart store we wanted, hacked any fanatic mailing list into the next century, sent any politician scurrying for cover.
You may or may not ever require it in the course of your life on the Web, but accept this if you accept nothing else: That community is out there if you need it.
