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In some ways, I feel a little guilty I have not been active much at all in much goings on online. I can't say this hasn't been going on for a while; though during the last year of me working it wasn't because I had much of a community to speak of. I was mainly... emotionally exhausted. And I was going to things with online friends IRL a couple times a year, I felt like that was good.
I keep in decent amount of touch with some of you, and I try to make it a point to. That is the nature of friendship. But as you have seen with how communities change and evolve--it is not because people in general have gotten stupider, or the proliference of one type of technology for another is to blame. But there are phases in a life a person goes through.
I have to say that I am happy I don't need fandom anymore like I used to, when there was no community for me. Not to sound ungrateful or make fun of anyone in that place either. I like and enjoy it. But I am not the same lonely young person I was five or six years ago, and before that. And it's not that I've "outgrown" it. I've changed with it, integrated parts into IRL and whatnot.
Part of that is due to online communities. Which gave me a sense that I could not be a perpetual outsider. Now I can feel confident enough to try with people in other situations. I can sustain real relationships.
I can only hope that each of you find that you don't need it at some point. There's a lot out there in the world which is awful, but there is a lot out there that is beautiful. Amazing. Find someone, something, somewhere, lots of things.
Anyway, I'm thinky about this because of the project I'm working on now (which I have so much hope and love for and we haven't even completely narrowed it down to a coherent problem statement!)
I keep in decent amount of touch with some of you, and I try to make it a point to. That is the nature of friendship. But as you have seen with how communities change and evolve--it is not because people in general have gotten stupider, or the proliference of one type of technology for another is to blame. But there are phases in a life a person goes through.
I have to say that I am happy I don't need fandom anymore like I used to, when there was no community for me. Not to sound ungrateful or make fun of anyone in that place either. I like and enjoy it. But I am not the same lonely young person I was five or six years ago, and before that. And it's not that I've "outgrown" it. I've changed with it, integrated parts into IRL and whatnot.
Part of that is due to online communities. Which gave me a sense that I could not be a perpetual outsider. Now I can feel confident enough to try with people in other situations. I can sustain real relationships.
I can only hope that each of you find that you don't need it at some point. There's a lot out there in the world which is awful, but there is a lot out there that is beautiful. Amazing. Find someone, something, somewhere, lots of things.
Anyway, I'm thinky about this because of the project I'm working on now (which I have so much hope and love for and we haven't even completely narrowed it down to a coherent problem statement!)