Of course, what constitutes status on the electronic frontier is quite different from what qualifies in the physical realm. Your daddy may be rich and your momma good looking – you may even be good looking – but that’s not going to impress folks. What will take you to the top of the digital heap is an ever-increasing list of high-tech status symbols. For those who wish to engage in virtual social climbing, here are some of the gimcracks you must flash.
The quickest means to establish an online pedigree is a desirable port of entry to the electronic world – the equivalent of a Beverly Hills ZIP code. The least impressive addresses, known as ““domains,’’ are those from the mass-market online services that have connected to the Internet in the past few years: Prodigy, Compuserve and America Online. This tags you as someone who slipped into the technological fast lane by a cheap shortcut. Such an address is not only declasse but dangerous; any message coming from a Prodigy or AOL domain is scrutinized by self-appointed net-culture cops, ultrasensitive to the bumblings of digital greenhorns, or ““newbies.''
What are the exalted cyberspace addresses? If you are a techie, you will want to be associated with a renowned computer-science lab (media.mit.edu) or a powerful technology company (microsoft.com). Literary types flash addresses from hip conferencing systems like the WELL in Sausalito or ECHO in New York City. But the best alternative is to make your own name into a domain – for instance, engelbert@humperdinck.com. This demonstrates not only savoir-faire but your ability to fill out the confusing form provided by Internic.
Experienced net jockeys use mail-handling programs that affix special signatures to the end of a message. The signature customarily closes with a pithy quote – kind of an electronic bumper sticker. People go to great lengths to turn up amusing or apt maxims. Others use the signature space to arrange alphanumeric characters in shapes that, when scrolled across the screen, create elaborate graphic images of everything from a cow to a dramatic tableau illustrating society’s rejection of the Clipper Chip. If this is done successfully, others will forward it to their own friends in e-mail letters, verifying the originator’s status as a diety of the Net.
If news leaks out that you are still chugging along with a 2,400-baud modem, no one on the Internet will take you seriously. Most networkers have modems that run at several times that speed. But even this is not sufficient. To partake of the multimedia pleasures of the World Wide Web, you have to connect your computer directly onto the Internet, using protocols with weird names like SLIP or PPP. Establishing a SLIP connection usually requires a lot of phone calls to your service provider and several handfuls of hair pulled from your scalp in frustration. But when it is finished, you will be a high-powered Web rider. Then you can concentrate on getting a really prestigious connection: an ultra-high-speed line that requires a special (and expensive) hookup from the phone company. Ideally, you will acquire the coveted T1, the Lamborghini of connections.
The cyberspace equivalent of ““Let’s do lunch’’ is ““Check out my home page.’’ This means you are directing someone to peruse your personal corner of the World Wide Web. While many Web sites have an obvious purpose – promoting a product – an astounding number of them are amateur and often ingenious show-and-tell exhibitions, a morph of a virtual open house and digital performance art. As it becomes easier to set up these Web sites, of course, the cachet of having one diminishes. True status comes from the popularity of your site. How many ““hits’’ (calls) did you rack up last week? Do other well-known Web sites offer direct links to your location? Was your site mentioned in Yahoo (page 44) or the Net Surf page in WIRED? If the answer is no, better hire a consultant.
Check out the list of 14,000 or so Usenet groups available on the Internet. There’s not even one devoted to the worship of you? Too bad.
Just as in the physical world, there is an alternative to participating in the electronic rat race: ignoring it. Happily, this is still a feasible option. Despite the increasing cost of establishing one’s digital credentials, the quest for such distinctions is not really heavy-handed. By and large, newcomers to the Net are accepted, especially if they learn to adopt the most important lessons of the electronic culture – which have less to do with status than with a freewheeling approach to expression in general. And the very best way to become exalted on the Net is to use that freedom to express yourself, often and appropriately, in an eloquent and useful manner. You can still become a star of cyberspace by creating such memorable messages. But it won’t hurt to post them from a high-status address.
