ABSTRACT
During the closing decade of the twentieth century, the Internet, popularly called cyberspace and the information superhighway, 1 became the utopian space. In the few short years from 1995 to early 1999, roughly the time period this essay examines, its mythology bombarded American popular culture to such a degree that non-techies became familiar with formerly obscure technical nomenclature like www and dot-com. Promises touted by corporate advertisers, politicians, and cyberfanatics alike were staggering: empowerment, convenience, global democracy, wealth, communities unfettered by geography, mutable identity, and even the erasure of gender and race. Everything was new and better in the e-world and its gold-rush economy.
