I don't think it's dramatic to say the internet raised me. Not in a neglect way — more in a "this is where I found my people, my interests, and most of what I know" way. The things that matter most to me came from being online.
Where I actually learned things
School taught me some things. The internet taught me everything else. How to code, how servers work, how to debug something I've never seen before, how to research properly, how to write — all of that came from being online and being curious. YouTube videos, documentation, GitHub repos, forum threads from 2014 that somehow still have the answer. That's my education, genuinely.
Finding people who get it
In person, being the kid who's really into Linux and self-hosting and writing Rust backends is not exactly a crowd-pleaser. Online, there are entire communities of people who care about exactly those things and talk about them constantly. Finding those spaces early on changed everything — suddenly there were people to learn from, people to share things with, people who understood what you were talking about without needing a fifteen minute explanation first.
It shaped how I think
Being online a lot — especially in technical communities — shapes the way you approach problems. You learn to search before you ask. You learn to read documentation. You learn that if something is broken, there's probably an answer somewhere and it's worth looking for it before giving up. That problem-solving instinct came from years of figuring things out online, not from any classroom.
The communication thing
Most of my communication has always been text-based, which suits me well. I've had long conversations with people I've never met in person about everything from server architecture to life stuff. Those conversations were real. The medium being a screen didn't make them lesser — if anything it made them easier, because text is where I'm most comfortable.
I know some people think that's sad. I don't. It's just where I live, and it's shaped me into someone who can actually function and build things and connect with people — just through a different channel than most.