There was a time when the internet was about communication, news and learning and by December 2015, when Vine had 200 million active users, the internet was about people like Shawn Mendes becoming full-on famous in six seconds. Vine lasted only four years but left a lasting impression in how we use and view the internet. Remember Vine? Six seconds, that’s how long Vines were. Virality was a big thing a couple of years ago. Y una pelea afuera del Roxy? The game winner. We love a good story of cuernos and a photo of a totalled car. Nos reimos de los males de la gente and then scold each other about it. Just kidding, if we’re famous for one thing it’s for how much we love el cachondeo: cotilleo, nasty rumours and a funny video. If Gibraltar is famous for one thing it’s for its monkeys and breath-taking views. Facebook’s other ventures Instagram and WhatsApp are where it’s at in 2020, and in the strange bubble that is Gibraltar they do particularly well. Today Facebook isn’t a thing partly because their CEO (The Zucc) is a weird robot, but also because children don’t have attention spans like we used to. I even remember when Facebook was a thing. I remember a time when mIRC was a thing, then MySpace, then Bebo and finally Facebook. Smartphones were (and some still are) expensive pieces of technology, and like everything Gibraltarians weren’t moving at the same pace as elsewhere. In 2011 Blackberry Curves were a thing and it wasn’t maybe two years until young people weren’t using Nokia brick phones anymore. Of course, I didn’t know Japan, China and Korea were a thing, and Gibraltar was ten, twenty years behind the rest of the world anyway.

I remember a time, when I was a kid, when ‘America’ was this mythical place at least ten, twenty years ahead of the rest of the world. Remember polyphonic ringtones and snake? I remember when people started using smartphones in Gibraltar they weren’t commonplace until a while after everywhere else. Nothing was smart other than a three piece suit. I remember vividly, like most of you will, when smartphones didn’t exist.

Negro de whatsapp meme