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What if I told you that there once was a show about people browsing the internet for an hour? You'd think I'm making that up... and yet, it was real. Very Real.
Zona Virtual was a very weird show because of its strange premise, but you gotta enter the mindframe of those of us who watched it (taking into account the era in which it aired) to understand its universal appeal, which led it to four years on the air.
The show first aired on the ill-fated Magic Kids network on September of 2001 and got us hooked because most of us didn't have internet at the time, so it was immediately cool and interesting watching a group of people browsing it far and wide, taking us to all the cool stuff that could be found along the way (from WinAMP skins to flash games. Truly it was a magical time). There was also a live chat room that was broadcasted at the bottom of the screen in which those viewers with internet access could talk to the hosts while they did what must have passed as a job somewhere :P They actually encouraged those on the chat to exchange e-mail addresses and the like to make online friendships, which I'm not sure was the best idea on live television.
One last thing about the chat, though! I had a friend who would regularly connect to the chatroom on his 56k modem and would spam swears in hopes that at least one of them would make it to the TV screen... which eventually did happen and it has since become a legend among us.
Other than that, they would just sit there and look up videos (this was before YouTube was even a thing, so you can bet a chunk of the show's runtime was spent buffering), music and games for all of us to see but not necessarily to enjoy ourselves. I never felt bitter about that, even though I don't quite understand why we didn't have internet until 2004 when we could have afforded it right from the get-go, but I digress.
As far as the rest of the show goes... it is certainly a product of its time and it simply wouldn't exist today, but watching it now on YouTube (maaaan!) I can say that it hasn't lost its charm any. Maybe it is because we now live in era that completely renders what the show offered obsolete, but just looking back on it fills me with warm, nostalgic feelings. It wasn't my favorite show and I missed it more than I watched it, and yet I cannot deny that I, too, spent countless hours glued to the screen, just seeing that weird digital world unfold in front of me.
I'm sure that none of you will watch it, because it literally cannot show you anything you haven't seen before. But if you end up watching at least some clips outta curiosity, you might end up "buying a ticket" to travel down memory lane. And that's always a fun destination to revisit.
Zona Virtual was a very weird show because of its strange premise, but you gotta enter the mindframe of those of us who watched it (taking into account the era in which it aired) to understand its universal appeal, which led it to four years on the air.
The show first aired on the ill-fated Magic Kids network on September of 2001 and got us hooked because most of us didn't have internet at the time, so it was immediately cool and interesting watching a group of people browsing it far and wide, taking us to all the cool stuff that could be found along the way (from WinAMP skins to flash games. Truly it was a magical time). There was also a live chat room that was broadcasted at the bottom of the screen in which those viewers with internet access could talk to the hosts while they did what must have passed as a job somewhere :P They actually encouraged those on the chat to exchange e-mail addresses and the like to make online friendships, which I'm not sure was the best idea on live television.
One last thing about the chat, though! I had a friend who would regularly connect to the chatroom on his 56k modem and would spam swears in hopes that at least one of them would make it to the TV screen... which eventually did happen and it has since become a legend among us.
Other than that, they would just sit there and look up videos (this was before YouTube was even a thing, so you can bet a chunk of the show's runtime was spent buffering), music and games for all of us to see but not necessarily to enjoy ourselves. I never felt bitter about that, even though I don't quite understand why we didn't have internet until 2004 when we could have afforded it right from the get-go, but I digress.
As far as the rest of the show goes... it is certainly a product of its time and it simply wouldn't exist today, but watching it now on YouTube (maaaan!) I can say that it hasn't lost its charm any. Maybe it is because we now live in era that completely renders what the show offered obsolete, but just looking back on it fills me with warm, nostalgic feelings. It wasn't my favorite show and I missed it more than I watched it, and yet I cannot deny that I, too, spent countless hours glued to the screen, just seeing that weird digital world unfold in front of me.
I'm sure that none of you will watch it, because it literally cannot show you anything you haven't seen before. But if you end up watching at least some clips outta curiosity, you might end up "buying a ticket" to travel down memory lane. And that's always a fun destination to revisit.
