Editing 2667: First Internet Interaction

{{comic
| number    = 2667
| date      = September 2, 2022
| title     = First Internet Interaction
| image     = first_internet_interaction.png
| titletext = To that stranger on the KOOL Tree House chat room, I gotta hand it to you: You were, ultimately, not wrong.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by AN AMERICAN IDIOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In this comic, [[Cueball]], very likely as an autobiographical representation of [[Randall]], describes to [[Megan]] the first time he interacted with a group of people unknown to him over the internet; in an {{w|AOL|AOL}} chat room for children called the "KOOL Tree House chat room" in 1993, when Randall was about nine years old. He read a discussion about {{w|Green Day}}, asked who they are, and was told that not knowing was a serious problem. As Megan says, judging people for lack of pop culture knowledge has remained typical online behavior. 

Green Day is an American rock band formed in the East Bay of California in 1987.  In 1993, they were still known merely as an independent punk band, and a year away from releasing their major-label debut album ''{{w|Dookie}}'', their first mainstream success. Anyone, especially a nine year-old, not recognizing the band in 1993 would be perfectly normal. After 1993, Green Day would go on to be a widely popular and influential rock band with many acclaimed albums.

This initial online social interaction was a significant formative experience for Cueball, molding his online behavior ever since, in that it still causes him to consider his correspondents' perspectives when communicating. The social dynamics at play are reminiscent of the mathematics of others' perspectives described in [[1053: Ten Thousand]]. Relating the personal experience of an oversized effect from a casual insult is humorous, because the extent to which early experiences affect people can be both ironic and profound.

The title text indicates Randall agrees with the reply to the question, suggesting he believes the band is important culturally. Randall probably subsequently became a Green Day fan, or at least acquired more than a passing knowledge of their {{w|œuvre}}, recently mentioning their song "{{w|American Idiot (song)|American Idiot}}" in [[2665: America Songs]].

=== Possible subcontext ===
The comic could conceivably humorously compare modern search autocomplete (such as when you type "who is gr" into Google and it gives you suggestions such as "who is grindelwald," "who is grimes," and "who is gru's dad") by comparing it to the slowness of communicating in a chat room using a dial-up modem. A kid in 1993 would probably have a 2400 to 9600 bps modem (14.4 kbps and 19.2 kbps modems were available but expensive). The joke is that [[Cueball]] was slowly typing on a slow modem when another chat room user jumped in and "autocompleted" his question before he could finish it. 

This couldn't actually happen, since AOL chat room messages were transmitted a line at a time, rather than a character at a time, but Randall could be taking liberties to make such a joke.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Four panels depicting a conversation between Megan and Cueball]

:[First panel, Megan and Cueball talking]
:Cueball: You know,
:Cueball: I remember the first thing anybody ever said to me on the internet.
:Megan: Yeah?

:[Second panel, part-height to accomodate Cueball's narration above and the memory of a scene below that features 'Young Cueball', with a mop-head of hair, knelt atop a chair to use a computer with CRT and keyboard on the desk, cabled down into a floor-standing minitower case below]
:Cueball (narrative): I was in an AOL Kids chat room in 1993.
:Cueball (narrative): People there kept using a name I didn't recognise.
:Cueball (narrative): After a while I asked what it was.
:Young Cueball (via the use of the keyboard): W... H... O... &nbsp;I... S... &nbsp;G... R...

:[Third panel, close-up of Cueball's adult head, continuing the framing conversation]
:Cueball: Someone replied.
:Cueball: "If you don't know who Green Day is, you have a serious problem."
:Cueball: And that was it. My first virtual interaction.

:[Fourth panel, continuing the conversation, Megan and Cueball now seen walking rightwards as they speak]
:Megan: In some ways, the Internet has changed surprisingly little in the last 30 years.
:Cueball: Every time I reply to someone, I think
:Cueball: What if this is their Green Day moment?

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]] <!-- Includes flashback to a Young Cueball -->
<!-- Can't currently see an equivalent Cat for YC's presence, but do you know better? -->
<!-- NB, won't be "...featuring multiple Cueballs". It's technically the same one! -->
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]