H.o.p. learned about the online community for children, Club Penguin. He thought it sounded fun. “Waddle around and make friends!” their promo says. And I’d read a piece about Club Penguin and how some members had raised money for an environmental concern, project, whatever, it sounded like coherent life afoot, plus it’s looked over by Disney and I take that to mean they’re not going to let their players run wild in the streets with creepy internet deviants. Right?
Back in the late 80s, when we lived in an apartment on Euclid near Little Five Points we had some apartment neighbors who were still good inhabitants of hippy world and were doing things like planning on homeschooling their child, which I didn’t understand way back then and thought they were kinda weird, not wanting to send their child to school. Despite the hell I’d experienced in school every second I’d attended, I thought this, because school had reared me to believe that school was an inescapable fact of life and I was still drowsily ensconced in that box. They were also doing attachment parenting which, again, I didn’t understand, I wouldn’t get a clue until I had H.o.p. And even though I now do understand and did what’s called attachment parenting and homeschool, if I was to meet them again, we would still be worlds apart, because though I’d felt they were stranded in the 60s, though I thought they were nice people, devoted to their daughter–and was really kind of glad they were there to carry on the hippy banner in their little one bedroom apartment when so many of the other hippies who’d rescued the neighborhood had become gentrified landholder yuppies–it was fairly obvious they thought I was a rank-and-file member of the drone world, brainwashed as I was by meat. They were vegetarians and if you weren’t an all natural plant fibers vegetarian then they’d talk to you, yes, on the sidewalk, but you were never going to be invited past their door.
Plus there was the Disney conversation.
I’d heard the man was an actor, a very good actor, and I gave him a play of mine to read, hoping he might try out for a role. Which is when, god knows how, we got into a conversation about Disney.
I didn’t like the cartoons as a child and found the extreme fantasy empires of Disney disturbing, so I wasn’t going to mind doing some Disney bashing. The man turned out to believe that Disney was a big plot to finely tune the minds of America into easily malleable mush, the better for THEM to take over. I agreed with him in principle, but then he started talking about the Disney underworld, the streets beneath the streets of Disneyworld, and how mind control gases were released from that lower world, via the street vents. At first I thought he was joking. But he wasn’t, I realized, as he became emphatic and strained. I was smilingly doubtful and said so and that was the end of our sidewalk chats, he pointedly shunned me from then on. He didn’t try out for my play and I never saw him act because it turned out that he hadn’t acted in anything in years because no play met his philosophical standards.
I can appreciate that.
For all I know, Disney is gassing everyone with brainwashing chemicals.
Anyway, here I was today looking at Disney overseeing Club Penguin with moderators and thinking, OK, I’d let H.o.p. run around the virtual community for a while because Disney plus moderators seemed a good combination.
H.o.p. registered and waddled in, eager to be friendly and tell some stories.
Like this…this was one of his stories.
I have a story to tell
about a penguin named Joe
the first penguin to fly!
His wings were too fat to fly so he got an…
At this point H.o.p. stopped and turned to me and said, “I’m going to pause here so everyone can have a sense of suspense.”
Then he went on.
…airplane!
And he went all around the world.
In a place where monosyllabic sponse and response is the rule, the while it takes to relate even a short story is a hazardous risk for the ego.
“Mom, no one’s paying any attention. Why?”
Still, H.o.p. did his monosyllabic best as well (all the while waiting for a prime time to relate The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, as he listened to a podcast of it last night, loves the story, and was eager to try his hand).
“Mom, why is no one paying any attention to me? Why do they keep disappearing like I’m hideous or something.”
I marveled. I wondered. I watched the exchanges of other little penguins. I watched H.o.p. go up and say hi to them and watched them walk off.
Eventually he came upon a group telling scary stories around a virtual campfire. What luck! He listened to theirs and was delighted when he got a chance finally to do a very brief, five sentence summation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, involving penguins.
“Why’d they all leave? Why won’t they listen to me?” he asked afterward.
It was eerie, because my experience in commenting on other people’s blogs almost always seemed to rouse the same enthusiasm, which is why I largely gave it up a long while back. And I certainly don’t know the magic of making an attractive post that will entice commentary. And Marty jokes that if he makes a comment on a thread on a message board, not only does he not get a response, almost assuredly the conversation tends to shut down.
Internet failures all three of us–H.o.p., Marty and myself.
“Wha up?” another penguin asked H.o.p., sitting next to him.
“The sky!” H.o.p. replied, because he’s loved that joke all summer long and told it every chance he gets.
The other penguin said nothing.
“Why’s he not saying anything?” H.o.p. asked me.
The other penguin got up and left.
“Do you want to be my friend?” H.o.p. said to yet another penguin.
“No,” replied the penguin and disappeared.
Leave a Reply