It’s interesting for me to recall my first significant appearance on the internet, but it was exactly five years ago this month, and it was in a very interesting situation. Webmacster87.info did not exist yet, my awareness of phpBB didn’t exist yet, I actually had not even touched IM services yet. However, the past way to share this would be to look at what was happening again.

The month was May 2003, and I was in sixth grade. The big story of the time was that some guy from the Bay Area named Stephen Joseph had sued Kraft/Nabisco because their Oreo cookies contained deadly trans fats, and that they were being marketed towards and sold to children, and furthermore, the public had no awareness of how bad trans fats were. Well, within a week, the suit was retracted, because it had garnered so much press that the claim of the public having no awareness of how bad trans fats are was no longer valid. Nevertheless, that suit did help to raise awareness of the dangers of partially hydrogenated oils, and helped Oreo, Crisco, McDonalds, and many others go trans-fat free, as well as convincing the FDA to add Trans Fat to the nutrition label in 2006.

But what did this have to do with me? Well, at the time that this made the news, in my English class (although at middle school, it was called “Language Arts & Reading”), we ended up being assigned a research paper based on it. We were instructed to do some research on the news and the issues and then write a short essay where we conveyed our opinion on the issue. Now, I personally went about this on the premise that what this Stephen Joseph guy was crazy by wanting to take Oreo cookies out of schools. But, as I went onto his website, Ban Trans Fats, and looked at other things about the case, my mind was changed for me and I found myself completely in favor of banning trans fats.

Not only did I complete my essay and turn it in, but for whatever reason that I do not recall, I had e-mailed Stephen Joseph and sent him a copy of what I wrote. He wrote back with high praise for it, to the point where he wanted to know if he (with my parents’ permission) could post it on his website. He gave it its own dedicated page, where it still is today. And so, when I had the opportunity to share what I wrote with the rest of my class that day five years ago, I had something to brag about.

Looking back, I obviously have somewhat higher standards of writing today than I did then, but that really represents my first free-style persuasive essay (as in the kind where I don’t have to follow “rules” and all that junk), and nowadays, I’m starting to receive awards for some of my written opinions. Plus, it represents my very first little slice of online fame–quite interesting to think about considering how much my life is dependent on the internet today.

Tags: 2003, English, essay, history, internet, memories, middle school, Oreos, Personal, Stephen Joseph, trans fats, Writing