how i use tumblr
lies:
this is weirdly idiosyncratic, and unlikely to be interesting to anyone but me.
adding a cut for sanity.
Like many of your followers, I found this a great read and totally compelling all the way to the end.
Tumblr is the first place online where I’ve ever had actual, personal interactions with people I didn’t know. That’s seems weird to me, because I’ve been what I consider “active” online since maybe 1990, when my college boyfriend got an email account because he was an engineering major (this was before lowly English majors rated an email account), and we would email back and forth ON THE SAME EMAIL ACCOUNT, which was kind of pathetic, but sweet. I surfed BBS’s back when there were BBS’s, until my dad would get mad and kick me off his modem. But Tumblr is the first place where I have actually talked to people I met online about ANYTHING personal.
lies is the first person I ever met online who I then met in real life, and I remain kind of freaked out about whether I seemed weird in person, or creepy, or stalkerish.
So for me, Tumblr feels like a strangely personal online experience. I think of every single person I follow as “one of the cool kids,” and so I also feel weirdly (inappropriately?) thrilled by every interaction with them.
So glad you shared this.
things i have in common with despairoftranslators:
- i also surfed bbs’s back in the days when they were bbs’s. it was the most amazing thing.
- i was already an adult (barely) at that point, but earlier i actually had my first-ever ‘online’ interaction when i used my dad’s ‘portable’ computer and an acoustic-coupler modem (with the rubber cups that you put the handset into) to connect to a computer at (i think?) jpl and play the mammoth cave adventure. a coworker of my dad broke in via ‘talk’ and helped me solve a dwarf problem (you had to ‘throw axe dwarf’). i’m not sure whether he knew he was talking to a teenager rather than to my dad. not all of that is necessarily in common, but the dad and the modem part is similar, at least.
- tumblr isn’t the first place i’ve over-shared online, but it’s the most-compelling venue for it i’ve come across. for me too, it seems like a strangely personal experience.
- you’re the first person i ever met on tumblr who i then met in real life.
- i remain kind of freaked out about whether i seemed weird in person, or creepy, or stalkerish.
- all the people i follow seem like ‘one of the cool kids’ — check.
- i feel weirdly (inappropriately?) thrilled by every interaction — check.
- glad you shared this — check.
oh; very important item i was remiss in not saying sooner:
you were completely, spectacularly, reassuringly _normal_ when we met. you were, in fact, everything i could have hoped for (and i shamefacedly admit, that i was hoping for, given that more than one of my immediate family members have a history of sometimes looking slightly askance at my tumblr-mediated interactions, and this was their first time meeting one of my online acquaintances as well).
but you were just completely wonderful. friendly, rational, personable, pleasant, interesting… i wish we could have spent more time chatting. you were _perfect_.
not headcanon. canon.
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