Flash, arts and happiness

Recently, some friends and I had a discussion about the difference betweeen knowing people ‘online’ and in ‘real life’. Being me, almost living online, I do not consider ‘online’ to be unreal - it’s just a different ’space’ in which you live.

In 1982, William Gibson already invented a term to describe the online world in his story Burning Chrome. As you might now, the name he gave it was cyberspace. Well, his online world isn’t what it is now, but the term is widely used to describe ‘the internet’ in its widest meanings.

As I wanted to make a distinction between cyberspace and the ‘real world’ without implying cyberspace to be unreal, I coined a new term: meatspace. As it appears, I’m not the only one coming up with such a plastic description, given that there’s already a Wikipedia article about it which I certainly didn’t write myself.

It might feel a bit fleshy, but you’ll get over it.