This Experience Brought To You By The Internet

I met someone today in person for the first time I'd known from Deviantart nearly a decade ago. Ten years ago if you told people you were going out to an art commune in the California desert to hang out with someone you met on the Internet and then immediately take a 3 hour car trip to L.A, they'd think you're insane. But now everyone's just like, "Have fun!"

So I drove out to East Jesus in Slab City, which is sort of a gathering of libertarians/hippie kids/burners all squatting on government land in RVs and trailers and ramshackle huts in the middle of nowhere. And I met my friend and we bonded over our agreement that we were sent to a parallel universe where dip-n-dots never made it to being the ACTUAL ice-cream of the future and how we've both constructed personalities out of sort of being perpetual fuck-ups but hey, maybe we're actually kind of learning to be okay with who we are now. I've met so many people from the Internet but it's still a surreal experience when words collide into the vectors of physical reality.

Anyway, she said I wasn't like what she imagined in real life. Imagined that I'd just climb out of my SUV and yell "Get in the car, fucker!" (She said instead I was "Tiny and cute." Bitch I'm tough!) I feel like people always imagine me to be way more abrasive in real life than I actually am because my personality in general is so incongruous to my writing style.

Made it to L.A. I'm not sure I'd ever want to live here. It's crowded like the air itself is compressed. I saw a guy almost get punched for sitting on the side-walk not wearing a shirt. (Apparently this made him a "faggot"). But we ate some bomb-ass Filipino food that was some kind of pork-face rice bowl. She said that in the Philippines you'd actually have the pig's head outside on a pike with flies buzzing about it, so unfortunately we missed out on that bit of authenticity. She hadn't slept in two days so I headed out shortly after that.

What is the point of this post? This may seem sappy, but I'm glad that the Internet exists, because without it I wouldn't know a large majority of the people that I do. It's easy to dismiss social media as a cess-pool of worthless negativity, but without the internet I never would have met so many of my friends. And even the people I first met in meatspace, our interactions on the Internet often allowed our relationships to deepen. It's difficult finding people you connect to when you're a misfit, but here the whole world is available to you waiting for you to reach out. You're no longer limited by geography or your immediate social circle - only your own ingenuity and preferences.

So, this experience brought to you by the Internet. Thanks Internet.

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Stock photo from Pixabay

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