I love you all

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

zalia:

Whenever I hear about another documentary or article bitching about how social media is destroying lives, and are we all just obsessive narcissists who want to be liked, and people online aren’t *real* friends, I want to make my own documentary.

It would be full of people talking about the first time they found other people like them, people they could really talk to and who understood. There would be so many clips of online friends meeting each other in person for the firsttime at airports and conventions, with all of the tears and laughter, and immediately hugging and talking like they’ve never been apart.

Online friendship is not screaming into the void waiting for someone to ‘like’ your post. It’s staying up until 3am talking over a messenger about books and movies, and music, or comforting your friend because they’re sad, and knowing they’d do the same for you. It’s group hugs at the train station when you finally get to meet in person and feeling like you’ve been doing this forever. It’s making art for someone because you want them to smile, even f they’ll never see it.

Online friendship is friendship, not some inferior form of it. And I am so sick of people who don’t get it being snide and trying to analyse it. 

Tags:

#I love you all #there have been times when I kept hanging out offline with people I could barely stand #because they were my Token Meatspace Friends and I was using them as a shield against claims that I didn’t have any ~real~ friends #not fun #(plus you know autism) #(I *can* talk in voice but that doesn’t mean I *like* doing it) #that excuse for communication called speech

themes commonly found in international friendships

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

ilzolende:

wirehead-wannabe:

badley:

– ‘u dont have (insert food/music/restaurant here) over there??’
– ‘wait what time is it. shouldnt u be asleep’
– alternatively: timezoned/clockblocked again
– ‘do u need a hug. have a virtual hug’
– weird slang terms
– ‘i will fight everyone thats mean to u. i will fight them rn’
– vague embarrassment regarding ur accent
– ‘dont maKE ME COME OVER THERE’
– ‘oh yeah i have a friend who lives in (insert country here) and apparently’
– no real hugs :((
– suffering
– fahrenheit vs celsius
– the measuring of things in feet fucks one of u up, probably

@queenshulamit

“- ‘dont maKE ME COME OVER THERE’”: Several times more amusing when your country has caused problems in the country of the person you’re talking to.

@sinesalvatorem

Tags:

#sometimes #(especially while surfing the Internet) #if I listen carefully to the inside of my head #I can almost hear them #the timezone translation algorithms quietly clicking along #over the course of spring and autumn little switches flick with changing DST statuses #2 PM in California #3 PM in Arizona in winter #10 PM in Britain #11 PM in Austria #(the Australian clocks #–not to be confused with Austria– #are buggy prototypes that still need their DST offsets programmed in) #(also I actually get the ‘wait you don’t have that’ problem *both* ways) #(in that sometimes I’m surprised when someone else doesn’t have a thing) #(and other times I know the thing is Canada-specific) #(and when I’m talking to a Canadian I’m like ‘wait a minute I can actually reference this thing and they’ll understand’)

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

cosmictuesdays:

genderific:

satanstrousers:

You know how in action movies the main guy is always like “Yeah I’ve got a contact here in Uzbekistan that owes me a favor” for no discernible reason but it occurred to me that like that’s basically what internet friends are like if I was in that situation I’d be like “Yeah don’t worry leave it to me. I’ve got a mutual in the Netherlands whose selfie I reblogged one time.”

#If you ever come to Chile looking for a member of an evil organization #And you need someone to help you kill them and hide the body #Holla @ me just sayin’ #No but seriously now I’m thinking about an actual action movie #In which the hero is like ‘don’t worry I have a contact there. I follow them on twitter’ #‘we talked about our mutual love of nutella one’ #‘and they said I looked cute in my selfie’ #‘they’re legit. I know they can be trusted’ #Everything said with a super serious action movie hero voice #And said to the leader of whatever thing the hero works for #Who is a super serious person who wears suits and frowns a lot #My imagination went funny places

(Fefy’s tags)

No but seriously though.  You know that trope where there’s some ordinary dude who gets pulled into a web of intrigue by some badass sexy lady and then ends up being even better at stuff than the lady?  Imagine that reversed.  Imagine some English Lit grad student with a huge fandom tumblr accidentally witnesses a crime and some badass spy dude shows up and is like “your life is in danger, you have to come with me, and now that you’re involved you might as well help us track down the bad guys” and it’s funny because she’s not at all an action type but then he’s like “well it looks like the bad guys are doing something devious in New Zealand, better set up camp in an abandoned mine shaft” and she’s all “No wait, I totally know someone there who always tags me in reblogs about my obscure OTPs, she would 1000% let us use her place, look I already fanmailed her” and then later he’s like “Oh, we found the bad guy camp in rural Sweden but there’s no time for backup to arrive from our base before their evil plan goes down!” and she’s like “Oh hold up, did you say Sweden, because I defs know someone from there and they always leave super supportive replies on my personal posts and they will definitely have my back, give me a sec to send them an ask” and the dude is like “HOW DO YOU HAVE A BETTER INTERNATIONAL NETWORK OF ALLIES THAN ME”

One more reason why fandom is my fandom.

Tags:

#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #I love you all

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

queerlyobscure:

Y’know people say shit about social media along the lines of ‘OMG no one cares what anyone had for breakfast’ and like.

I do? I care. I’m pretty sure a lot of people care. I want to hear that the people I care about are having delicious breakfasts or saw something odd at work or flirted with a cute barista. Or just any little thoughts they have that they feel are worth sharing.

I’ve always kind of assumed that’s how you’re supposed to feel about your friends.

Tags:

#hmm #for the most part when I hold myself to overly high standards #they’re the same overly high standards by which I also judge everyone else #yet I feel bad about *making* such posts but like *reading* them #I think it’s a mixture of the same worry of being a cliche that makes me self-conscious about using my smartphone in public #and the worry of boring people or (for the more TMI stuff) making them uncomfortable

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

cosmictuesdays:

satanstrousers:

You know how in action movies the main guy is always like “Yeah I’ve got a contact here in Uzbekistan that owes me a favor” for no discernible reason but it occurred to me that like that’s basically what internet friends are like if I was in that situation I’d be like “Yeah don’t worry leave it to me. I’ve got a mutual in the Netherlands whose selfie I reblogged one time.”

All in favor of an action movie following this scenario, raise your hand.

*raises hand*

Tags:

#proud citizen of The Future

Quote ~ ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

I swear to every heaven ever imagined,
if I hear one more dead-eyed hipster
tell me that art is dead, I will personally summon Shakespeare
from the grave so he can tell them every reason
why he wishes he were born in a time where
he could have a damn Gmail account.
The day after I taught my mother
how to send pictures over Iphone she texted
me a blurry image of our cocker spaniel ten times in a row.
Don’t you dare try to tell me that that is not beautiful.
But whatever, go ahead and choose to stay in
your backwards-hoping-all-inclusive club
while the rest of us fall in love over Skype.
Send angry letters to state representatives,
as we record the years first sunrise so
we can remember what beginning feels like when
we are inches away from the trigger.
Lock yourself away in your Antoinette castle
while eat cake and tweet to the whole universe that we did.
Hashtag you’re a pretentious ass hole.
Van Gogh would have taken 20 selflies a day.
Sylvia Plath would have texted her lovers
nothing but heart eyed emojis when she ran out of words.
Andy Warhol would have had the worlds weirdest Vine account,
and we all would have checked it every morning while we
Snap Chat our coffee orders to the people
we wish were pressed against our lips instead of lattes.
This life is spilling over with 85 year olds
rewatching JFK’s assassination and
7 year olds teaching themselves guitar over Youtube videos.
Never again do I have to be afraid of forgetting
what my fathers voice sounds like.
No longer must we sneak into our families phonebook
to look up an eating disorder hotline for our best friend.
No more must I wonder what people in Australia sound like
or how grasshoppers procreate.
I will gleefully continue to take pictures of tulips
in public parks on my cellphone
and you will continue to scoff and that is okay.
But I hope, I pray, that one day you will realize how blessed
you are to be alive in a moment where you can google search
how to say I love you in 164 different languages.

b.e.fitzgerald (Art is a Facebook status about your winter break.)

This.

(via byrdiegrey)

Tags:

#poetry #I love you all #(Je vous aime tous) #(Rwyf wrth fy modd i chi i gyd) #(Я люблю вас всех) #(Vi amo tutti) #(אני אוהב את כולכם) #(Rakastan teitä kaikkia) #(ผมรักทุกคน) #(look May 7th has only questionably begun) #(and already I am using excessive amounts of Google Translate)

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

switchflicks-blog:

my parents fucking lied

talking to strangers on the internet was the best decision of my life

Tags:

#I love you all #they weren’t quite as *strongly* against it as some are #but it seems to me even the amount of upset that Mom *did* have #when she found out I’d been playing an MMO for the past four months #or had been talking with a guy on Neopets #was a bit hypocritical #we *hosted Internet meetups at our house* #when it was *her* friends #and Dad went to meetups of *his* online friends hosted at other people’s houses #and yeah they were grown-ups #but they get to do all that and I’m not allowed to talk about weather? #(now that I’m a grown-up too they’ve gotten much better about it) #(so that’s good at least)