Reflexive essay #3

Helen Rubenstien reflects upon the benefits of free internet available via unknowing neighbors generously sharing their Wi-Fi, throughout her apartment block, in her essay Won’t You Be My Wireless Neighbor? Rubenstien opens with a sentimental, Oscar acceptance like speech, thanking all the previous givers of wi-fi; identified comically by their wireless addresses.  

Rubenstien sets the tone in the opening paragraph. It is clearly light hearted when she begins thanking the anonymous and naive neighbors for aiding in her job, social life, and online TV watching, “So, to linksys of Park Slope, in 2005, for allowing me to do my first freelance work from home; to Netgear 1 and Netgear 2 of the same neighborhood, in 2006, for supporting my electronic application to several graduate schools; to DHoffma, from 2007 to 2008, for letting me pay my taxes online and stream new episodes of “Friday Night Lights” each evening for a whole winter;” etc. But she continues to explain of their termination and eventually she explains how she winds up with no generous neighbors, of the various Wi-Fi – “Thank you. And may you rest in peace.” This is a shift, she goes on to lament losing something she took for granted.

Rubenstien maintains her well developed voice and tone remains jocular but the purpose of the piece becomes clear, a critique of paid internet in world of networks that can support five or six computers. Rubenstien is disconnected and she describes the ensuing silence saying, “Then—crickets.” But goes on, in a more serious tone “The era of unintentional, unasked-for or simply unacknowledged Internet sharing, it seemed, had come to an end.” Setting the scene for her commentary.

I saw a change a change in her tone when she began writing of life after being disconnected, she became even more informal. She tried to justify her previous action and intentions. She talked directly to the reader, and at one point I thought the essay was about turn from a lamenting essay on internet debacles to a stream of conciseness when Rubenstien said she would imagine her “anonymous benefactors, those people behind Netgear 1 or belkin54g, thinking, ‘Well, I have Internet to spare.’ ”

Rubenstein’s tone, and in fact her entire essay goes sour from this point. She struggles from paragraph to paragraph, clearly unsure whether she should write a purely reflexive essay or critiquing commentary.

Due to her light hearted, comedic tone and her direct relation with the author, this essay would not be a great AP Essay.