How I found passion for humanity during my harsh homeschool isolation, all through the magic of the internet.3 min readSep 25, 2024----Press enter or click to view image in full sizeA collage of internet references. Image by Jackie Ferrentio for New York Times.Isolation and Exploration2020 was a very tumultuous year for just about every high school student, but especially for homeschool students like me, who began learning from home for even the several school years after the big quarantine. Throughout my homeschool career, I spent my time researching my personal interests, namely “internet culture,” or the ways people tend to interact with each other in exclusively online spaces, and found myself captivated by the concept. Now that almost all of my social interaction was taking place on the internet, I noticed the differences between my online social life and my “real life” one.Every viral post, minor comment, or convoluted ironic joke you see online is thought up by an individual person through their own lived experiences.A World of its OwnSpending any amount of time on the internet makes it apparent that online culture is a whole world of its own. But, it’s important to note that there are always people behind the screen and unique intent behind the words you read. It’s a type of sonder* that’s easily obscured by the internet’s forces of anonymity and simplicity: Every viral post, minor comment, or convoluted ironic joke you see online is thought up by an individual person through their own lived experiences. Thus, the study of internet culture is essentially an indirect study of human culture, and has become intrinsic to the human experience as a whole.Odyssey illustration. Definition courtesy Dictionary.com.When I slowly examined the contrast between my online and offline life, I noticed my fluctuating social capacity, due to feeling more open and sociable behind a screen than in reality. When this realization collided with my ideas about the internet’s place i