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Istanbul internet cafe in the year 2000. Photo: Wikimedia.
A
recent article
shared on social media caught my attention. It was called “Death
of the Diner” — a well-written, nuanced story about the decline of
this American institution, particularly in New York City. What drew
me to the story was the fact that I’d long been thinking of a
similar kind of story for the Internet café.
I know. These searching, social commentary-tinged obits, ranging from the drive-in theater, to the fax machine, to TV dinners, even to electric guitars, are all over the place. We get it – times are changing, again.
But I thought the Internet café deserves some special send-off, considering it had such a relatively brief but eventful life, the James Dean of cultural/technological artifacts.
When I first arrived in Prague in 2005, the Internet cafés were a day-to-day lifeline. I didn’t own a laptop, and it was just before smart-phones arrived. I was just getting used to the idea of Skype. So the Internet cafes were where I went to send off CVs to prospective schools. I wrote stories for The Times-Standard, The Czech Business Weekly, The Prague Post, and much of my first novel in such places, especially during the winter, when it was too cold and icy to do much outdoors.
It was an easy, and relatively cheap way to stay connected, both in Prague and back home in America. The two cafes I frequented most often were one near the I.P. Pavlova metro station, and the other one at Bohemia Bagel, a popular expat café near Old Town Square. It was there that I eventually did the Skype interview that landed me the job in Istanbul.
Later, after I moved to Istanbul, I quickly went in search of the nearest Internet café. They were easy to find, and numerous, in the backstreets in and around Istiklal Caddesi and Taksim Square. I’m not a technophobe, but I have always been something of a late adopter. While everyone around me was snapping up Iphones and Samsungs, I was still plodding along with my trusty, durable little Nokia. Those little Nokias could probably survive the next Ice Age, but as we all know they weren’t very versatile.
Of course, I always had laptops available at the schools where I worked. But since other teachers also needed them, and because a lot of my work was non-teaching related, I generally preferred the Internet cafes. There was something almost cozy about them. The guy at the front desk, with the three-day beard, bleary-eyed, morose, barely even registered you. He called out a number, and issued a ticket. You hunkered down in the privacy of a cubicle. All around you were other faceless users. You heard them in a variety of languages, chatting loudly with family back home in Russia, in Latvia, America, wherever. Others silently satisfied their addictions to Internet porn, to gambling sites, or that mindless war game (was it to Call to Duty?). Still others, like you, were there, waiting anxiously for editors’ replies to your stories and pitches, queries and revisions.
After settling in Kadikoy on the city’s Asian side, I quickly found a few regular spots near the bazaar and fish markets. These places served me well over the next couple of years, again, as they had in Prague, kept me connected to the outside world, for a relatively cheap price.
I met Ozge, my soon-to-be wife. She convinced me, as good women tend to do, to get with the 21st century. I ditched the Nokia (actually, it sadly perished in the Mediterranean Sea, when I dove in, so excited that I forgot to empty my pockets first; oh, well, at least it got a burial at sea), and purchased an LG smartphone, which of course is so much better than that po’ little Nokia ever was. Ozge also convinced me to just get a damn laptop already. So I did, and naturally I’ve used them both on a daily and nightly basis ever since.
The other day, Ozge and I were strolling through Kadikoy, on our way out for a drink. We passed one of the sites of the old Internet café – two places actually – and both were gone, replaced with more bars (no complaint there). It was then that I reflected that one by one, these Internet cafes have been disappearing. We continued walking up toward Barlar Sokak and sure enough, another of my old places was gone. This particular café had been managed by a friendly Russian guy who offered his best customers “filter-free” zones upstairs. “ He ran out of business two or three years ago, I remember, because he once asked me if I knew anybody who was interested in buying an Internet café.
I suppose we all saw it coming, this latest 21st century casualty. With our smartphones and laptops, and fairly reliable high speed connections, we just didn’t need the Internet cafes anymore. These days, there are still some around, particularly the ones offering PlayStation along with Internet access. They seem mainly to cater to high school kids whose parents maybe are too strict, knowing, cheap or poor to grant them the technological tools they need to feed their adolescent vices.
Nowadays, as I pass the few Internet cafes that are still around, they look a little pathetic, sad. The computers are the latest models from the year 2000 (probably dating back to the year the place opened – such an auspicious day that must have been, eh? Behold – the Internet Café). Now, the computers are obsolete – over-sized, beat-up, virus-infested hulks that you probably couldn’t give away at a yard sale.
For a long time, Istanbul, Prague, and most other cities and even towns, have joined this invisible, almost sinister hemisphere. As prices of the new technology have fallen, and therefore become more accessible, everyone has signed in to this self-service network, where everyone stares blank-intent at our smartphones – even laptops have become passé. In another decade or two, we’ll probably be using something else, maybe brain chips or digital retinas.
Looking back over what I’ve written, I notice that I failed to really get across any reason why we should express any sentiment or grief over the passing of the Internet café. One of the things that I especially liked about the Death of the Diner story was the way in which the writer evoked the people – the colorful customers, the short-order cooks, the sassy waitresses, the odd specialty items on the menu. These rich details brought back your own memories of a particular diner you liked, and they helped humanize this bygone piece of Americana.
Sad to say, with the Internet cafes, I can recall few, if any, such stories. If you’ve ever been to an Internet café, which I’m sure you have, they’re all pretty much the same. You don’t go there for the society of others, or the pleasure of chatting up Flo or Alice. You don’t even have Mel threatening to throw his greasy spatula at you. Instead, you went to the Internet cafes for the service – the Internet connection. If there was any distinction between them, it was only that one had a fast, reliable connection, and the other one did not. You chose the one with the best connection, not the best complexion.
So maybe, in the last analysis (a phrase that also has become obsolete), the thing to lament about this passing early 21st Century phenomenon is that there is not really all that much to miss. Do I really miss that morose, silent dude with the Guns N Roses t-shirt and the three-day beard? Did our friendly Russian comrade ever find a buyer? Does anybody care?
These guys are probably working as IT techs or software developers in one of the same new high rises here in the Atasehir District, where I teach, and where I write this now.
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James Tressler, a former Lost Coast resident, is a writer and teacher living in Istanbul.