This six-act play originally appeared on Medium.

ACT I

Me, a boy: “Wow, so this is online!”

My father, a soothsayer: “Get ready to learn all about your favorite animals…”

Me: “Cool!”

My father: “…and what it’s like to repeatedly fall in love with people thousands of miles away.”

Me: “Wait.”

ACT II

My father, the seer: “Soon, you will begin to form relationships based wholly on shared interests, regardless of proximity, manufacturing intimacy reliant on statistics, as you quietly abandon real-world efforts because curation is easier than creation.”

Me, a mere child: “But boobs…”

ACT III

My father, local fortune teller: “Your rudimentary fascination with anatomy will operate as a breathless gateway drug to an increasingly digital world that has no reason to be kind to you.”

Me, world’s stupidest kid: “But I can use the internet for good.”

My father: “You won’t.”

ACT IV

Me, silly goose deluxe: “That’s not true! My friends and I will-”

My father, dashing clairvoyant: “…use this network of infinite information and capability to repeat jokes about your privates until you are all of embarrassing age.”

Me:

My father:

Me: “Okay, but that sounds pretty funny…”

ACT V

My father, a most celebrated oracle: “Even your proficiency in observation and wit will corrode as you and your peers descend into a self-contained dominion of pop culture references as language and the visual gags of strangers as a form of currency.”

Me, lil’ dum-dum: “That sounds fun!”

ACT VI

My father, arguable prophet: “The only time you will venture out of your sheltered realm is to go to war with equally puerile individuals who have chosen ignorance as a shield and fury as the infinite sword.”

Me, incorrigible lordling of naiveté: “Why. Would I. Ever. Do. That.”

My father: “Even you will never know.”