Short Cuts: Episode I 
Love and War in Cyberspace
Brandon and Denise were not like other people. They were smarter, more introverted. They adored computers.
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For reasons no one can quite explain, Birney's paint job coincided with a subtle but noticeable attitudinal shift at Walden. A handful of residents, like a Waldenite we'll call Kane, became increasingly notorious for their abusive comments on the misc list. In the real world Kane was cautious with strangers and didn't talk much. Many Waldenites had seen the stocky, Wrangler-jeans-wearing man sitting at the Nexus Café reading fantasy books, but figured that the Kane they knew online had to be somebody else, somebody with huge claws and sharp teeth, because when he got on the misc list he spouted off. Besides calling WebGirlie "fatso," "hag," and "Miss Piggy," he'd write things like "[R]elax, Miss Pompous, Holier-Than-Thou—nobody takes this too seriously, why should you?" Which she responded to with, "Well if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black."
Kane: Guess I can't stand religion so much that I can't even mention the word. These postings sure make you want to spew out your thoughts faster then you can type them in. Oh, yeah, and I can't stand that mythical "god" creature either. It didn't create me and I stick my middle finger at it. And I don't believe in Santa Claus either . . . Anyone offended by my beliefs? Too bad. Well I'm offended by yours that "God" is "watching over me" and that I should worship your "god." That really offends me.
Walter: SHUT UP Already—I'm personally tired of reading your spew of SHIT! And more than a little embarrassed to find out just how F—ED UP one of my neighbors is!
Kane: Mr. Walter Fascist Meyer. So one of your neighbors is "F—ED UP" because they don't believe in God or don't like religion. You want me to "SHUT UP" don't you? Just because I don't believe the same way you do. Censor. Fascist. Here's a little secret, My Meyer: You sounded pretty "F—ED UP" with that last E-Mail. And I wonder how tough you talk in person instead of hiding behind your computer screen. You talk about this in person? Name the place.
[Another] Walter: Somebody PLEASE tell me this is a bad joke I am awaking to, PLEASE?
Obviously they were messing with the karma. When the conflict got intense at Walden, it became increasingly difficult to keep a distance between neighbors. Once, Kane and Walter got into a fight on the misc list and ended the exchange with, "Meet me in the mailroom!" Residents who had been watching the post raced down to the mailroom to watch the fight, which was immediately halted when they snapped out of the virtual landscape back into the real world. Click, tick. Brandon got drawn in too. "Once, I was in a hotel room in Chicago on business with nothing better to do than take out my frustrations on people who were being silly on the misc list," he says. "I always go for people who are being a little silly or off. Don't beat on the innocents. They don't deserve it." But it was so easy to go too far when you didn't see the readers' faces twist up with frustration or humiliation. He and Kane threw insults back and forth with all the style and tact of World Wrestling Federation wrestlers.
Brandon: Funny—I didn't see a tiny little mustache on you when I saw you in the Nexus the other night— Sieg Heil!
Kane: Funny, I don't know who you are at the Nexus—why don't you introduce yourself to me?
Brandon: If I had thought you were worth introducing myself to . . .
Kane: If you have a comment to say to me, then E-Mail at my personal address . . . so other people don't have to read your vicious garbage.
Brandon: "sticks and stones might break my bones, but blah blah blah . . . " LAF! Oh my GOD that was SO funny! I'm dyin . . . "My problem with him," said Brandon, "is he doesn't know when to shut up when he's mailing. In person he's not that type of guy. E-mail does change you. When you don't have to look someone in the eye and say, 'You're a fat whore!' where's the restriction from it?" It came to them impulsively, like adolescent competition. A few tenants, like Brandon's new girlfriend, Melba, grew weary of the gossip and online sparring wars and moved out.
More and more of the formerly blissful Waldenites began behaving like Kane. By March 2000 the bickering got out of control. Paul K posted a message on the misc list saying that the connection wasn't actually as fast or powerful as promised, to which Birney himself took offense. Birney was unhappy in part because he had been taking some financial hits with his techno- commune. The deal he had struck for his T-3 allowed full use of the pipe at night but only partial use during the day. He had never anticipated that Waldenites would be using the same huge amounts of bandwidth at two in the afternoon as they did at two in the morning. So it was costing him extra. Fed up, he cast Paul K out of the garden. A bitter Paul K wrote a farewell letter to the misc list: "By now the rumours I am sure are flying thick and furious. If you heard that my family and I are leaving Walden, then you have heard a half-truth, for we are being forced out against our will."
Neubauer: I'm sorry to see you go—It's always been my opinion that this community shit has not, and will not, ever work out the way the planners envisioned. It's just a bit too much to ask of the peanut gallery. It's been fun.
Melodie: huh? I'm very new here, what is going on?!
Kernel Crash: Nothing much. Now take your "ignorance is bliss" pill and be a good lil AOL user.
And suddenly the rules changed. Birney, who had kept a sort of paternalistic distance and did not participate in hot tub parties or any of the usual socializing and rarely spoke online, suddenly came alive. He dispatched an e-mail to the group:
A Policy of Civility & Etiquette—A Rebirth of an Inspirational Community Discussion Forum: . . . our efforts to provide a *totally* unfettered and unrestrained environment have run into (severe and chronic) problems and now must be "shaped." This is not an option, it is a requirement, if the positive experience at w@lden is to continue to develop, grow and attract broader and more diverse groups of residents. . . . on an increasing basis, the lists have become a non-stop forum for flame-wars, rants, bitches, moans, and vicious attacks against fellow residents, ourselves, and, sometime, simply "anything that moves." Increasingly, we have found that persons who have much to contribute to our community are being (utterly) turned off by the present experience. This direction is *diametrically* opposed to the original intent and goal of the lists—to foster inspiration, pleasure, challenge, creativity and broaden the horizons and viewpoints of our residents . . . Consequently, henceforth, all lists will have basic policies of etiquette and civility that will be rigorously enforced.
The ultimatum was put forth: Be nice or get out. Order is being imposed. Leases will not necessarily be renewed. The landlord giveth, and the landlord can taketh away.
Brandon and some others who had used the pipe as their main way to vent felt this was censorship, pure and simple. The misc list had become a testament to their independence, and by this time they were used to acting abrasively. Adding the regulations now, Denise remembered thinking at the time, would be "like herding cats." She was right. Many of the residents had a juvenile stubbornness and naiveté; they got paranoid and started murmuring that there was an Armageddon for Walden, a "hit list" of people who were going to be forced out. In fact, Birney began to realize that in addition to behavior problems, drugs were being used more openly and more frequently, and the time had come to clean house. A resident who wished to remain anonymous whispered, "I'll tell you something if you don't use my name . . . no, no. I'd better not. I have a nice office here, and I don't want to have to move."
For a resident who went by the name Dr. J, the imminent banishment was more than he could handle. He thought he was going to be fired from his job. He was so broke that he even sold his main computer, though his girlfriend screamed at him not to because she knew how important it was to him. He had plenty of reasons to be depressed. Then his eviction notice came. That night, when he got back from work, his girlfriend was sitting on the living room futon, dozing off. He went into the kitchen and she heard him say, "Oh, you made some tea." As she fell asleep, he went into his closet, loosened his multicolored tie, unbuttoned the top of his blue long-sleeved shirt, put a brown leather belt around his neck, and hanged himself from a clothes rod. His girlfriend found him the next day.
After more residents were expelled, the gang grew still more resentful of the rules. One weekend in May Denise joined the others in the core Walden group who had decided to move. "Walden is a state of mind—it is!" said one Waldenite named Joel. "We're not leaving Walden behind. We're taking it with us." So they unplugged themselves from the big, fat pipe. In a matter of three months, the entire core group was gone. Most of them moved to Milano Apartments and City West Luxury Apartments, where they planned to stay in touch with each other, searching for the next step.
Brandon, too, found that he could not live with Birney's new rules. In June he found an apartment in City West Luxury Apartments and quietly moved a month before his lease was up. Birney, meanwhile, had taken the opposite lesson from Walden. By the time Brandon had moved out, Birney had already opened new Walden complexes—now called Walden Internet Villages—including one near the medical center and one near the Galleria, all equipped with the T-3, though the residents who moved into those complexes were generally clean-cut young professionals, harmless users who liked to surf the 'Net but didn't write code or get too heavily into the pipe's technical aspects. Birney explained that "the Internet technology field is changing and broadening substantially. We're getting family people in now. They've got a mother club going."
"I think they're trying to discourage elements that are disruptive," Brandon contended, "but they're also going after the intelligent thinkers and independent people. They're happy with the people who are quiet and don't want to talk to anybody, and I think that's unfortunate for Walden because that will turn them into any other complex. As an apartment complex, Walden will be there for a long time, but I don't think it's going to be the same as it was for me."
Brandon doesn't ICQ anywhere near as often as he used to. His divorce from Denise is about to be finalized. They still get along and chat but—like Walden—it's not like it once was. On moving weekend he turned his back on the rustling palm trees and Hawaiian volcanic rocks and bubbling fountains that cascade into a clear pool with the poolside Internet connection and chirping mockingbirds that search for grubs in the thick, green turf and the Aztec blood red, marigold yellow, jade green, and Majorelle blue buildings and the pipe and the Waldenites. Back to reality—or, as Thoreau wrote of his return from the woods, "At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again."
My Library
