Let's start at the very beginning...
Recently, I found myself thinking about my personal history on the Internet, particularly as regards my various groups of online friends.
I have been online since... goodness, I don't know. I'm 24 now, and I was 12 or 13 then, so we're talking 1998-ish. I instantly gravitated to two things: the furry art community*, and a Star Wars roleplaying message board. Why? Well, the furry art community was full of Redwall fanart, and I liked (and still like) drawing animals, and the Star Wars message board... well, we'll not talk about the Star Wars message board. Let's just say I was young, and didn't understand the concept of "God Modding" and leave it at that. But from that message board, I was pointed towards a particular Redwall Fan Fiction community, and it was there I met some of my oldest Internet friends.
I was drawn to forums for different fandoms, particularly ones with a roleplaying element. I wanted to become a character. I wanted to be part of a story. (I'm not sure I ever figured out how to avoid god modding properly, but hope I've gotten better since then.)
Somewhere along the line, I ended up having a sort of email friendship with an artist named Emilie Bosworth-Clemens, mainly because I admired her art a great deal. She drew civil war foxes, and had a very pretty gallery on Yerf. She must have thought I was a bit bonkers - all of my emails included sarcastic parenthetical commentary from my best friend at the time, my cat Bloop. (But not too bonkers, since she drew a picture of Bloop and mailed it to me, along with a tiny drawing of Tim the civil war fox, and I'm not sure you'd do that for someone you thought completely crazy.) I haven't kept in touch with her, but I have kept that drawing, and been very grateful for the advice she gave me about art and life.
My late teens and early twenties brought webcomic message boards and the associated chat rooms. They also brought an ill-advised internet relationship, which taught me mostly to never feel good about myself; not because the relationship was inherently toxic, but because I did not know how to set boundaries or deal with a relationship yet. But the fall-out could have been much, much worse. I still have an irrational hatred of the name he used as a handle in most places, though.
I liked drawing fanart and having people admire it. I liked mimicking the styles of the webcomic artists and other fanartists and seeing just how far I could stretch my own skills, and learned a lot in the process. I made more friends, and through them other friends.
I hit college and started keeping track of my real life friends online. I joined a couple of Smith Livejournal communities, discovered SSFFS through Livejournal... somewhere along the line, Livejournal became the place I kept track of long-term friends, from both online and off, even if one or the other or both of us no longer associated all that much with the original community we met in.
Now? Well, now I don't actually meet new people on the internet very often, except for on Twitter. Currently, though, I am taking a break from the extreme information overload that Twitter can cause.
I'm not sure this has a point, other than to meander about thinking about how incredibly weird it is to be in contact with so many people I've never met in person, but in some cases know better than I know members of my own family. Also, now you know my history of the internet.
*Given that most of my icons are semi-anthropomorphized cats with glasses, I do get asked if I'm a furry occasionally, but the truth is I just like drawing anthropomorphic cats. Like Tracy Butler says in the FAQ for Lackadaisy Cats, "It's mostly just a device I like to use for characterization. The mobile ears, tails, and big eyes help me emphasize gesture and expression more than I could with human characters, they allow me to be as ridiculous as I like, and, well, they're just plain fun to draw."
I have been online since... goodness, I don't know. I'm 24 now, and I was 12 or 13 then, so we're talking 1998-ish. I instantly gravitated to two things: the furry art community*, and a Star Wars roleplaying message board. Why? Well, the furry art community was full of Redwall fanart, and I liked (and still like) drawing animals, and the Star Wars message board... well, we'll not talk about the Star Wars message board. Let's just say I was young, and didn't understand the concept of "God Modding" and leave it at that. But from that message board, I was pointed towards a particular Redwall Fan Fiction community, and it was there I met some of my oldest Internet friends.
I was drawn to forums for different fandoms, particularly ones with a roleplaying element. I wanted to become a character. I wanted to be part of a story. (I'm not sure I ever figured out how to avoid god modding properly, but hope I've gotten better since then.)
Somewhere along the line, I ended up having a sort of email friendship with an artist named Emilie Bosworth-Clemens, mainly because I admired her art a great deal. She drew civil war foxes, and had a very pretty gallery on Yerf. She must have thought I was a bit bonkers - all of my emails included sarcastic parenthetical commentary from my best friend at the time, my cat Bloop. (But not too bonkers, since she drew a picture of Bloop and mailed it to me, along with a tiny drawing of Tim the civil war fox, and I'm not sure you'd do that for someone you thought completely crazy.) I haven't kept in touch with her, but I have kept that drawing, and been very grateful for the advice she gave me about art and life.
My late teens and early twenties brought webcomic message boards and the associated chat rooms. They also brought an ill-advised internet relationship, which taught me mostly to never feel good about myself; not because the relationship was inherently toxic, but because I did not know how to set boundaries or deal with a relationship yet. But the fall-out could have been much, much worse. I still have an irrational hatred of the name he used as a handle in most places, though.
I liked drawing fanart and having people admire it. I liked mimicking the styles of the webcomic artists and other fanartists and seeing just how far I could stretch my own skills, and learned a lot in the process. I made more friends, and through them other friends.
I hit college and started keeping track of my real life friends online. I joined a couple of Smith Livejournal communities, discovered SSFFS through Livejournal... somewhere along the line, Livejournal became the place I kept track of long-term friends, from both online and off, even if one or the other or both of us no longer associated all that much with the original community we met in.
Now? Well, now I don't actually meet new people on the internet very often, except for on Twitter. Currently, though, I am taking a break from the extreme information overload that Twitter can cause.
I'm not sure this has a point, other than to meander about thinking about how incredibly weird it is to be in contact with so many people I've never met in person, but in some cases know better than I know members of my own family. Also, now you know my history of the internet.
*Given that most of my icons are semi-anthropomorphized cats with glasses, I do get asked if I'm a furry occasionally, but the truth is I just like drawing anthropomorphic cats. Like Tracy Butler says in the FAQ for Lackadaisy Cats, "It's mostly just a device I like to use for characterization. The mobile ears, tails, and big eyes help me emphasize gesture and expression more than I could with human characters, they allow me to be as ridiculous as I like, and, well, they're just plain fun to draw."